Solanum's rant on Nightblades current state and future

Solanum

Nightblades currently are in a bad position,
we've experienced it ourselves, and we've seen the topics rise left and right.
I personally play a Nightblade and experience quite a bit of frustration when Dragonknights and Sorcerers seem to outperform us vastly.

This is not to say that Nightblades cannot function, (I'm VR9 and enjoy myself, I can tank comfortably and a Nightblade healer would never run out of mana) I'm just saying that Dragonknights and Sorcerers have better tools to get the job done.

I believe this is caused by several reasons:
- We are bugged as hell.
This will get fixed, but I do experience and understand the frustration. Certain playstyles cannot work with the bugs in place. (dotting someone up and withdrawing back to stealth, before reopening doesn't work, dealing damage takes you out of stealth, even when it's just a dot)
- Our numbers need tweaking.
Certain abilities are very nicely designed, but the damage and self healing seem to be a bit underwhelming in comparison to other classes.
- We are partially stamina/melee oriented.
Haste focuses on weapon attacks, and stamina recovery
Master assassin increases weapon damage while in stealth
Surprise attack lowers an enemies armor against physical attacks
refreshing shadows, more stamina regeneration

This part of the class pretty much shouts "uuuuuuuse stamina you fool!"
Sadly enough, most stamina oriented abilities deal a lot less damage and healing then the magica alternative.
"But!" you might say "stamina is much more useful, you can roll away from attacks, block damage, interrupt people with it!"
And you are completely right in saying so, which is why it would be so comfortable to run around with no stamina abilities at all present on ones bar, you can better use that resource for stealthing, dodging and running, instead of doing underwhelming damage with it!

- Our survivability is saddening.
Which is not a problem, if our skills were not whispering to us, "Hey, psssst, you can go melee combat, I've got some very nice close combat skills for you"


So, from the looks of it, the ultimate Nightblade runs around in light armor for mana recovery, a resto staff strapped to his or her back to assure some healing, and in the other hand a bow! And I truly believe such a Nightblade would work very well, and might even be on par with other classes.
Though if you're sporting that style, a sorcerer would do it better.. *sadface*

So, is it all doom and gloom for the Nightblades?
Currently, yes. It's a tough life.

So, how do we fix it?

Currently Nightblade fixes are already happening, together with buffs planned.
Personally I believe that if the Thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood are released well gain some very nice abilities with good synergy towards our class, especially if these are decent stamina oriented abilities.

Things can only get better from here on out.

So I recommend we practice patience, or sorcery till better times arrive.

tommipalub16_ESO

So, how do we fix it?

There is no need for a fix.
Just learn to play ur class.
Yesterday i did banished cells vet and sewers vet solo with my nightblade vet10. I never had any issues while leveling in vet areas. i love my nightblade , its awesome.

Axewaffle

tommipalub16_ESO wrote: »

So, how do we fix it?

There is no need for a fix.
Just learn to play ur class.
Yesterday i did banished cells vet and sewers vet solo with my nightblade vet10. I never had any issues while leveling in vet areas. i love my nightblade , its awesome.

Not everyone wants to exploit the stealth bug to solo vet dungeons in record breaking long amounts of time...

tommipalub16_ESO

I dont spam stealth. i use it for sure, would not work out otherwise.
i have no fun in avoiding bossmechanics ^^ which happens if u spam. Stealth may just be use as blocking by watching the mob's animation, this is what i simply do.
Also the bosses aint the catch in vet dungeon. groups are quite more annoying. (when soloing)

Though i would not call it a bug. Exploit yes/maybe . A difficult topic, which does not belong in this thread i guess. at least its not what the opener wanted to discuss.
Also to mention:
Stealth is the only option to tank in a new style. There is no need for shield/block or even for heavy armor (due to the spell and armor buff after stealthing). I really hope they fix the effect on bossmechanics, but i hope this style of tanking will survive (due to its just something new) .

Axewaffle

Its a bug, they know its a bug, why it hasnt been fixed yet remains to be seen. Maybe because in its current state it makes nightblade tanks ungodly... but if they fix it to how its ment to be (make the monster attack another target or reset) there are sure fire way to abuse it due to it not having a cooldown(think 4 dps nightblades with no need for a tank or heals rotating through stealth as they gain agro, being able to destroy everything in the game in record amounts of time.)...Im not sure they even want to fix it.

makreth

NB might be (in some builds) weapon oriented class but people focus on magicka builds because weapon abilities (stamina) are underpowered plus class abilities (correct me if I'm wrong..) use spell critical values + magicka.

Also, I think it's time Zos cleared out the spell,physical,melee critical and which abilities they work on. I'm still kinda confused, I keep reading different opinions on this matter.

In PVP getting out of combat should be fixed. Sometimes (or should i say MANY times) you get to stay in combat for so long without any reason and you cannot sneak again back (not a class problem but still effects NB-sneak oriented builds).

Axewaffle

makreth wrote: »

NB might be (in some builds) weapon oriented class but people focus on magicka builds because weapon abilities (stamina) are underpowered plus class abilities (correct me if I'm wrong..) use spell critical values + magicka.

Also, I think it's time Zos cleared out the spell,physical,melee critical and which abilities they work on. I'm still kinda confused, I keep reading different opinions on this matter.

In PVP getting out of combat should be fixed. Sometimes (or should i say MANY times) you get to stay in combat for so long without any reason and you cannot sneak again back (not a class problem but still effects NB-sneak oriented builds).

Problem is for alot of nightblade casters, 30% of our abilities run off melee crit, the other 30% off spell crit, and the random 40% dont seem to crit at all... It makes it very hard to gear and build up an effective build when *** all over the place like that, not to mention abilities just not working as intended.

nez

Moderator Edit: Removed for Spaming

frwinters_ESO

Im a nightblade. I love my class. I don't feel broken or outclassed by any other class. Im kicking but and when were fixed I cant wait to kick even more but.

Ser Lobo

I'm an archer NB. Siphon/Bow skills primarily. I'm finding that I can survive and handle myself in what I view are 'solo' situations, such as three-mob veteran groups or the occasional elite and his adds. I can get one-shot by most bosses though (5 medium, 1 heavy, 1 light; 2:1:1 health, magicka, stamina), and have rotated my potions so that I use more stamina potions than any other now.

I do feel envious, especially in public dungeons, when I'm having to setup a specific rotation of cripple/knockback/cc to take out three mobs, and a DK/Sorc runs right in the middle of five mobs and blasts AOE, killing them far faster and with far less need to move and dodge as me. I rotate in siphon just to add more hit and drain my magicka.

I realize that ranged is naturally a weaker attack than melee (because you are further away from the action), but watching sorcerers blast opponents .... they seem to hit so much harder than my attacks.



My take: Nightblade is a perfectly *playable* class. We have bugs that need fixed, and if they get fixed, we might be just fine.

But there are classes and playstyles that are still better than us and damage output and killing mobs, as well as tanking and healing. I'm not sure about anyone else here, but I think if there should be one thing nightblades should be better at than anyone, it's killing things.

It seems ZOS decided to nerf those other classes to bring them down to our level, where a three-mob group is a challenge and a boss is almost automatically group required.

I'd much have rathered we, as nightblades, have been brought up to their level, able to solo five-mob groups and take on bosses with impunity.