1.2 Patch notes... nerfs to NB and some lackluster skill changes

TheWired

Wait... so Siphoning strikes will leech less resources back now...
Meaning that leeching strikes will also be affected and leech less, right?

I recently got to VR content and found that the skill has become far less efficient than it used to be at lower levels for some reason (Did they change anything in the last two recent patches?). I play with Leeching strikes always toggled and use it mainly to leech magicka back. I use 5 pieces of light armor, 2 heavy, 3 magicka reduce cost jewelry along with destruction staff and was always able to keep my magicka up by using skill / mouse click / skill / mouse click... Pre-50, I used to dual wield as it seemed to give more MP/ stamina back but it doesn't seem to be as efficient anymore.

So we can't instant heal ourselves and one of the only resource mnagement we have is getting nerfed? There must be something I'm doing wrong...

Arreyanne

This patch still doesn't approach any aspect of what seems to be a sticking point for alot of Nightblades and would like to play the class with something beside a staff.

The ability to use weapons and be just as effective with 4 weapon abilities on the bar and 1 class as the people that have 4 class abilities and 1 weapon ability on the bar.

Most of bugged class abilities i don't even use, the passives still are not addressed or I missed it somewhere. haste which doesnt work past rank2 and still doesnt apply to bows, don't know if it applies to staffs or not. Where's a mention of that?

curlyqloub14_ESO

Assassination
-Assassin’s Blade: This ability’s visual effects are now easier to see. (cosmetic only)
-Incapacitate (Haste morph): This ability now increases heavy attack damage. (great, a slight buff - does this apply to bow yet? Regardless, not a skill for which I will likely be wasting a precious hotbar slot. Make this a passive and it might be worth the skill points.)
-Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power. Its stun duration increase has also been added to the tooltip. (great for magicka builds)
-Reaper’s Mark (Mark Target morph): This ability’s weapon and spell damage buff no longer stacks with itself – the duration of the damage buff will now just refresh upon each kill. (meh, no comment, I assume this is basically a fix to how it should have worked)

Shadow
-Path of Darkness: Increased the damage for this ability, and it can now be seen by all other player characters. Also fixed an issue where it was ticking more times than intended on a target. (So, a weak buff and a nerf all in one. Even if this skill was slightly useful, making it visible to enemy players pretty much makes it useless again)
o Refreshing Path: This ability will now heal your allies, and the healing done has been slightly increased. (Great, I need to make sure my allies stay alive even though I’ll probably still die, since they are the ones making up for my shortcomings)
o Refreshing Shadows: This passive ability is now always active, and no longer requires you to use another ability. (The first genuinely good thing I’ve seen here)

Siphoning
- Leeching Strikes (Siphoning Strikes morph): The tooltip for this ability now shows the correct percentage of health recovery. (cosmetic only)
- Magicka Flood: This ability now correctly increases your maximum magicka. (great for magicka builds)
-Siphoning Strikes: This ability now restores slightly less resources, and will no longer desync your resource bars upon use. (so basically, a nerf, and a cosmetic fix)
o Soul Siphon (Soul Shred morph): Edited the tooltip for this ability so it’s more consistent with all other tooltips, and fixed an issue so the upgrade tooltip now states that it does less damage than the base ability. (cosmetic only)
o Strife: Fixed an issue where the red glow from this ability would last longer than intended. (cosmetic only)

---

So basically...
-a bunch of cosmetic stuff
-a few things that will really help those magicka builds (oh joy)
-a couple buff/nerf combos which pretty much negate each other
-a couple underwhelming buffs to skills that are rarely used
-one quality buff to a passive that might help some (though questionable since it was already pretty easy to max stamina regen)

I know these are the PTS notes, and they will do "tweaking" before pushing live, but seriously - where are the big improvements to Nightblade that have been promised? This stuff is all so lackluster - no amount of "tweaking" would make these into big improvements.

I'm not gonna' go into suggestions for improvement here, since there are already a million great suggestions in this thread: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/100627/nightblade-update/p1, but it seems to me like they are focusing on all the wrong priorities.

I keep holding out faith for quality fixes, but so disappointed right now.

xaraan

They are making siphoning strikes worse? I'm sorry, but this skill needs to go in the opposite direction. It's not useful enough for a 1/4 drop in DPS.

ferzalrwb17_ESO

This really proves the incompetence of the devs. Leeching strikes (not a skill I would use by the way) was changed during beta after feedback but the health leech didn't work correctly. This has been acknowledged. Now.. they've simply given up trying to fix it and are claiming it as a tooltip fix. It's dishonesty and incompetence rolled into one.

Again, this is not a skill I care about (although they're nerfing the morph which I occasionally slot to the point where I will never slot it) - it is proof of their incompetence.

They have made a Nightmage slightly more viable (SURPRISE!) and done nothing, absolutely nothing, for all other builds and it looks like they've actually given up trying to keep their promise to fix the NB. If they've given up on their own game then I don't see why the rest of us shouldn't.

There's already about 10% (max) people playing the game IMO as 8 weeks ago. The game's already dying - these are just nails in the coffin rather than medicine.

concobar

Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power.

This helps all NBs.

Loco_Mofo

anakaki wrote: »

Mablung wrote: »

anakaki wrote: »

It's the right direction. Templars update is meh but atleast a start.

This is a NB thread, not sure what you mean by its the right direction?

They are doing something. Not just talking.

Yeah, but as usual the stuff they're doing isn't anything the players have asked for, quite the opposite from what I'm reading...

I was hoping Zeni would be making NBs more viable with the 1.2 patch or at the very least buffing stamina builds somehow. These PTS notes are a slap in the face.

TheWired

Nerfing siphoning strikes is a joke when you consider that we have no mana reduction passives or any instant heal. I rerolled to NB from DK when the bash/banner was OP because I got tired of doing the same thing. I find the NB skill lines interesting and like many other people, I have tried many builds (resto staff, destro staff, dw, bow, 2h) but the misleading tooltips / broken skills are not helping. This has been going on forever and I can't understand why some major problems have not been fixed yet (like haste not working properly, etc). I really enjoy playing this game but I think the devs should stop listening to BS feedback from biased players for just a minute and just do their job and fix all current known issues. Like, this game has been out for a few months and grouping is still so broken that sometimes people just ragequit.

Nobody cares about cosmetic changes as of now. Just fix the skills or hire someone who can write proper English tooltips so we don't have to guess what the skills really do. My native language isn't English and I could probably do a better job...

Desdemonte

meh, the nerf to Leaching Strikes doesn't effect me because it's already so *** I never use it anyway.

Wait.... weren't they supposed to try to make the class skills *more* viable?

I'm confused......

Klauen

I'm a DW NB and i love the changes... more magicka and spell power means more dps, no matter what weapon or play style you use.
And we get the stam regen without needing to use a shadow skill, thats amazing.

The nerf to the siphoning strikes isn't too hard, maybe instead of 15% (on the 10% chance) will now be 10%, it's not the end of the world, but anyways thats why the pts is now open so we can test and give feedback.

clayandaudrey_ESO

bah

PBpsy

Wow. They nerf the best skill that NBs have at the moment and half the NBs don't even care . There is no hope for this class.

Mablung

@joshisanonymous I shouldn't have to pay to play the game on a test server. The point is the class and its abilities were broke before launch. All of the beta testing for this game didn't get these things fixed immediately when they should have been so why would testing on the PTS change that now.

Like I stated before, they will not be changing anything they have already released in the upcoming patch notes. These developers have their own vision for the game and they could care less what we, the paying customers, think.

Reminds of all the early testing I did on SWtoR. We continuously made post after post about the space simulator, the pvp, some class issues, the cosmetic side (the cartoonish look). No one cared. This was almost 2 years before release. Once these 'artist' get it in their head, or their egos, then its a done deal.

Singular

Mablung wrote: »

anakaki wrote: »

Mablung wrote: »

anakaki wrote: »

It's the right direction. Templars update is meh but atleast a start.

This is a NB thread, not sure what you mean by its the right direction?

They are doing something. Not just talking.

I am sorry but this is just a really bad thought process. What they are doing is horribly breaking their own game at the expense of losing large numbers of players. Not sure if you have ever heard the saying, Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That is basically what they are doing.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of trembling Night Blade players were anxiously waiting in anticipation of patch 1.2, trying to decided whether to stay or unsub.

"as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced..."

stevenpotter321b14_ESO

They did say wait for patch 1.2.X. We just didn't realize X was for closing the game window in rage.

Mablung

Singular wrote: »

Mablung wrote: »

anakaki wrote: »

Mablung wrote: »

anakaki wrote: »

It's the right direction. Templars update is meh but atleast a start.

This is a NB thread, not sure what you mean by its the right direction?

They are doing something. Not just talking.

I am sorry but this is just a really bad thought process. What they are doing is horribly breaking their own game at the expense of losing large numbers of players. Not sure if you have ever heard the saying, Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That is basically what they are doing.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of trembling Night Blade players were anxiously waiting in anticipation of patch 1.2, trying to decided whether to stay or unsub.

"as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced..."

Mock me when you are playing on an even more empty server. When the only ones left are bots and the real players on the PTS trying to still fix the game in 6 months.

concobar

PBpsy wrote: »

Wow. They nerf the best skill that NBs have at the moment and half the NBs don't even care . There is no hope for this class.

All the best skills NB have at the moment are in destro staff.

steveb16_ESO46

ferzalrwb17_ESO wrote: »

This really proves the incompetence of the devs. Leeching strikes (not a skill I would use by the way) was changed during beta after feedback but the health leech didn't work correctly. This has been acknowledged. Now.. they've simply given up trying to fix it and are claiming it as a tooltip fix. It's dishonesty and incompetence rolled into one.

Agreed. I'm just going to let my sub lapse unless they do something absolutely dramatic to put NB's on a par with other classes. But again - this is what ZMO do. Confuse the meanings of 'fix' and 'break'.

I dread to think what else the patch will 'fix' this time. Issue trash mobs with RPG's and forcefields?

Talmet

I'm confused by comments in this thread....either you aren't thinking, or most of you don't know how the game works.

All class abilities use spell power & max magicka to determine their damage. Any ability/passive that increases spell power or max magicka will result in class abilities doing more damage per use.

So:

TB1234 wrote: »

Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power. Its stun duration increase has also been added to the tooltip.
Magicka Flood: This ability now correctly increases your maximum magicka.

Will both increase the damage of all class abilities. That's a good thing for any NB, not just magicka focused ones.

These are also just NB class changes. I don't know if there are changes for weapon skills in 1.2, but help for dw/bow NBs would probably be in the dw/bow weapon skill lines.

steveb16_ESO46

Talmet wrote: »

I'm confused by comments in this thread....either you aren't thinking, or most of you don't know how the game works.

That's your problem then. As you clearly don't understand the issues.

Fleymark

PBpsy wrote: »

At least strife will not make us glow red for so long.

Speaking of which, I really wish they would change the glow to another color besides red. With distance, bad lighting, haze from fog effects or smoke, etc red glow nightblades are easy to confuse for aggro mobs.

Ever clear a dolmen with a bunch of nightblades as an archer? Between waves I tend to still be shooting at PCs thru the smoke because they look like mobs. LOL

Fleymark

CTraveler wrote: »

Uh...most of the changes I see to NB's are fixes. I only count one "Nerf" on the list.

Yeah I thought it looked good. Especially combined with the changes to Bow and DW.

Don't think we are there yet but looks like its a step in the right direction.

PTS is free now and you can test it yourself if you are really eager to find out. I bet they pay closer attention to /bug and /feedback there, too.

Tamanous

PBpsy wrote: »

On top of that NB don't have that many synergies with staves which the others do.

The answer to that is simple!

ZOS adds a new dark themed, magicka damage based staff that works well with Nightblades so all can be staff users equally!

Loco_Mofo

Talmet wrote: »

I'm confused by comments in this thread....either you aren't thinking, or most of you don't know how the game works.

All class abilities use spell power & max magicka to determine their damage. Any ability/passive that increases spell power or max magicka will result in class abilities doing more damage per use.

So:

TB1234 wrote: »

Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power. Its stun duration increase has also been added to the tooltip.
Magicka Flood: This ability now correctly increases your maximum magicka.

Will both increase the damage of all class abilities. That's a good thing for any NB, not just magicka focused ones.

These are also just NB class changes. I don't know if there are changes for weapon skills in 1.2, but help for dw/bow NBs would probably be in the dw/bow weapon skill lines.

Sure the Master Assassin passive buff is good (for nightmages anyway), we'll take that. It makes logical sense at least to buff our spell damage since NBs have been reduced to wearing light armor and staves.

But the Magicka Flood passive is clearly just a bug fix, not a buff.

The nerf to Syphoning Strikes is a real head scratcher. It already reduces our damage by 22% (when maxed), so I have no idea why it needed further attention. It's one of if not our best ability as NBs have very limited ways of recovering resources.

The rest of the changes are just fluff or not even worth mentioning. And this is the big balance patch NBs have been waiting for? Excuse me if I'm not jumping for joy.

Evergreen

Elgarr wrote: »

NB's op, they need more nerfs

This is the devs and elitists/apologists in PTS server when assessing Nightblades

OkieDokie

I use siphoning strikes basically all time and I can't understand why you would nerf something (even if it is a slight nerf) that should be buffed.

There is no reason for keeping that damage reduction in a class that is suffering because of poor dps. Maybe people giving them advice do not play NB at vr content, maybe they are just that bad (and there are several suggestions in the NB topic, so, there is no excuse for ignoring our feedback) . Anyway, I can't see any hope for us.

Talmet

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Talmet wrote: »

I'm confused by comments in this thread....either you aren't thinking, or most of you don't know how the game works.

All class abilities use spell power & max magicka to determine their damage. Any ability/passive that increases spell power or max magicka will result in class abilities doing more damage per use.

So:

TB1234 wrote: »

Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power. Its stun duration increase has also been added to the tooltip.
Magicka Flood: This ability now correctly increases your maximum magicka.

Will both increase the damage of all class abilities. That's a good thing for any NB, not just magicka focused ones.

These are also just NB class changes. I don't know if there are changes for weapon skills in 1.2, but help for dw/bow NBs would probably be in the dw/bow weapon skill lines.

Sure the Master Assassin passive buff is good (for nightmages anyway), we'll take that. It makes logical sense at least to buff our spell damage since NBs have been reduced to wearing light armor and staves.

But the Magicka Flood passive is clearly just a bug fix, not a buff.

The nerf to Syphoning Strikes is a real head scratcher. It already reduces our damage by 22% (when maxed), so I have no idea why it needed further attention. It's one of if not our best ability as NBs have very limited ways of recovering resources.

The rest of the changes are just fluff or not even worth mentioning. And this is the big balance patch NBs have been waiting for? Excuse me if I'm not jumping for joy.

I am going to say it again...maybe slower?

All. Class. Abilities. Scale. From. Max Magicka. And. Spellpower.

Master Assassin will increase the damage of every class ability.
Magicka flood will increase the damage of every class ability. (Yes, it is a fix...that will increase your stats & damage...which will buff you.)

Assassin's Blade? Yup, it will do more damage.
Teleporting Strike? Yup, it will do more damage.
Veiled Strike? Yup, it will do more damage.
Shades? Some people use this, and shade will do more damage.
Swallow Soul? Will do more damage & heal the NB for more
Agony? Long duration mez is nice for non-AoE NBs, and it'll do more damage.
Cripple? Very useful to keep players from kiting NBs and/or NBs kite...and guess what? it'll do more damage as well.
Drain power? Buff to weapon damage & it'll do more damage.

OOOH, and lest we forget...every ULTIMATE other than werewolf scales with spellpower as well!!! So, death stroke/soul siphon/whatever ultimate you use in guild/vamp/soul magic will deal more damage as well.

But I guess you're right...those changes will only help NB casters...bow/dw/2h NBs never use any of those abilities. You're totally right, I mean I've never seen a medium armor dw NB use surprise attack or killer's blade...I mean, so what if they both use weapon crit to determine their crit chances, they are TOTALLY a NB caster's mainstay abilities. And really, making ultimates do more damage? Pssh, that's only for casters, no non-caster even uses ultimates!

In all seriousness. I never said that this was going to be the be-all-end-all of class balancing. I said in my first post, that the help dw/bow/2h NBs need is probably going to end up coming when they fix weapon skills & be in the dw/bow/2h skill lines. But claiming that these fixes won't help anyone other than casters either proves: a) you don't know how the game works, or b) you aren't thinking about how the game works.

bandage106rwb17_ESO

Do you even play a NB bro? Master Assassin only buffs sneak damage it only gives a 10% buff when attacking from stealth if you're detected the buff no longer applies so unless you have dark cloak on your hotbar which most NB's don't because it doesn't really do a whole lot for a boss with 200k HP and re-using dark cloak which costs 420 magicka per use is quite costly.

Talmet

bandage106rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Do you even play a NB bro? Master Assassin only buffs sneak damage it only gives a 10% buff when attacking from stealth if you're detected the buff no longer applies so unless you have dark cloak on your hotbar which most NB's don't because it doesn't really do a whole lot for a boss with 200k HP and re-using dark cloak which costs 420 magicka per use is quite costly.

Wait...it only buffs your sneak attack damage??

Like..when you sneak up behind an enemy and use surprise attack? Which is a class ability, and therefore scales with spell damage and will do more damage...

oh, and yeah I have an sneaky dw/bw NB. She was my main till I switched at vet 2 to a templar healer due to my guild needing more healers. I've been working on her when I have time since my templar hit vet12, and she's almost vet 4 now. I am not saying I have as much experience with the class as other people who stuck with them till vet 12 & are having trouble finding groups...but I do know how the game works & I know that increasing the damage of all class abilities will help.

ferzalrwb17_ESO

No one has said that Master Assassin is not a buff.

It is but does it take a NB stamina build and turn it into a competitive dps build? No. It gives a little more initial burst damage that I fully expect to be later nerfed due to Nightmages being able to take that to extremes. It's welcome but it's nowhere near enough and it's accompanied by a nerf and a broken promise that's as good as a nerf and some pretty wittle fixes to the graphics. This is not the NB loving we were promised.

You can slot a few Assassin skills and do a little more burst damage with ambush and impale (which isn't much use before it suddenly becomes overkill) but things like haste, blur, cloak, reaper's mark etc are all unaffected. They're geared towards synergy with melee weapons which are still wet rags with our gimped stamina-build options. Well... blur is 100% useless no matter what they do but Haste could be useful. Potentially...