Replies: 228

Kindling power – the Whips ‘n’ chains rebirth

Hey guys! It’s Deltia from Deltia’s Gam… Err.

Welcome to my build-thread for the Magicka DK in Thieves Guild, heh. This build is, for all intents and purposes, for PvE only and will aim to keep Magicka DKs at their current, highly esteemed level. Many believe Magicka DKs are being outshined by Templars and Nightblades in this new DLC, but I believe differently.

This build is largely based on @IWM’s Magicka DK build, but with my own opinions and testing for this new DLC. I’ll be trying to minimize the grind for gear, but I’ll put in my opinions on several different setups, tell you why they may or may not work aswell as listing my preferred and basic setups.

Enjoy!

NOTE: This build is only partially updated for Dark Brotherhood. I will update it fully once I am back from vacation.

Changelog

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11.03.2016 – The Birth of the Build

11.03.2016 – Fixed typos

28.03.2016 – Updated the build extensively. Added new gear, new skills, MoL specific setups, updated CPs and added more depth to the MoL section.

29.03.2016 – Fixed errors with gearsets and changed non-Kena gear to a levelling build. Thanks @Latin for the help with enchants!

30.05.2016 – Fixed errors, typos and cleaned up the vMoL section a bit. Started minor updates for Dark Brotherhood.

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Character sheet

[img]http://i.imgur.com/HFYqfXJ.png[/img]

These are my stats with buff-food, Inner Light and Flames of Oblivion on my bar. Gear-set is Julianos, Kena, Willpower and the ever-classic Torug’s Staff x2.

Gear

The “I’m not VR16 yet!”- Setup

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/7bd7c06490a0c6def0970634419b615c.png[/img]

Perfect for leveling. Magicka Furnace gives alot of magicka aswell as resistances and Torug’s gives Spell DMG and health so it’s the perfect combo. Skills are mostly the same, but if you’re solo leveling you might wanna consider some more self-heals such as inhale, rapid regen and/or healing ward.

The Best-in-Slot Powerhouse

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/c3b667950aa6897fd879a896dcfde90c.png[/img][img]https://i.gyazo.com/2991f2cbb47e7c2344ec0352facf5e8b.png[/img]

Armor-types are simply set up like this because this is the way the gear dropped for me. You can mix and match in any way you wish, but Divines on all 7 pieces is extremely important. You also want 5 Light, 1 Medium, 1 Heavy for the Undaunted passives.

Twice-Born star is only viable in a group where Aggressive War-Horn is at 100% uptime or close. If you are in a good raidgroup, use TBS for any trial. Julianos will still outperform TBS when there is a lack of WH.

Gear Setups I want to test

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/ccc81210920251cb6f0e6e0beb9a4dbb.png[/img]

I’d love to see how Scathing Mage fares on a DK. Atm I’m at 65% crit. This could mean a very high uptime of Scathing, but unfortunately I don’t have the right pieces yet… I’ll update this section once I do.

Skills

 [img]https://i.gyazo.com/9ad462eb7f92fedc54d9c349c9e08e90.png[/img]

These are my skills in 99% of instances. I’ll go into more detail below.

Main-bar

1. Molten Whip – your main spammable. It gains a huge increase in damage from your Standard aswell as your Ardent Flame passives, so it really hits like a truck.
2. Engulfing Flames – a nice DoT which buffs your Molten Whip aswell as ticks for a very decent amount.
3. Burning Embers – also a nice DoT, but this one adds alittle healing to the mix aswell – even moreso in Thieves Guild. The damage coupled with the healing makes it a perfect DoT in our arsenal
4. Elemental Blockade – With my testing, I couldn’t justify choosing Unstable Wall of Elements simply for it’s explosion. Therefore, I have chosen Elemental Blockade as my morph. It has a longer duration, so in my testing it ended up helping my rotation more than the extra explosion from UWoE. This skill is a must-have for anyone using Destro staff. Especially if you have the Maelstrom Destro!
5. Inner Light – the unbeatable Max Magicka + Spell Crit slot. A must-have for all magicka builds! Our sorce for a constant Major Prophecy aswell as +7% Max Magicka.
6. ULTIMATE: Shooting Star – This ultimate is more for the passive 2% extra Max Magicka than anything, but it’s a very nice ultimate for trash-packs and such. We rarely use it, but the extra magicka it gives is very nice.

Off-bar

1. Eruption – An incredibly strong ground-DoT which lasts quite a while aswell. Place it where the boss will stay and watch it tick!
2. Rearming Trap (Stalwart Guard) – This skillslot is more or less open. Either swap Ele Ring for Trap or keep Trap as a permanent addition to your bar. Either way, you definitely want Rearming Trap as it is a significant DPS increase. Stalwart Guard may be a possible replacement, but this requires some additional testing.
3. Elemental Ring – As this bar is our main AoE-bar, we also need our AoE spammable. Elemental Ring works very well for this, but also works as a swappable for Single-Target fights. Here, I usually swap for Rearming Trap for the Major Force buff. Will also be swapped for Rearming Trap in any pure single-target fight.
4. Flames of Oblivion – With the changes in TG to this skill and it’s morphs, the choice of morph is obvious. We’re not healers, we’re DDs so we choose what’ll net us the most damage! I’ve had this bad-boy tick for 23k a pop so it’s definitely not worth trashing just yet.
5. Inner Light – We need that Max Magicka and Spell Crit on both bars, so double-slot it!
6. ULTIMATE: Standard of Might – Propably the best ultimate in the game DPS-wise. It not only does insane damage, but it also buffs our whips. Being our main spammable, this is too crazy to pass up on. Pop it and watch those numbers rise faster than a fat persons blood-pressure!

Mundus Stone

The choice here is relatively set in stone. We want more crit, so we’re going for the Thief stone just like in 2.2. If you want the math behind it, check out @Asayre‘s fantastic work.

Rotation

Many people fear Magicka DKs for their rotation and the complexity involved. I think my rotation is fairly simple once you get into it, but it relies on alot of weaves and muscle memory. Keep your tongue straight and it’ll work like a charm!

First off, terminology. FHA = Full Heavy Attack, LA = Light Attack, MA = Medium Attack, BC = Block Cancel.

I start off my fights with a Potion into a FHA. From there, we place Eruption (BC), Rearming Trap (BC), Ele Ring (BC), FoO (BC), Standard, Bar-Swap, Engulfing, LA, Burning Embers, LA (This should’ve procced Kena), Elemental Blockade (BC), MA, Molten Whip, MA (LA if Kena is not procced), Molten, MA etc. until Blockade runs out. From there, you pop Blockade on cooldown until Engulfing runs out. That’s when you reapply your Engulfing and go back to the start of the rotation. Pop your potion whenever it is ready, wait for Standard to get full ulti – it’s better than Shooting Star so long as the boss is stationary.

Champion Points

These are extremely subject to change as my testing progresses. I’m basing my Mage CPs on @Asayre‘s incredibly helpful spreadsheet.

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/418667d4ea4e621ad4fa42dc9361a9fd.png[/img]

Changes for vmol

Based on 5 vMoL runs now (4 tries on last boss, no completion yet), I can conclude with the following:

DKs will now become more for utility than DPS. We’re needed for chaining more than ever, which is kindof nice. This also means we’ll be loosing FoO for chains and swap Ele Ring for situational skills such as Deep Breath and Force Pulse.

As far as skills go, this is what I’ll be operating with for 90% of the Trial:

skills

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/31778e5a3c8f339448f0e7243107cfca.png[/img]

I originally stated DW will be superior in vMoL. I’ve since stepped away from that and kept my Destro/Destro setup. It’s nice to proc Kena properly in AoE fights too. It just makes everything alittle quicker. If you have issues sustaining, kick your healer in the ass.

As far as skills go, the above setup is what I run for most boss-fights. If I’m on chain-duty on 2nd boss, I’ll swap trap for chains and keep the rest as-is. For first boss I run the same as my normal PvE setup. For AoE, I’ll swap trap for proxy. For last boss, I’ll swap Ele Ring for Harness Magicka.

Gear

[img]https://i.gyazo.com/2991f2cbb47e7c2344ec0352facf5e8b.png[/img]

The gear is the same as for anything else, but here I’ll definitely be running TBS over Julianos. Our raidgroup has 100% uptime of War Horn so it’s an easy choice.

You’ll notice rather quickly that I’m continuing to use Kena in vMoL. I don’t have much sustain issues, but I know some people do. If you do, Skoria is certainly a viable option. I just net better results with Kena and as such can justify using it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why Kena over Valkyn?

A: Because my testing so far shows that Kena is still a huge DPS increase over Valkyn. Valkyn procced 17-20 times over a 3 minute fight (5 separate tests) and net 1,3-1,7k DPS. This means an approximate Valkyn proc every 10s. It’s not going to be an increase in DPS over Kena until it procs every 7-8s or does more than 3k DPS. However, I’ll still use Valkyn for any instance where I know sustain will be an issue. This includes vMoL.

Q: Why Proxy?

A: Cause it’s a huge burst – even in ST fights. Great way to start a fight

Q: Why not Talons on your AoE bar?

A: Because I didn’t find it to be that big of a DPS increase to warrant dropping Proxy. My Talons only hit for 4-8k…

Parses

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[img]http://i.imgur.com/AIcIyLS.png[/img]

Cursed 5 times.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/EYjWRmW.png[/img]

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Credits

First off, I’d like to thank @IWM, Mashinate, for the original Whips ‘n’ Chains build. I’d also like to thank him for theorycrafting with me alittle during the early phases of TG PTS.

Secondly, I’d like to thank @AlfonsoV for helping me getting started with the Magicka DK. It’s been a hell of a ride!

Notable thanks go out to @Cordee for helping me with testing, @benawaw89 for healthy theorycrafting, @Koshka-Murka for moral support and @Asayre for being nothing short of a mathematical gaming genius.

• This topic was modified 5 hours, 17 minutes ago by  pretzl.