Nightblades 1.6 Discussion

omfgitsbatman

Another Nightblade healer here. I am soooo excited to test this out. Haven't done any testing yet, but will be testing tons of builds this weekend in everything from Vet DSA to trials. From what I'm seeing, Templars are going to have some major competition. I was already able to compete with most templar healers on my nightblade anyway. Now, there are just so many buffs that happened to not just NB healers, but every healer!
Let me explain some of the reasons we will be able to compete easily now:

• The things that templars had that made me jealous were
  (1.) A great healing ultimate- Ours either required a synergy or didn't effect enough people to be viable in trials. Now... Soul Siphon - 6 people get 30% increased healing taken and get healed from the same ultimate! I can't wait to try out bolstering dark and veil of blades too!
  (2.) The ability to put together a decent heal bar without using a resto staff. I can't tell you how many times I wish I could heal while using a destro staff so I could use crushing shock to interrupt. Now, with Changes they made to things like Energy Orb and This new Vigor heal from Assault, I'm thinking I can make a viable heal bar without using a resto staff in certain cases.
  (3.)Breath of Life- I'm still jealous, but a slight buff to Steadfast Ward helps a little bit
• Scaling Magika abilities off of spell damage! Boom! Finally! I no longer have to worry about trying to stack both Spell damage and Weapon damage to get my funnel health and my resto staff abilities to hit harder. Any Spell Damage we put on will affect both our class heal abilities and resto staff abilities! All of my heals are going to be healing for a lot more...
• The fact that Healing Templars didn't get much of a buff and we did definitely helps.
• Barrier- The change to Reviving Barrier gives EVERY class a super competetive healing ULT.
• Reduced Cost of Purge. YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!
• I haven't even mentioned the buffs to Sap Essence and Refreshing path... Can you imagine trash pulls while using these in conjunction with each other? Sap essence + SP pot + Refreshing path... Just do damage on the trash pulls don't even worry about the heals. Sap essence seems like it's even going to be viable on single target now, just because of the buff (haven't tested yet, so not sure).
• The amount of Magika that Nightblade healers could stack is unreal without soft caps... Magika Flood (Siphoning Passive) + The new and Improved Inner Light. Magika flood is going to be even more of an incentive with the new Soul Siphoner Passive. Granted, The soul siphoner passive took a nerf as well as a buff, I'm still excited to test it out with multiple siphoning abilities like funnel health and sap essence.

I'M SO EXCITED!

Vordae

Sharee wrote: »

Borca wrote: »

Sit with same feeling as a magicka/spellpower based NB wondering "did they just rob me of what little free will the morphs gave!?" ....What good is a stamina based ambush? For a magicka based NB ? Looking forward to see this on PTS/live ..Please tell me it aint as bad as this sounds, forced morph choice depended on choice of resource (yes i am aware that i can still use ambush ,but with zero stamina the damage of ambush will be close to non existent)

Use lotus fan! How i understand the change:

Ambush got a general nerf. Instead of boosting next attack by 36%, you get a minor berserk buff for next attack, which is an 8% increase.

So now magicka-based lotus fan is not so far behind. The actual damage of the 2 abilities is the same, only lotus fan deals half of it as a DOT(but the DOT is aoe). Instead of 8% boost to next attack, you apply an AOE snare.

The ambush->soul harvest combo is no longer as powerful as it used to be, even for stamina NB's

Also as a magicka user you can always choose not to morph it to keep it as a burst skill instead of a DoT skill.

DeLindsay

I too am excited as a Healing NB but I think you've read a little too much into the patch notes. On PTS Refreshing Path (I have it maxed) still only does like 300 Health per tick vs the like 70 it does now on Live. Considering we will have 20-30K+ health that 110 is literally nothing. VoB will still be NB's best Ultimate, for Healing or anything else (as a Class Ultimate). I'm really interested in the change to Bone Surge that will have +8% Healing done to allies. Also the Spell Damage change to Resto Staves is super nice for Funnel Health NB Healers. To give you some numbers from PTS right now (I'm in max Spell Damage/Crit gear for FunnelBlade DPS just to show proper values, 1748 Spell Damage and 36.5% Crit, they vastly reduced Crit until you get it in the Champ System):

• Tri-Pot: 8688 Health + 20% Regen for 30.2 sec, 5778 Mag/Stam + 20% Regen for 25 sec.
• Spell-Pot: +20% Spell Damage for 25 sec, 2099 Spell Crit (10%) for 25 sec, 5778 Mag + 20% Regen for 25 sec.
• Funnel Health: 3926 base dmg which equals Heals on 3 Players of roughly 981-1570/tick (about 8000 total, seems low since it's usually superior to RR).
• Rapid Regen: 11040 over 16.5 sec.
• Healing Springs: 1272/s for 3 sec.
• Combat Prayer: 3270.
• Ward Ally: 3818 Shield.
• Refreshing Path: 338/0.5 sec for 11.5 sec (about 11000 total).
• Sap Essence: Heals for 1060 plus 20% more for each enemy hit. I swear I remember ZoS saying the Healing portion is capped to 6 enemies, but I could be wrong. If capped at 6 then it's roughly 3100/Sap.
• VoB: Allies below 50% Health can synergies for a 14301 HoT over 4 sec. It still grants invisibility.
• Bone Surge: The synergy now gives allies 8% additional Healing taken.

There's also an additional 3% Healing done per Siphoning ability slotted so that's a nice little addition too. If you do end up Healing a Vet Dungeon or DSA or something without a Resto staff equipped PLEASE record it and link the video, I'd love to see that, seriously.

omfgitsbatman

DeLindsay wrote: »

I too am excited as a Healing NB but I think you've read a little too much into the patch notes. On PTS Refreshing Path (I have it maxed) still only does like 300 Health per tick vs the like 70 it does now on Live. Considering we will have 20-30K+ health that 110 is literally nothing. VoB will still be NB's best Ultimate, for Healing or anything else (as a Class Ultimate). I'm really interested in the change to Bone Surge that will have +8% Healing done to allies. Also the Spell Damage change to Resto Staves is super nice for Funnel Health NB Healers.

If you do end up Healing a Vet Dungeon or DSA or something without a Resto staff equipped PLEASE record it and link the video, I'd love to see that, seriously.

I am trying to look at everything together. Are those ticks on Refreshing Path after a Sap essence and a Spell power Pot? I was expecting much larger numbers there... But even so, It would not be my main heal by any stretch of the imagination. I would throw it down to add some damage and a small supplemental heal for trash pulls and such. I doubt it would get much use on my bars during boss fights and such.

As far as healing without a resto staff, I was thinking much more limited instances than full dungeons. I was thinking of a couple specific examples like Hel Ra on the right side where another interrupt would be good or VDSA round 3 to help interrupt Nereid or round 7 to interrupt the Mage boss's healing. I would also have a resto staff on my other bar just in case it hit the fan. I could do something similar now but I never liked being on a bar where I didn't have a reliable big heal available without switching weapons. Now, it seems like I will be able to at least throw a couple decent sized heals without a resto staff. Before, all we had was funnel health and Refreshing path (which is pathetic). I was thinking about the bar having Crushing shock, Funnel Health, Energy Orb, Vigor, and Inner Light... But again, I need to test this out to see how effective energy orb and Vigor are.

DeLindsay

Those numbers were based on NB's +60% Crit ceiling (without Shadow) and taking an average of Crit/Non-Crit at a roughly 45% value of Crit rating. I've got to be wrong on Funnel Health because mine on Live right now in Healing gear is superior to RR most times (total Healing done for all ticks) and my healing gear doesn't stack much for Spell Damage. Those numbers are with the equivalent of 174 spell Damage scaled to Live servers so it's a huge Spell Damage number.

omfgitsbatman

I was going to say, for funnel health, if you pop it at the right time, buffed by a spell sym and a spell power pot, you can tick for similar numbers on live right now to your PTS test. That's without the x10 ish scaling. I've seen 700 ticks from funnel health on live more than a few times.

TheBucket

NB really is developed nicely now. Alot of abilities to go around and mix and match

Varicite

Am I reading this right?

"Shadow Barrier: This passive now provides the buffs Major Resolve and Major Spell Resist for 4 seconds after using a Shadow ability, with the duration increased when wearing heavy armor."

After any Shadow Ability, like Veiled Strike?

Did ZOS just basically give melee NBs full-time Armor / Spell Resist buff just for spamming their main attack?

Iggybot

Varicite wrote: »

Am I reading this right?

"Shadow Barrier: This passive now provides the buffs Major Resolve and Major Spell Resist for 4 seconds after using a Shadow ability, with the duration increased when wearing heavy armor."

After any Shadow Ability, like Veiled Strike?

Did ZOS just basically give melee NBs full-time Armor / Spell Resist buff just for spamming their main attack?

From my experience on live, surprise attack is pretty lousy dps. Well see how it compares. Might be good with the flurry nerf. Definitely a good option for pvp.

Kilandros

Varicite wrote: »

Am I reading this right?

"Shadow Barrier: This passive now provides the buffs Major Resolve and Major Spell Resist for 4 seconds after using a Shadow ability, with the duration increased when wearing heavy armor."

After any Shadow Ability, like Veiled Strike?

Did ZOS just basically give melee NBs full-time Armor / Spell Resist buff just for spamming their main attack?

Yup. And with full heavy armor the duration is 11 seconds. My siphoning heavy armor NB is pretty godlike at the moment.

Varicite

Iggybot wrote: »

Varicite wrote: »

Am I reading this right?

"Shadow Barrier: This passive now provides the buffs Major Resolve and Major Spell Resist for 4 seconds after using a Shadow ability, with the duration increased when wearing heavy armor."

After any Shadow Ability, like Veiled Strike?

Did ZOS just basically give melee NBs full-time Armor / Spell Resist buff just for spamming their main attack?

From my experience on live, surprise attack is pretty lousy dps. Well see how it compares. Might be good with the flurry nerf. Definitely a good option for pvp.

Surprise Attack is the highest base damage (non-DoT) ability that NBs have, outside of Ultimates...

I'm pretty sure the only attacks that can hit harder are Cripple over long duration and Assassin's Blade at low health.

It's not great for PvE dps next to some of the other spam-attack contenders, but for NB it is pretty much the best spammable that we have.

It will be nice to have something to use on my 2h NB as a bread-n-butter attack that doesn't have a cast time or hit like a noodle.

If it is also going to give him full-time uptime on Major Armor / Spell Resist buff just for being in combat, this will be a very interesting time indeed.

Varicite

Kilandros wrote: »

Varicite wrote: »

Am I reading this right?

"Shadow Barrier: This passive now provides the buffs Major Resolve and Major Spell Resist for 4 seconds after using a Shadow ability, with the duration increased when wearing heavy armor."

After any Shadow Ability, like Veiled Strike?

Did ZOS just basically give melee NBs full-time Armor / Spell Resist buff just for spamming their main attack?

Yup. And with full heavy armor the duration is 11 seconds. My siphoning heavy armor NB is pretty godlike at the moment.

I feel like this won't possibly go live, lol.

But sounds nice. At least one of my NBs looks like it was incredibly buffed even though another was entirely destroyed.

Going to be some very interesting days as everybody settles into their new builds.

Grim13

Stealth is ***.

I can't say I'm happy with as yet another addition to combating stealth...

And NPCs seem to have a visual range of miles now, lol. I am detected if I can even see a resource or keep now.

Maxlof

templar_von_midgard wrote: »

My setup since launch:
-Near the cap spellpower
-Capped weaponpower
1. Dark Cloak
2. Surprise Attack
3. Killer's Blade
4. Flurry/Whirling Blades
5. Sap Essence
R. Soul Tether
They just ruined my NB with them stupid stam changes.
(I should add that with the Warlock's Set this setup was enough to AoE mobs, kill world bosses, and gank in Cyrodiil)

Yeah i`ve had nearly the same build... but now zenimax ruined our builds and the builds of a big part of the magicka NB`s.

Pls Zenimax put Killer`s Blade, Surprise Attack and Ambush back to magicka!
It`s not fair to ruin magicka NB`s in order to buff stamina NB`s, who are already easy enough to play.

And as others already said, i think it`s also not the best idea to "morph to stamina" because it doesn`t let us decide well what we wanna build, we get kinda forced into a direction, but that`s an other issue.

Darkintellect

DeLindsay wrote: »

VoB is becoming an actual Healing type Ultimate and we gain +3% Healing done as a passive, that's nice too for us NB Healers

I'm currently using...
Health Funnel
Rapid Regen
Power Sap
Healing Ward
Inner Light

With Health Funnel doing 330-440 every 2 seconds (using Ambush) and RR doing a 76% crit (dont know why) at 192 health, I normally don't need any other heals for trials. To give you an idea, I run around with 2200 health.

However, with changes on PTS, Entropy gives me 20% spell power boost and +20% to all damage of next attack with the mages guild passive, add in a Shdowy Disguise hit and Health Funnel was healing me for half my health every tick.

With the siphoning passive as you mentioned, I get 6 or 9% increased healing so that plus the other boosts to our healing, I'm honestly shocked at the level of damage and healing NB Healers do after this patch.

I was tired of Templars being the only real option end game.

DeLindsay

Darkintellect wrote: »

I'm currently using...
Health Funnel
Rapid Regen
Power Sap
Healing Ward
Inner Light

With Health Funnel doing 330-440 every 2 seconds (using Ambush) and RR doing a 76% crit (dont know why) at 192 health, I normally don't need any other heals for trials. To give you an idea, I run around with 2200 health.

However, with changes on PTS, Entropy gives me 20% spell power boost and +20% to all damage of next attack with the mages guild passive, add in a Shdowy Disguise hit and Health Funnel was healing me for half my health every tick.

With the siphoning passive as you mentioned, I get 6 or 9% increased healing so that plus the other boosts to our healing, I'm honestly shocked at the level of damage and healing NB Healers do after this patch.

I was tired of Templars being the only real option end game.

If you run in the right circles Templar never was the only real option for end game Healing. NB's have always been a strong contender for 2nd Healer while DK has had the ability for incredible burst Healing, and Sorcs have always been the best on-the-go Healers for super speed runs. But yeah, using the +20% Spell Dmg effect in the Mage's Guild to use Funnel Health for higher Heals was always a good trick for me to pop some extra large heals down.

killedbyping

Catalyst no longer provide bonus to Potion effectiviness.

Shuichi

Finally figuring out decent stamina setups. It seems dw/2h might be mandatory, although I'd much rather run dw/dw or dw/bow even. Blur seems to finally be worth a skill slot, and the new dw skill seems to help with mitigation.

Looking for the best balance, and I think Arena sets might become prominent for stam blades, possibly even considering 2 pieces of heavy.

Tamanous

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

Shuichi

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

Tamanous

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Likely though fear will be the best in combat choice with the shadow passive change anyway.

Shuichi

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

Tamanous

Tamanous wrote: »

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

lol ya that appears to be the universal fix for every mmo. Haven't seen a vanish type spell work in nearly every single mmo I have ever played.

DDuke

Tamanous wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

lol ya that appears to be the universal fix for every mmo. Haven't seen a vanish type spell work in nearly every single mmo I have ever played.

Worked fine in WoW.

Just saying...

Varicite

DDuke wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

lol ya that appears to be the universal fix for every mmo. Haven't seen a vanish type spell work in nearly every single mmo I have ever played.

Worked fine in WoW.

Just saying...

Vanish wasn't fixed until the middle of WotLK, so it was in a broken state for over 4 years before Blizzard finally fixed it.

They fixed it by making the Rogue immune to all sources of damage for about 0.5 seconds after using Vanish, thus preventing stray effects from breaking the Vanish effect as it was being triggered.

ZOS, you should maybe take a note of that. It seems like the simplest and most elegant solution to the problem.

DeLindsay

DDuke wrote: »

Worked fine in WoW.

Just saying...

Worked fine in Rift also.

DDuke

Varicite wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

lol ya that appears to be the universal fix for every mmo. Haven't seen a vanish type spell work in nearly every single mmo I have ever played.

Worked fine in WoW.

Just saying...

Vanish wasn't fixed until the middle of WotLK, so it was in a broken state for over 4 years before Blizzard finally fixed it.

They fixed it by making the Rogue immune to all sources of damage for about 0.5 seconds after using Vanish, thus preventing stray effects from breaking the Vanish effect as it was being triggered.

ZOS, you should maybe take a note of that. It seems like the simplest and most elegant solution to the problem.

Well, it had its problems... but those were nowhere near the level of stealth problems in this game.

I didn't know that's how they fixed it. Interesting...

Tamanous

DDuke wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

So does Shadow Cloak actually work in 1.6?

There seem to be some bugs still, BUT the changes to stealth actually give Shadow Cloak a place on the battlefield. Stealth is now LoS based, and it's nearly impossible to stealth if someone is watching you, nbs now more than ever can be known as the stealthy class.

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

Shuichi wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

I've always found use for it when out of combat as simply an improved stealth. In combat though it failed hard too often. Love for that to change.

I've noticed the same, most templar skills leave me visible for everyone. I believe purge+dark cloak need to be used in unison to prevent breaking, but it shouldn't need to be that way.

lol ya that appears to be the universal fix for every mmo. Haven't seen a vanish type spell work in nearly every single mmo I have ever played.

Worked fine in WoW.

Just saying...

It DIDN'T work in wow until they provided a similar fix.

It DIDN'T work in Swtor until they provided a similar fix.

Oh did you just say or type it or did I just read your mind? That saying is dumb.

Xsorus

Vanish also has a decent cooldown as well...So please remember that before posting about wanting Vanish in this game.

Stumkrav

Assassins Will needs an improve.

Sorry but 8 hits it's awfull. Why? You never will get off that many light attacks in PVP. It will be better if they put 40 seconds instead of 20 secs and lower those 8 atacks to 6. 6 will be better yep.