surprise attack: this is why pvp is overrun by faceroll stamblades (multiple images)

BalticBlues

Lutallo wrote: »

any half decent Stamina nightblade will easily slaughter me. Before the update, I used to use heavy armour (4 piece elf bane, 2 piece engine guardian, 2 piece adroitness, 2 piece cyrodiil's light) and I only ever had a problem with Magicka Sorcs. But post-update, my recovery is nerfed horribly and heavy armour is unusable in pvp (no good sets, all are for tanking) so i'm too squishy to deal with Stam-builds. Goodbye Magicka Templar!

Exactly. Even in full armor, as a Templar you can DIE WITHIN SECONDS to surprise attacks from NBs in top gear. They hit like a truck, and full armor seems made of paper. I could solo most of Craglorn, but IC is NB nightmare. Worst unbalanced DLC I have ever bought. Whoever is responsible for the horrible balance and design of the IC DLC IMHO should look for another job.

contact.opiumb16_ESO

Dyride wrote: »

Lutallo wrote: »

I main a Templar and I can't kill good Stam Nightblades, so i've stopped playing PvP because 9/10 people are Stam Nightblades lol.
They out-dps my healing, plus one Soul Harvest and i'm completely done.
I can't out-dps their attacks with my jabs, most of them are too maneuverable anyway.
In my squishy light armour I can't defend against their physical attacks, plus my regen/cost is too low in heavy armour.
I don't have enough stamina to block or dodge roll.
Magicka Templars have no AoE CC or even a good single target CC. Spears Shards take too long to hit the ground and Javelin is a stamina morph.
If this was any other game there would be a valid counter, but I can't find a counter for Magick Templar vs Stam NB.

Are NB's OP or are Templars garbage? Maybe a bit of both.

Nightblade Ambushes+Surprise Attacks (SA) you cause NBs are predictable. You are stunned. You CC break.

Nightblade SAs you and attempts to throw Soul Harvest at you cause NBs are predictable. You Purifying Ritual animation cancelled with roll dodge of Soul Harvest.
You Breath of Life heal inside your Purifying Ritual as NB Ambushes you cause they are predictable.

You Toppling Charge CC them, block cancel into Puncturing Sweep. They CC break as you hit them with Puncturing Sweep.

They Surprise Attack you cause NBs are predictable. You hit them with Reflective Light. They Cloak to purge Dot cause NBs are predictable.

You throw Blazing Spear to reveal them since NBs are predictable. They try to cloak again cause they are bad or try to regain offence. You Dark Flare them. Or just continue Puncturing Sweep spam since they are snared. Your CC immunity wear off. They pop potion and attempt to regain initiative. They are heal debuffed. They die.

Purifying Ritual, Breath of Life,Toppling Charge. Puncturing Sweep. Keep them snared. Keep them dead.

Any video of this awesome fight description ? Because usually in PVP, with my templar it's more like : i get ganked by 3 nb, spamming tp strike/ult/SA, i die in about 10-30s after spamming my heals+BS+jabs (that strikes in the air 9/10 times, because you know, they are real player), they vanish.

When i play my nb, it's more like : snipe+camo while invis, tp strike/SA/tp strike/SA/ult, ennemy dead, i vanish.

xylena

Omg these scrubs telling Xylena to L2P. Who else needs to learn? cinn? Ezareth? Sypher? .... Lol

Look at the Cyrodiil population to get an indication of what is overpowered and what is not.

yeah i love how people keep bringing up comparisons to 6k whips and ransacks but uh... where are they? certainly not in open world cyro or IC... i can't remember the last time i died to something (outside zergs) that wasn't surprise attack and/or WB and/or camo hunter

Hammy01

Reading through this and the first thing that pops into my head.... "wow.. here I am playing on a console just wishing I could actually see my healing/damage numbers.. not that it matters because I am sure my magicka templar hits like a wet noodle right now ".

Anyways back on topic..
I always chuckle when I get jumped/destroyed by a NB while running from keep to keep and I look at the death recap to see "Surprise attack, Surprise attack, Surprise attack, Surprise attack, dead", yeah I was surprised alright.. seeing as you were the 6th NB to get me tonight spamming the same thing !!
The thing is it happens so fast most times that there is not much time to react and even less if you were dismounted as they can often get in a couple of attacks before you are even back on your feet. However I am not calling for nerfs as this is mostly coming from V16 NB's so maybe their gear/CP far outclass what I have and I will just have to deal with it for the time being!

By the way.. I wonder if other NB's complain about this as well? Or is it not a problem for you as you can just cloak and run away?

Hammy01

Alucardo wrote: »

Junglejim82 wrote: »

I've been around the block more than a few times with online gaming , I've seen the destiny boards and the incessant whining and general toxicity , I'm a survivor of dcuos great gadgets vs mental war in the summer of 2012 then dcuos ani- cancelling pros vs casual I can't do it crew skirmish of spring 14' . Was immersed in cod 4 and mw2s camper noobtubers vs SMG rushers way back when but honestly these forums top the lot. I've never seen so many Nerf cries in such a short period of time with any game. This game is doomed unfortunately

This, my friend, is the sad truth. I've also mentioned it in several other threads - people need to stop crying nerf just because they got rekt. We're stuck in an infinite cycle of nerfs, retracts, over excessive buffs, lazy implemented sets, sad classes (DK) because of you (not you Junglejim).
Basically 3 things kill me every time: 14k radiant destructions, 50 frags to the face, and insta-kill disintegration. I have not made a post about any of these things, because I can kill a templar or sorc no problems. Just because I see their skills in my death recap with high numbers doesn't mean the spell is OP, not at all.
Generally when people spam a skill it's because they outnumber you and they can get away with it. Nerf zergs instead, nerf being outnumbered, not the bloody abilities they are using ffs. Stop breaking our game.

To be fair.. Radiant Destruction is an Execute skill that is supposed to do high damage to people under 25% so if you were seeing 14k hits then you were probably on your way to deaths door anyway!

nordickittyhawk

xylena wrote: »

and to be clear, the only changes i would like to see to the NB class are

(1) reduce the damage on surprise attack

(2) consistent behavior for healing while cloaked - right now you can heal with momentum/vigor while invisible, but using magicka nb class heals or resto abilites will always pull you out of cloak, which is a massive advantage for stamblade over magblade

NO NO NO NO.... this is pvp... this problem if you do that you ruin PVE for NBs and trust pve is pretty balanced right now....

rfennell_ESO

The humor to this thread is most to all of the "hardcore" pvpers (read as play all day and into the night) are magicka nightblades now.

So I guess the figuring is give the stamblade up as the sacrifice so they can continue spamming lotus fan, siphon essence or spamming funnel health with their fwummp fwuump fwummp macros.

Magicka nightblades are not the weak hitting (ignore us we're weak) unsurviveable gimps they keep claiming.

They are likely stronger, and with high CP undoubtedly stronger.

Stamblades can and do run out of stamina, they have weaknesses. Magicka nightblades with average to above average CP do not run out of magicka and only die when they make mistakes.

I routinely see magicka nightblades harassing groups of players and killing them. So when the line is "they hit like wet noodles" and you know it's totally ridiculous, you will be insulted and told to shut up. But basic math suggest that while you might have points in magic damage reduction, it's pretty unlikely you have high spell resist due to the nirnhorned nerf into oblivion and it's not like the magicka versions of nightblade abilities hit weakly, they hit for about exactly the same as the stamina versions.

The problem here is advocating for magicka nightblades because that's what your buddies play versus stamina nightblades (which isn't quite as CP dependent as magicka) is pretty deceitful.

xylena

NO NO NO NO.... this is pvp... this problem if you do that you ruin PVE for NBs and trust pve is pretty balanced right now....

i'm all for buffing moves like killers blade, power extraction, and incapacitating strike for stamblades... for example, simply converting them to physical damage would right there make stamblade play 90000000% more varied

xylena

But basic math suggest that while you might have points in magic damage reduction, it's pretty unlikely you have high spell resist due to the nirnhorned nerf into oblivion and it's not like the magicka versions of nightblade abilities hit weakly, they hit for about exactly the same as the stamina versions.

the screenshots come from several different v16 characters all with an average of 15k-20k phys and spell resist, and never have i had any issue out-dps'ing magicka nbs... never seen concealed hit consistently for nearly as much as the 6-7k your average stamblade ganker gets on SA, maybe like 4k on average (which is where spammable direct dmg should be in pvp)... never seen screenshots of high dmg concealed spam either

on my own magblade, i can hit 6-8k concealed crits with full buffs/debuffs from mark target, death stroke, and major sorcery going... but normally it's in the 4-5k range... stamblades that simply stack wep dmg will hit for 5-7k on their SA spam at v16 without doing anything other than facerolling their 1 button

dday3six

xylena wrote: »

But basic math suggest that while you might have points in magic damage reduction, it's pretty unlikely you have high spell resist due to the nirnhorned nerf into oblivion and it's not like the magicka versions of nightblade abilities hit weakly, they hit for about exactly the same as the stamina versions.

the screenshots come from several different v16 characters all with an average of 15k-20k phys and spell resist, and never have i had any issue out-dps'ing magicka nbs... never seen concealed hit consistently for nearly as much as the 6-7k your average stamblade ganker gets on SA, maybe like 4k on average (which is where spammable direct dmg should be in pvp)... never seen screenshots of high dmg concealed spam either

on my own magblade, i can hit 6-8k concealed crits with full buffs/debuffs from mark target, death stroke, and major sorcery going... but normally it's in the 4-5k range... stamblades that simply stack wep dmg will hit for 5-7k on their SA spam at v16 without doing anything other than facerolling their 1 button

You're missing the forest for the trees. That's a symptom of being able to stack more damage on stamina vs. magicka. The real culprit is the difference in damage stacking. Let's just ignore the fact that Concealed Weapon also trades flat base damage for utility and look at the real issue. Stamina can stack more damage than magicka.

While this is not as glaring a problem for magicka Sorcs and NB who are better tooled to fight at range and weave in and out of melee proximity. DK and to a lesser extent Templar suffer because they are typically in melee range, but don't have comparable melee damage in PVP. Nerfing Surprise Attack will not fix that problem, as it's only addressing the side effects rather than the root cause.

Personally this whole nerf Surprise Attack jive doesn't even seem like it's related to actual class balance in the first place. It's not grounded in logic and ignores the actual issues. It seems more like a vendetta against players that you feel are unjustly rewarded for overly simplistic play.

rfennell_ESO

xylena wrote: »

But basic math suggest that while you might have points in magic damage reduction, it's pretty unlikely you have high spell resist due to the nirnhorned nerf into oblivion and it's not like the magicka versions of nightblade abilities hit weakly, they hit for about exactly the same as the stamina versions.

the screenshots come from several different v16 characters all with an average of 15k-20k phys and spell resist, and never have i had any issue out-dps'ing magicka nbs... never seen concealed hit consistently for nearly as much as the 6-7k your average stamblade ganker gets on SA, maybe like 4k on average (which is where spammable direct dmg should be in pvp)... never seen screenshots of high dmg concealed spam either

on my own magblade, i can hit 6-8k concealed crits with full buffs/debuffs from mark target, death stroke, and major sorcery going... but normally it's in the 4-5k range... stamblades that simply stack wep dmg will hit for 5-7k on their SA spam at v16 without doing anything other than facerolling their 1 button

That's an argument more akin to weapdmg vs spelldmg issues. Also it seems much easier to get weapcrit higher than spellcrit.

Yes there are stamblade's building along lines of taking someone out with little to no sustain. They aren't doing much 1vXing though and their surviveability is lacking. Max damage stamblade builds are giving up a lot to be the hard hitters they are.

Magblade's might not stack up to a weapon damage stacking stamblade in big numbers in the combat log, but they are by no means weak when you consider they easily can be built for ae damage as well (which is lacking for stambaldes, unless you pick dw for steel tornado which cures all ails in that department merely by being stupidly OP).

I detailed the stamblade thing as thoroughly as I could earlier in the thread. There are certainly issues when it comes to their ability to single target gank, but it's not much different than high damage sorcs (mag or stam) or ganker bow builds that take people out while they are fighting and before the target can even react. Some of the stamplar "biting jabs or go home" build with stacked weapon damage are higher burst than a stamblade is and there's no finesse to it (they aren't getting away from anyone of course).

Ever been hit by a weapondmg stacking WB spammer? It's worse, by far than a stamblade using Surpise attacks and anyone can do it.

xylena

Ever been hit by a weapondmg stacking WB spammer? It's worse, by far than a stamblade using Surpise attacks and anyone can do it.

sure, WB has the same issue, but there are far fewer players that can consistently land them

rfennell_ESO

xylena wrote: »

Ever been hit by a weapondmg stacking WB spammer? It's worse, by far than a stamblade using Surpise attacks and anyone can do it.

sure, WB has the same issue, but there are far fewer players that can consistently land them

No doubt, but Surprise attack certainly requires you to actually be in melee range.

Players running from you are usually out of range for Surprise attack, a lot of times even if you are right behind them.

Where I find Surprise Attack to be superior is when you are moving around someone and trying to stay out of their attacks, but that's sort of the whole point to picking it over wrecking blow.

xylena

i respec'd to stamblade, used the same build as my stam dk, and i'm 1v2'ing a geared sorc + cc spamming dk coordinating together to gank... for like 15 minutes... it's crazy how much stronger i can play as stamblade than magblade (or other magic classes not counting sorcs, shield bubble mechanics are their own disaster)

Makkir

There is something they're doing now that doesn't allow me to break free even with a full stamina bar. Ticks me off every time.

k2blader

xylena wrote: »

i respec'd to stamblade, used the same build as my stam dk, and i'm 1v2'ing a geared sorc + cc spamming dk coordinating together to gank... for like 15 minutes... it's crazy how much stronger i can play as stamblade than magblade (or other magic classes not counting sorcs, shield bubble mechanics are their own disaster)

I'd actually like to see a current vid of a magicka sorc 1vX'ing a, let's say, geared NB + CC spamming DK + whatever else. All VR16s please.

Re. the "shield bubbles" the most relevant (?) vid I've seen so far features a very high-CP'd magicka sorc only casting Healing Ward and Hardened Ward while a templar spams biting jabs or somesuch on it. Other than the fact that very high-CP'd magicka sorcs (as opposed to all magicka sorcs) can still produce good-sized shields, not sure what the point was.

Vangy

Ganj wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Well to be honest this looks pretty normal to me. He might add some light attacks too but still it doesnt look any odd. There are people only spamming steel tornados, crystal fragments or wrecking blows like crazy. At least this dude used 3 different abilities and you couldnt dodge or block none of them clearly.

LOOOOOL. You get an awesome!

xylena

Well to be honest this looks pretty normal to me. He might add some light attacks too but still it doesnt look any odd. There are people only spamming steel tornados, crystal fragments or wrecking blows like crazy. At least this dude used 3 different abilities and you couldnt dodge or block none of them clearly.

it's "normal" for this patch... block and dodge rapidly increase in relative cost (especially while 1vX against some combination of multiple players and mobs, as most of these were taken), whereas spamming your direct dps stays cheap - this means the most efficient use of your stamina is to spam your direct dmg move at a higher dps than your opponent (which is easy if you use SA or WB, not so much outside of those two abilities)

assuming roughly equal skill and build quality, trying to block/dodge will always put you at a big resource efficiency disadvantage next to an attack spammer (sorc shield stacks are usually stronger than attack spam, but non-sorc magic builds are at a massive disadvantage next to stam builds using SA and/or WB)

Vangy

xylena wrote: »

Well to be honest this looks pretty normal to me. He might add some light attacks too but still it doesnt look any odd. There are people only spamming steel tornados, crystal fragments or wrecking blows like crazy. At least this dude used 3 different abilities and you couldnt dodge or block none of them clearly.

it's "normal" for this patch... block and dodge rapidly increase in relative cost (especially while 1vX against some combination of multiple players and mobs, as most of these were taken), whereas spamming your direct dps stays cheap - this means the most efficient use of your stamina is to spam your direct dmg move at a higher dps than your opponent (which is easy if you use SA or WB, not so much outside of those two abilities)

assuming roughly equal skill and build quality, trying to block/dodge will always put you at a big resource efficiency disadvantage next to an attack spammer (sorc shield stacks are usually stronger than attack spam, but non-sorc magic builds are at a massive disadvantage next to stam builds using SA and/or WB)

You want to take a guess at why all stam builds either use WB or SA? Because here's a list of viable dps spam skills that stam builds have access to.

Stam Sorc : WB
Stam DK: WB, Ransack/other morph (if ur SnB)
Stam NB: SA/WB
Stam Templar: Jabs.

See the problem? I would gladly give up WB/SA/Jabs if they gave us more stam morphs that are actually viable and competitive. Until then hands off my WB/SA/Jabs please. So the next time you think of whining about stam builds spamming a certain skil that hits a little harder than magicka builds, do realise that particular skill is likely all they have at their disposal for dmg.

xylena

@Vangy i agree with you 100% that stam builds need more direct dps options across the board, and i don't blame players for spamming SA/WB... i recognize that this is the end result of a larger mechanical problem and that players are gonna do what's most effective (e.g. spamming, zerging, etc)

basically i'm just sad that build diversity seems to be getting worse... i don't miss the instakills of 1.6 but at least any class could pull it off, now if you wanna play solo or small scale and stay competitive, you're basically stambalde or magicka sorc, or you're gimped

Vangy

@xylena : Tell me about it. Pretty much every stam class is spamming 1 ability for dps. Give us more morphs (ones that work pls. Not stupid rapid strikes).

xylena

WTB rapid strikes rework so that it's more like biting jabs

xylena

also in a perfect world, surprise attack wouldn't be nerfed, but rather every class/build would have access to direct dps of a similar caliber, and we'd have better options for building physical resistance

Vangy

True that. This game's balance is so broken I dont know why I even bother anymore. Too much of a skyrim fan to quit. But my patience is being tested tho.

Wolfahm

DK's in this cry fest have never seen the DK bow burst build doing heavy attacks for 13k to17k+6k silver shard+18k dragon leaps.. its the new fad..

Sorc's you have 0 right to cry and you can shield past this damage with out even using your other defensive skills then burst down most stam blades with out thinking..

A ton of skills in this game can be spammed for the same or more damage from all classes in this game.. these forums are nothing more then a monthly witch hunt after a singled out class tell that gets old and they move on to the next thing that they died to in pvp that night. ZOS is more or less not even to blame at this point in time .... they Listened to the bitching moaning and crying of the loudest, worst, and most butt hurt of "pvpers" that spend more time on forums crying then they do PvPing.

Most of you scrubs would still cry if the game was nerfed down to no items and 1 weapon with only light attacks.. you would still find something to cry about.

Cathexis

As I've seen other people state before, and what I really agree with when it comes to damage, is that the greater problem is the removal of softcaps, which has allowed for excessive damage stacking and regen stacking.

Wolfahm

Cathexis wrote: »

As I've seen other people state before, and what I really agree with when it comes to damage, is that the greater problem is the removal of softcaps, which has allowed for excessive damage stacking and regen stacking.

the broken skills and exploits aside, back then it was a lot better balanced state wise.

xylena

yep, softcaps enabled balanced builds to remain competitive with minmaxed builds... but without the caps, minmaxed builds that seem like they should be glass cannons end up with OP survival/sustain too

Cathexis

xylena wrote: »

yep, softcaps enabled balanced builds to remain competitive with minmaxed builds... but without the caps, minmaxed builds that seem like they should be glass cannons end up with OP survival/sustain too

Wolfahm wrote: »

Cathexis wrote: »

As I've seen other people state before, and what I really agree with when it comes to damage, is that the greater problem is the removal of softcaps, which has allowed for excessive damage stacking and regen stacking.

the broken skills and exploits aside, back then it was a lot better balanced state wise.

Softcaps also prevented any one race from being overpowered because they were subtractive rather than additive in nature; racials allowed you to put less into one thing to cap it out which meant you could put more into something else. With the caps removed, not only did sustain become uncontrolled, but it also made regen based racials arguably more powerful than all other racials.

pogopwns_ESO

stam nb is not OP at all. we hit really hard, but surprise attack doesnt heal us while we're spamming it like puncturing sweeps, or even funnel health from a magicka nb. stam nb has the LEAST viable self heals in the game. every other class has sufficient self heals. dragon blood, crit surge, breath of life all are still sufficient heals as a stam build. nb heals are most based on dmg output, and stam builds do not support that as much (funnel health is the best one, magicka nb can spam it and stay at 100% hp for days). to be clear, crit surge is also based on dmg output, but the dmg can come from weapon power, yielding more healing, while nb funnel cannot support stam weap dps for its return heals. Also, nb is the only class in the game that doesnt have an absorb. DK = obsidan shield, Temp = sun shield, Sorc = hardened ward. NB has NO physical damage absorb shield as a class. so what are we left with? rally or vigor. two short heal over time abilities, 1 requiring you use a certain weapon. so you think stam NB should have a damage reduction AND have the least abilities to keep them alive? Dont be daft. L2P against stam nb. My v12 templar can negate every one of those surprise attacks by casting blazing shield every hit. or better yet, spam jabs and keep myself healed through it while doing dmg. my DK can literally sit with block held, apply a few dots, or lash spam to beat stam nbs. shield and dragon blood helps make sure I can do that for days, but luckily stam nb doesnt heal himself well, and if its dmg for dmg for long enough he will lose. And finally, my magicka sorc. do I need to explain? shield, curse, frag, repeat. resto bubble to heal if needed. stam nb wont even get me down to 75% hp, since he has to get through 10k or more of absorb 1st.