The Nightblade Thread

[Musclemagic]

power attacks are when your target is already CC'd.

 

(like if you block HIS power attack to set him off balance, you follow up with a power attack of your own that he is unable to block since he is off balance... a power attack will exploit the off balance state and knock down the target- giving you even more time to possible charge up a second power attack that can't be blocked).

 

Yeah, I'm excited for an MMO where there's a lot of combat tactic. It's going to be bad ass.

At first it will be a cluster of getting out of CC, blocking their power attack (that can't be cancelled--but can it be aimed away right before it goes off to make someone waste a block? Juking in ESO = discovered?), and then returning with another power attack when they are off balance...or, it will just be a bunch of light attacks. Another way it could go is that people will really only use ranged power-attacks and then light attacks with melee. Either way, I think they'll end up buffing melee power attacks at some point because of this mechanic.

 

Edit: Nevermind, melee power attacks won't need a buff. I forgot that resistances would mitigate Destro staff(Making Mark Target into a probably very good spell for Destro users) damage.. and then as long as Bow's damage isn't as high as melee weapons, things should be pretty even.

[Xenon]

I just hope combat will be more interesting when playing the game than when watching others play.

 

1) doesn't seem to be any collision detection (you can run straight through your opponent - but you get stuck on small rocks and other environmental debris)

2) either the game have [or at least had back in September] serious latency/netcode/hitreg issues or everyone have huge hitboxes that let you hit even when you visually are several meters away from your target.

3) game also seem to have "auto aim" (or at least soft aim or aim assist) where you "lock" on a target and your arrows connect even if you aim is [slightly] off.

[Terhix]

I just hope combat will be more interesting when playing the game than when watching others play.

 

1) doesn't seem to be any collision detection (you can run straight through your opponent - but you get stuck on small rocks and other environmental debris)

2) either the game have [or at least had back in September] serious latency/netcode/hitreg issues or everyone have huge hitboxes that let you hit even when you visually are several meters away from your target.

3) game also seem to have "auto aim" (or at least soft aim or aim assist) where you "lock" on a target and your arrows connect even if you aim is [slightly] off.

 

All of that is normal and expected in an MMO. You can have collision detection and aiming in 3d environment in a small scale combat where a lot of logic is handled by client side (not to mention single player games where networking isn't a problem at all). I still have nightmares over how badly collision detection was implemented in Warhammer, and even when it did work, it barely fulfilled the promise of making the combat any richer.

[Eol]

Have you ever played any of the other elder scrolls games? You can attack with a mouseclick (which is a normal attack) and you can hold the mouse button for an empowered attack. In ESO these are called light attacks and heavy attacks. With every weapon you can do these charged/heavy attacks.

 

Edit: I found this on tamriel foundry --> Blocking an enemy’s power attack will stagger the foe for a brief time. This was said in the context of a pve situation, but I think it also counts for pvp. So heavy attacks do more damages, but you charge them giving your opponent a time to react (this can really backfire in pvp). Both types of attack do not cost stamina.

 

Yes, I have played all of the ES games but the first one. But I didn't know they had changed the terminology for ESO from 'power attack' to 'heavy attack'. I wonder why they did that? Anyway, thanks for the answer.

[Terhix]

I was contemplating one thing for my tanking PvP load out, namely replacing Cripple with Entropy from Mages Guild, so it would look something like:

 

1 - Low Slash (stamina, -20% weapon damage, -60% movement speed)

2 - Shield Charge (stamina, charge+stun)

3 - Immovable (stamina, I'm teh juggernaut)

4 - Entropy (magicka, dot + small heal)

5 - Strife (magicka, damage + hot)

 

U - Death Stroke

 

Depending on how effective Low Slash is going to be compared to Cripple as a snare (I'll still keep Cripple on my alternative bar), I might get rid of it and put Cripple back in and roll around with 3 magicka abilities.

 

Entropy is interesting, since it's 14 damage and 12 healing over 12 seconds, nothing crazy compared to 11 instant damage and 19-ish healing over 10 from Strife, however the base cost of Entropy is only 29 magicka, and that goes down to 25 with a Passive, and the duration (and I guess total damage as well) goes up by 20% with another (not the healing part apparently, since the healing ticks once every 6 seconds, so 20% duration boost doesn't help). All in all it makes it a very efficient spell, and then there is something I completely overlooked: a passive that increases damage done with a spell cast /after/ any mages guild spell by 15%, which means I can combo Entropy -> Strife to get that extra bit of damage and extra bit of healing out of Strife as a result. That's can be quite some healing, and it's bloody efficient.

[Guest muscles phone]

I think thats a really good build. There's a few things that potentially could cause problems though: The mitigation is weak and the healing is weak, and in heavy you won't have the resources for all that stamina as well as blocking and dodging.Luckily right now your mp abilities are very cheap to keep up. I'd recommen

[Terhix]

I'll still keep siphoning strikes on my alt set for resources, and if I burn stamina faster than magicka - which is very likely, I can try to fix that either by getting cripple instead of low slash, or teleport strike instead of charge.

[Musclemagic]

I'll still keep siphoning strikes on my alt set for resources, and if I burn stamina faster than magicka - which is very likely, I can try to fix that either by getting cripple instead of low slash, or teleport strike instead of charge.

 

Yeah, it's an easy remedy. That's what I was going to recommend but my phone apparently deleted it.

 

Any reason you're going S&S over something else since this isn't a PVE build using Puncture? You don't get much survival from S&S really except shield stuff, which I'm sure helps but in PVP you'll get more survival from Resto and more damage from anything else.

 

I feel like the only real highlight of S&S is Puncture, and only in PVE.

[Terhix]

I typically play with a twohander, but I want to try and make something else work. There is no real reason aside from that, I just figured I can try to make an attrition wear-them-out build and see whether it works or not. It's all about the fluff, I liked playing PvP Prot in WoW at one point where they buffed the hell out of the spec (although not competitive arena wise, it was heck a lot of fun on BGs), I liked playing Templar in Aion and - most relevant to the build at hand - Reaver in Rift.

 

A lot of it all hinges on what kind of things can be actually blocked by the shield, and how that works compared to just all out dps build, how much damage the bash (not the active skill, but the right into left click that everybody has and that gets double damage with a shield passive) does and so on. In other words, I'll try to make it work, and if it doesn't, I'll try something else.

[Musclemagic]

A few people I've talked to, and a few of you who are posting here, want to play a drain/survival NB. I think this build will do well for that:

Argonian – NB – Bow/DW – Heavy Armor

Bow- *Against Melee

• [*]

Mark Target [*]Entropy [*]Strife [*]Cripple [*]Aspect of Terror

DW- *Against Casters

• [*]

Teleport Strike [*]Flurry [*]Immovable [*]Haste [*]Siphoning Strikes

Ult- Consuming Darkness

 

Mark Target + Entropy + Strife + Cripple + Terror = Amazing bar. Mark Target will make those spells do big damage (and increase the healing from Strife. Entropy → Strife will also incrs it's dmg.), and Terror will keep melee off you pretty well-especially with Cripple slowing them and you being able to dodge-roll into 50% incrs speed to stay away, forcing them to use a gap-closer.

It's a Bow so you're able to do powered attacks without worrying about being CC'd by them if they're blocked (while at ranged anyway) (you could also use a Destro staff in this bar, but there's no point—no need to reduce enemy's resistances because Mark Target already does. [This is why Light Armor would be a waste as well, it's a low-cost build as long as you have high MPR (Magicka Points Regeneration) enchants, and the -enemy and +your own magic resistances doesn't benefit you at all because of Mark Target anyway.])

The DW bar is the cookie cutter, “Can't CC me, I stick to you easy, big burst, plenty of resources.†perfect bar for killing people in light armor.

 

The only hole in the build is that you'll need to take a lot of MPR for bar#1 to work, and then Bar#2 doesn't need as much so bar#2 will be a little worst than if you were centered around it. But, honestly, Bar#1's not that MP intensive compared to most MP builds..so it shouldn't be too much of a disadvantage on Bar#2 at all really!

[Terhix]

Not sure how much magicka you'd gauge most caster builds would use, Muscle, but Cripple and Strife are mid-range magicka cost, Entropy is efficient, but then Aspect of Terror is mid-high and Mark Target, while excellent and presumably something you only need to cast once, rather high with 80 magicka at rank 1. Other than that, it loos very solid.

[Kaloom]

This is a bit of a random question, but does anyone know exactly how switching skills on your hotbar works? I mean essentially as a NB could i enter combat realise that my opponent is spec'd in a certan way stun them, stealth ,( I'm assuming here that stealth takes you out of combat- I don't know) then change a skill on my hotbar to account for their spec? I haven't managed to research into the mechanics of the game as much as I would like to , so excuse me if this comes off as a bit of a stupid question.

[Musclemagic]

 

Not sure how much magicka you'd gauge most caster builds would use, Muscle, but Cripple and Strife are mid-range magicka cost, Entropy is efficient, but then Aspect of Terror is mid-high and Mark Target, while excellent and presumably something you only need to cast once, rather high with 80 magicka at rank 1. Other than that, it loos very solid.

 

 

Yeah, it's only a bit less than most other builds. There's nothing you'll be spamming though, so even if the abilities are about average costs it ends up being less because you aren't wanting to recast them every 2-3 seconds for damage output like you potentially could/should with typical builds. There's no resource dump that you'll really want to be able to spam a lot. I mean, yeah you could spam Strife for finishing power if you have excess resources...and maybe against 2+ melee you'll want to be able to use Terror a lot more often than normal, but I think that in heavy with your heals incoming you probably won't need to use it much in just a 1v1 melee situation. So, idk, it just depends on how much damage melee ends up hitting you for--other than potentially requiring to use Terror pretty often it should be pretty operable.

 

This is a bit of a random question, but does anyone know exactly how switching skills on your hotbar works? I mean essentially as a NB could i enter combat realise that my opponent is spec'd in a certan way stun them, stealth ,( I'm assuming here that stealth takes you out of combat- I don't know) then change a skill on my hotbar to account for their spec? I haven't managed to research into the mechanics of the game as much as I would like to , so excuse me if this comes off as a bit of a stupid question.

 

Either it will be like Diablo 3 where it puts a long blacklist timer on an ability once it's switched, or you'll only be able to switch them in towns or something. This is just a guess, but there's no way they'd let it be instant, right? Especially during combat.

 

Meh... I don't think anyone knows unless they've played beta--in which case it would violate the NDA.

[Xenon]

Check the quake con video.

[Terhix]

Having the spreadsheet updated, some notes regarding my Nightblade tank build:

 

• [*]Will definitely keep Strife for PvE for the healing taken bonus with the morph. [*]Agony with Prolonged Suffering seems very tempting for PvP now, need to wait and see Morphs for Entropy and Cripple. [*]Teleport Strike with aoe snare morph sounds great for initiating group fights. [*]Really happy about the new version of resolve, there seems to be quite a gap between dps and survival of medium vs heavy armor.
  

[Musclemagic]

With the recent additions to our knowledge bank, I'd like to propose an improved NB PvP build.

 

It uses light armor, because the Assassination/Magic tree abilities do magic damage rather than melee damage -- and it appears that the class skill tree damage numbers are vastly superior to the numbers of the weapon-tree. Weapon power may strictly affect the stamina based weapon skill damage it seems, and magic power may effect everything else if it requires magicka.

 

Based on the huge amount of magic damage abilities VS the 4 (S&S, DW, 2H, Bow) physical damage trees, I believe that light armor may be better at tanking than heavy in PVP (In PVE heavy will be better due to the volume of melee attacks on the tank.)

 

I believe that the best passives come from DW for damage and Resto staff for survival (while in light armor. If you're in heavy or medium-- S&S blocking is key to survival), so those are the two weapons that make the 2 bars.

 

Because it's magicka based, I think Breton is a good choice because of the +% MP and the lowered cost of spells(even though Altmer MP regen is vastly superior to the % reduction in spell cost in MP management) and the +All Magic Res is nice (although not necessarily great (due to DR) because of the light armor already). Orc is also a good choice due to the +HP/St and HP regen that will increase survival (and incrs sprint time is nice for a low-St build as well.) Orc/Breton are of the same alliance, so the choice between them isn't that important. I personally prefer orc for their commanding presence, and they have a nice Ult (although this build won't use it in PVP.)

 

While leveling I plan to put all my points into health, I can always resource-manage through enchantments and armor/skill choices later...but I plan on doing this with any character I create, so this is not build specific.

 

Anyway, here's the build:

 

NB, Orc, Light, DW/Resto

DW - Kill Caster

Invis Cloak

Veiled Strike

Tele Strike

Assn's Blade

Rapid Mnvr (Possibly Cripple)

*Death Stroke

Resto - Kite Melee

Entropy

Strife

Cripple

Terror

Magelight (Possibly Shade)

*Barrier

 

Rapid Maneuver in Bar #1 is good when you have someone keeping you further than 22 meters away, because you can sprint @ 20% incrs speed without being able to be snared or rooted until you're 22 meters away and then you can Teleport Strike (with +30% next attack damage morph-as well as the incapacitated incrs dmg from Assn tree passive) into a Death Stroke if it's up and they're high health or into a series of Assassin blades if they're lower health or Stroke's not available yet.

 

Because you're not in medium armor and you're not a Kahjiit or Bosmer, if you want to get a melee-ranged attack off then Invisibility Cloak is necessary. Take the +70% crit chance and then use Veiled Strike, pretty dang sweet. Sadly, Khajiit's passive doesn't work on these NB abilities since they're not considered melee. But, if you plan on using more weapon-skills, then Khajiit's still probably the best choice for that build--no matter what class you are, Khajiit for DW/2H DPS rocks compared to other races.

 

You get +6% crit chance from the Assn tree with Tele, Blade, and Stroke on the bar, as well as +8% HP from having Cloak and Veiled. On the Resto bar you get +8% magicka from having Cripple, it might be worth it to swap Rapid Maneuver with Cripple since Crip has a 28m range and will also help you get within 22m. That +8% magicka is very large for one ability.. Cripple ticking also increase the amount of Ultimate you get. I may end up taking Cripple on both bars, actually.

 

Magelight is great, it will probably prove to be priceless in PVP where there'll be a ton of NB's (especially in light armor, where you could potentially be downed within 3 seconds if there's a 1 seconds GCD), but after the initial attack I think having Summon Shade would be much better because not only does it decrease the damage you take but it does damage to them, I consider it to be another DOT along with Cripple and Entropy ticking.

 

Entropy and Magelight give you some nice passives through mage's guild, Summon Shade would give you +4% additional HP in this bar. Casting Entropy into Strife is a nice combo, as we previously discussed. Barrier gives a nice MP regen buff, as discussed in the Templar thread.

 

I personally believe that for PVE you'll definitely always want Agony on a bar, it would be priceless, but this is just a Cyrodiil build, not dungeon build. For dungeons I'd replace Veiled/Invis with Haste/Siphoning and replace Rapid Maneuver-or-Cripple with that..one ability that does like 11 base dmg and gives you +% power per target, because it's good AOE dmg as well as a nice buff if used correctly, I think it lasts 27 seconds.

 

Sorry if my info's fudged, I'm in class and not looking at any numbers right now.

[Terhix]

Do you reckon you will really have that much magic damage to justify going with light armor? Veiled strike is a stun primarily and requires stealth or invisibility, Assassin's Blade doesn't seem to be any huge dps boost over regular / heavy attacks for the cost until the target is below 20% and Teleport Strike you'll want for gap closing, not damage of the ability itself. On the other hand, Death Stroke, which is your biggest burst, is physical. Also no matter how much you pump that magicka regen, it won't help you when you nullify it with cloak.

 

I'd rather see packing twin slashes and/or flurry into the mix, open with teleport strike, then follow with cloak and while your magicka is draining keep the target stunned with veiled strike and dump all stamina you have to burst it down asap. You get pretty much 100% crit chance while invisible in medium armor with daggers, even without assassination passives (70% from cloak, 21% for 7 pieces of medium, 10% for daggers). You get a stamina regen boost every time you refresh cloak, so as long as you have magicka to chain cloak -> veiled and your target doesn't break out of the stun, you get to basically slam your head into that stamina love.

 

Granted, this is not as original and it is a pretty straight forward one trick pony, but one trick pony can often kick some serious butt.

[Musclemagic]

Do you reckon you will really have that much magic damage to justify going with light armor? Veiled strike is a stun primarily and requires stealth or invisibility, Assassin's Blade doesn't seem to be any huge dps boost over regular / heavy attacks for the cost until the target is below 20% and Teleport Strike you'll want for gap closing, not damage of the ability itself. On the other hand, Death Stroke, which is your biggest burst, is physical. Also no matter how much you pump that magicka regen, it won't help you when you nullify it with cloak.

 

I'd rather see packing twin slashes and/or flurry into the mix, open with teleport strike, then follow with cloak and while your magicka is draining keep the target stunned with veiled strike and dump all stamina you have to burst it down asap. You get pretty much 100% crit chance while invisible in medium armor with daggers, even without assassination passives (70% from cloak, 21% for 7 pieces of medium, 10% for daggers). You get a stamina regen boost every time you refresh cloak, so as long as you have magicka to chain cloak -> veiled and your target doesn't break out of the stun, you get to basically slam your head into that stamina love.

 

Granted, this is not as original and it is a pretty straight forward one trick pony, but one trick pony can often kick some serious butt.

 

I don't think you can use Veiled Strike while invisible without also being stealthed, otherwise I would agree that taking a St dump that also causes damage would be better--but then it moves into questioning whether Light or Medium would be better even more. Would it do more damage, even though you're not a purebread? I think it has to go either all damage from physical or all damage from spell to really shine, and then use the alternative for all things besides damage.

 

For the build I posted, I do believe that it's worth taking light armor over medium for the spell damage -- and also because I believe light armor will protect more, more often, than medium can.

 

Something like this:

Khajiit, DW, Medium

DW-

Twin Slashes

Flurry

Teleport Strike

Veiled Strike // Haste

Invisibility Cloak // Siphoning Strikes

*Death Stroke

 

Almost like the original NB build in this thread but with Veiled and Cloak. It would do more physical damage, sure. It would kill light-armor folks super easily, and then I'd probably take maces instead of daggers to get extra dmg on heavy armor targets.

 

But, the problem with this is that bar#2 is hard to balance the resources similarly while still being productive. Rapid Maneuver and Evasion, maybe an anti-daedra/werewolf ability.

 

There's a lot of possibilities that all have positives and negatives, but I think that the light-armor Assassination build I posted above is one of the strongest builds in the game right now because the kiting bar should be extremely difficult for a melee to kill and the chasing bar should be extremely difficult for a caster to get away from. I feel like Death Stroke is more for the +crit, -healing, and then since it's physical it will still do a lot of damage against typical casters in light armor. It will definitely do more damage to light-armor targets than veiled strike or anything--but I don't think it's worth medium armor for it when you can only use it once every few minutes in PVP (unless you're KSing the crap out of people for +7 Ult with that morph and crippling a lot of people along with using agony with the damage still on even when they escape--those 2 together will get you a lot of Ult quickly if you chain cast it.)

 

There's so many possibilities, it's hard to say what will be best for the most amount of situations.. but I bet we'll figure it out before beta's over!

[Terhix]

Well, if veiled strike requires sealth, assuming you can't just get into seatlh by crouching instantly, then the only reliable magic damage ond w set you can do is assassin's blade.I see where you are going with light armor for survival, but for one I think you underestimate the bonuses to dodge rolls and sprint that medium provides, and the dps gain due to crit and attack speed, and I do think that light/heavy attacks will be a large chunk of your dps that simply cannot be ignored.Your second bar is effectively a caster bar, you might as well grab a destro staff for the first one.

[Musclemagic]

Well, if veiled strike requires sealth, assuming you can't just get into seatlh by crouching instantly, then the only reliable magic damage ond w set you can do is assassin's blade.I see where you are going with light armor for survival, but for one I think you underestimate the bonuses to dodge rolls and sprint that medium provides, and the dps gain due to crit and attack speed, and I do think that light/heavy attacks will be a large chunk of your dps that simply cannot be ignored.Your second bar is effectively a caster bar, you might as well grab a destro staff for the first one.

 

DW is physical damage, so it will help kill casters in light armor. I'm not discounting that damage, I know it will be a big % of the dmg-esp against casters.

 

Switching to a destro staff wouldn't really be better because you need to get close anyway for the NB spells in bar #1. The 2nd bar's already a kite bar. I was thinking about taking Mark Target on Bar#1 to help get around people's spell resistance in light though.

 

Increase sprint speed is huge but not enough, and more doge-rolls would only be nice in some situations.

 

Veiled Strike isn't supposed to be reliable, I only picture it for opening. It's damage is as powerful as some ultimates, so it makes sense that it's hard to use. The +stealth radius would be nice from medium, but I still think the crit, -enemy spell resistances, and huge difference in the amount of spells you'll be able to cast with MP is way better--mostly due to having that 2nd bar, but even for bar #1 it is definitely going to be better damage compared to medium just for melee attacks and Death Stroke. For weapon attacks to be strong (which I know they can be) you'd want to use Weapon Power instead of Spell Power--but it's impossible to get away from SP, so if you were to use WP it would just take away from your available SP which will effect the majority of your damage in this case. (And remember, this is all especially true for bar #2.. If you take WP and medium armor then bar 2 is terribly gimped.)

[Terhix]

Yah, I see why you'd want to build it the way you do, but I still don't really see what's going to be the source of your damage in bar#1. You'll have worse physical dps than heavy, not to mention medium (21% crit and 10% attack speed is huge). It seems to me like you have mixed priorities and should have made your #2 bar into the primary, and only use DW against casters as a backup plan, not main focus. Also I still think you underestimate the importance of dodge, did you play GW2 by chance?

 

I do agree that you are better off either focusing on magic or physical damage, which is exactly why I think picking light armor with physical weapons isn't the best idea. As things are in the game atm, focusing on just physical damage with class skills isn't really an option, unless all you take are selfbuffs. Grabbing medium, one or two weapon skills to dump excess stamina that you don't already use on sprint / dodge / getting out of CC, and then using magicka to supplement your physicial damage seems like a much more intuitive than grabbing a set of light to make your supplements more viable at the cost of a core mechanic.

[Musclemagic]

Yah, I see why you'd want to build it the way you do, but I still don't really see what's going to be the source of your damage in bar#1. You'll have worse physical dps than heavy, not to mention medium (21% crit and 10% attack speed is huge). It seems to me like you have mixed priorities and should have made your #2 bar into the primary, and only use DW against casters as a backup plan, not main focus. Also I still think you underestimate the importance of dodge, did you play GW2 by chance?

 

I do agree that you are better off either focusing on magic or physical damage, which is exactly why I think picking light armor with physical weapons isn't the best idea. As things are in the game atm, focusing on just physical damage with class skills isn't really an option, unless all you take are selfbuffs. Grabbing medium, one or two weapon skills to dump excess stamina that you don't already use on sprint / dodge / getting out of CC, and then using magicka to supplement your physicial damage seems like a much more intuitive than grabbing a set of light to make your supplements more viable at the cost of a core mechanic.

 

The reason I made DW the main bar is because even against people in Medium/Heavy you should at least open on them with Bar 1 to get as much burst on them as possible. The fact that it's spell damage will help that burst damage by quite a lot, and the fact that your physical damage isn't that high is just fine because physical damage will still affect the people in light armor more.

 

I think the biggest problem with my build is that the "caster killer" bar is magic damage--which casters will have a lot of mitigation for. I think the solution to this is to put Mark on bar #1.

 

Without using spells that cost St you should have plenty of resources for dodge rolls and mid-fight sprinting.

 

The only difference between our ideas is that you think physical damage is more necessary due to DW and I think that the passives from DW combined with the use of magic damage outweigh the drawback of it being physical. Using maces will increase the damage by up to 10% on heavily armored targets--but I think you are absolutely correct.

 

You're spot on, I need to be using a Destro staff instead of DW. Even if DW will do damage to light armor, I think the -resistance from destro might overcome that on light armor..but definitely against people in medium or heavy. This is how the game's meant to be played, but I don't think that in this case it's necessary.

 

It's an easy change for these bars though, if it proves to be a better choice, since nothing actually changes:

 

NB, Breton, Light, Destro/Resto

Fire Destro - Opener

Invis Cloak

Veiled Strike

Tele Strike

Assn's Blade

Rapid Mnvr (Possibly Cripple)

*Death Stroke

Resto - Kite melee

Entropy

Strife

Cripple

Terror

Magelight (Possibly Shade)

*Barrier

 

The game is clearly designed to be used a specific way. Within 1 character we cannot deviate between either mostly physical, mostly spell damage, or mostly tanking without being gimped.

 

I don't know though, thinking more about it... I still think that the DW passives and the addition of physical damage will help more against light-armor targets than using destro staff for lowering their resistances. And then physical damage targets should be NP with bar 2.

[Terhix]

It's all just theory, so I'm not going to insist that I'm right or anything, I'm not certain of my own build and I won't be until I play the game, but it's a fun thing to exercise the brain .

 

The way I look at it is by contemplating extremes:

 

1) Light armor + destro staff -> best magic damage, best resists, weakest armor

2) Medium armor + dw/2h/bow -> best physical damage, worst resists, average armor, good mobility and reactive defense + stealth

3) Heavy armor + 1h and shield -> low damage, best armor and good resists (not sure if shield resistances can make up for the difference in bonuses from light armor, any sort of an artifact shield can be a gamechanger here) + very efficient block

 

It's not so much rock paper scissors, as it's 1 and 2 being deadly towards each other, neither is really deadly towards 3, but then 3 isn't that much deadly towards 1 or 2 either.

 

Anything that isn't 1, 2 or 3 is effectively a hybrid, so light armor + dual wield doesn't have the best magic damage nor the best physical damage  but averages somewhere between them, which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

[Musclemagic]

It's all just theory, so I'm not going to insist that I'm right or anything, I'm not certain of my own build and I won't be until I play the game, but it's a fun thing to exercise the brain .

 

The way I look at it is by contemplating extremes:

 

1) Light armor + destro staff -> best magic damage, best resists, weakest armor

2) Medium armor + dw/2h/bow -> best physical damage, worst resists, average armor, good mobility and reactive defense + stealth

3) Heavy armor + 1h and shield -> low damage, best armor and good resists (not sure if shield resistances can make up for the difference in bonuses from light armor, any sort of an artifact shield can be a gamechanger here) + very efficient block

 

It's not so much rock paper scissors, as it's 1 and 2 being deadly towards each other, neither is really deadly towards 3, but then 3 isn't that much deadly towards 1 or 2 either.

 

Anything that isn't 1, 2 or 3 is effectively a hybrid, so light armor + dual wield doesn't have the best magic damage nor the best physical damage  but averages somewhere between them, which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

 

Considering that I'm only using DW because of the passives and I don't have any abilities that cost stam, I wouldn't really consider it a hybrid still--even if the physical damage from DW is a major source of damage on light armor. It really is focusing on one damage type. The weapon damage from Destro wouldn't benefit from +spell power anyway I don't think??? Maybe, I didn't really think of that?

 

 

It's going to be hard to tell what works best for killing what until we see how long fights last, and how much stamina the fighting mechanics will take up. Once we know those two things we'll know how well tanks could do as well as how well a pure-magicka class can do (that's not sorce).

 

It's my opinion that fights will not last very long if someone has a build advantage over someone else... be it that they have no mitigation or cc against a melee, or w/e, I think that the typical caster will die to the typical melee within just 4-5 seconds max of attack time....

I can't really explain why I believe it will be so short in this situation (and vice a verse if a mage gets jump on a medium armor user who's not enchanted for mRes.) but I do believe that it will be this short.

I think that killing a tank, on the other hand, who's enchanted for mRes will be extremely difficult for any medium armor user. I think it will be nearly impossible. They don't have the -target mRes and they won't hit very hard physically on all that armor. I believe that there's no way for a medium armor user to kill a heavy armor user at all unless the heavy armor user has a retarded bar with no survival at all.

 

I have no basis for these ideas though.

[Musclemagic]

Do you guys think that we'll be able to gain MP while under Cloak if we're using Siphoning Strikes? (Obviously not "regenerate" it passively, but "restore" it through weapon hits??)

 

I mean, if the St is still being restored, it makes sense that MP would still get restored. Right? :S