[Class Rep] Nightblade Feedback Thread

SHOW

Sorry Owl, was just being a bit facetious there.

I too like the buff, and force use it in PvE to try to help the group (and fancy up my bow procs

but as VoidCommander noted, is very clunky, even in PvE (see #2 below)

and in PvP plus lag... it is just gross.

by the time the wind up animation finishes, the target has already los, so it just cancels itself and ur just sitting there... gap closer, you had 1 job!! lol

With NB, even the gap closer has a cast time WTF...

VoidCommander wrote: »

The class’s best group utility of minor vulnerability is locked behind a skill that can’t be efficiently used in pve because it
1: places the ranged magblade too close to enemies
2: takes over 2 seconds to fully cast, making it eat two abilities casts every two seconds instead of one.
3: The ability itself doesn’t do enough damage nor applies the debuff for a long enough duration to make it worth running.

OWLTHEMAD

With NB, even the gap closer has a cast time WTF...

Yeah that part is a bit disgusting and the times where the ability connects but you dont go anywhere, or as you said when you cast the ability get the animation but nothing happens at all.

Seems like pretty much almost everything a magblade does has some kind of delay built in. Cripple? Travel time. Can be out run for awhile. Swallow soul? Not as noticeable but; travel time. Bow proc? Travel time. Lotus fan? Cast time. Soul harvest? Cast time. Soul tether? Cast time.

I get having a cast time on soul tether. Its an aoe heal damage and stun.

I understand having a cast time on soul harvest. I understand having a travel time on bow proc. I dont agree with either, but i understand why they were both placed there. What i dont understand is why bow proc has a travel time at point blank range. I dont understand why both soul harvest and the bow proc have a delay built in. One or the other should have been enough.

Honestly they could fix the whole class with minor bug fixes and tweaks without seriously buffing anything. Thats what gets me.

SHOW

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

With NB, even the gap closer has a cast time WTF...

Yeah that part is a bit disgusting and the times where the ability connects but you dont go anywhere, or as you said when you cast the ability get the animation but nothing happens at all.

Seems like pretty much almost everything a magblade does has some kind of delay built in. Cripple? Travel time. Can be out run for awhile. Swallow soul? Not as noticeable but; travel time. Bow proc? Travel time. Lotus fan? Cast time. Soul harvest? Cast time. Soul tether? Cast time.

I get having a cast time on soul tether. Its an aoe heal damage and stun.

I understand having a cast time on soul harvest. I understand having a travel time on bow proc. I dont agree with either, but i understand why they were both placed there. What i dont understand is why bow proc has a travel time at point blank range. I dont understand why both soul harvest and the bow proc have a delay built in. One or the other should have been enough.

Honestly they could fix the whole class with minor bug fixes and tweaks without seriously buffing anything. Thats what gets me.

In addition to the cast times and travel times:

Don't forget about the ridiculous audio cue on magblade's assassins will... easiest thing to dodge even blindfolded.

Why is it so preposterously loud?

There is no deafining cue on a procd frag coming at me?

Nor a loud windup sound on incoming sub assault or blast bones etc etc etc...

(Don't nerf, instead buff to equal, of course)

way too much dev effort exerted to hinder an easily dodgeable single target toolkit (which has a much harder proc condition)!

...but I agree, a few small quality of life changes could ease our pain without having to reinvent the entire class.

JayKwellen

SHOW wrote: »

In addition to the cast times and travel times:

Don't forget about the ridiculous audio cue on magblade's assassins will... easiest thing to dodge even blindfolded.

Why is it so preposterously loud?

One of my favorite things to do when I'm just kind of hanging out on the periphery of a fight is to find someone who is adequately squishy and otherwise distracted, then throw a full heavy attack/merciless combo at them. On the (very) rare occasion that it actually lands it's always fun to see their health bar get deleted.

However the bow is literally so damn loud and moves so slow that I've had players who weren't even facing me and fighting someone else still hear the bow while decently far away and dodge out of its path without even seeing me/it. Not that I honestly expect to land it on a decently aware player without a hard CC first anyway (and even then they still CC break and dodge before it lands most of the time anyway), but still, it's absurd that a slow-moving, telegraphed, single-target, slow to build, not usable on demand ability is also louder, and more easily mitigatable, than most ultimates.

I'm totally ngl though, when you're in a tough fight with someone and manage to finish them with the bow, there's something just so incredibly satisfying hearing that deep "thoom" sound and seeing them drop, knowing that was the last thing they heard before going down. It's totally awesome in that regard. From an actual gameplay perspective though, yeah, it's not as awesome.

OWLTHEMAD

JayKwellen wrote: »

SHOW wrote: »

In addition to the cast times and travel times:

Don't forget about the ridiculous audio cue on magblade's assassins will... easiest thing to dodge even blindfolded.

Why is it so preposterously loud?

One of my favorite things to do when I'm just kind of hanging out on the periphery of a fight is to find someone who is adequately squishy and otherwise distracted, then throw a full heavy attack/merciless combo at them. On the (very) rare occasion that it actually lands it's always fun to see their health bar get deleted.

However the bow is literally so damn loud and moves so slow that I've had players who weren't even facing me and fighting someone else still hear the bow while decently far away and dodge out of its path without even seeing me/it. Not that I honestly expect to land it on a decently aware player without a hard CC first anyway (and even then they still CC break and dodge before it lands most of the time anyway), but still, it's absurd that a slow-moving, telegraphed, single-target, slow to build, not usable on demand ability is also louder, and more easily mitigatable, than most ultimates.

I'm totally ngl though, when you're in a tough fight with someone and manage to finish them with the bow, there's something just so incredibly satisfying hearing that deep "thoom" sound and seeing them drop, knowing that was the last thing they heard before going down. It's totally awesome in that regard. From an actual gameplay perspective though, yeah, it's not as awesome.

I wasnt aware others could hear the bow go off. Ive never heard it used against me before. Weird. You learn something new everyday.

Guess thats why ill be behind someone catching them unaware and they somehow still dodge it.

If this is really a thing its absurd. Its already highly telegraphed now they get an audio cue?!

Crow_IX

Stamina nightblade issues

1: Cloak doesn't work. (shadowy disguise)
-So this is probably mainly due too desync issues but aside from that here are the problems with it. A lot of the times non aoe skills still land even though you're clearly cloaked, because they land while you are cloaked, it will take you out of cloak.

2: Lack of group utility
-The class is basically useless in battlegrounds. While most nightblades are your typical snipe and cloak spammers and can potentially yoink kills for what ever reason, and get away with a decent amount of kills in a game, these are usually low mmr matches. In higher mmr with more intense pvp going on, more grouping, more support, the nightblade is very much useless.

those aren't really my top 2, i have tons of issues with the class. but seeing as you asked for 2 only i feel like those two would be the best over all. The only reason cloak is really an issue is cause it is literally the only thing NB has.

JayKwellen

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

I wasnt aware others could hear the bow go off. Ive never heard it used against me before. Weird. You learn something new everyday.

Guess thats why ill be behind someone catching them unaware and they somehow still dodge it.

If this is really a thing its absurd. Its already highly telegraphed now they get an audio cue?!

Yep. I believe it's only the mag version too, as the stamina one is much more quiet. The stam version makes sense at least no? That the silent, shadowy, assassin class should have silent, shadowy, assassination abilities? Instead we get the equivalent of banging pots together announcing to everyone in earshot that "The magblade is here! And he just used his most powerful ability so you better dodge roll!"

It's almost a kick in the nuts that the magblade, which is already in a generally poor spot compared to stamblades (who also aren't doing the greatest right now either), has this additional issue as well. For literally no reason, as our stamina cousins don't have to deal with this particular nonsense.

As for not hearing it often, maybe you just don't see many non-bomber magblades? I know that it's so rare for me to encounter one these days, I literally think to myself, "oh hey look, it's another magblade!" Sometimes after fighting one I'll even whisper them just to give them a few words of encouragement (if I win), or to give them props in general (if they win). I encounter so many "generally good" stamdens, and stamcros, and stamDK's, and magsorcs that they all fade away except for the truly exceptional ones. But good non-bomber magblades? They're so rare I literally recognize every single one by name.

OWLTHEMAD

No, i go against nightblades enough. But now that i think about it, i cant say ive seen any of the good ones use the bow proc on me, and the bad ones usually are snipers or sneak away or die before getting opportunity.

Which i guess means the good players no longer rely on it or are more likely to save it for a perfect moment which never comes.

I guess that alone says a lot about the skill.

JayKwellen

Crow_IX wrote: »

2: Lack of group utility
-The class is basically useless in battlegrounds. While most nightblades are your typical snipe and cloak spammers and can potentially yoink kills for what ever reason, and get away with a decent amount of kills in a game, these are usually low mmr matches. In higher mmr with more intense pvp going on, more grouping, more support, the nightblade is very much useless.

@Crow_IX ain't that the truth. Once I started playing in higher MMR battlegrounds this became extremely obvious. At higher levels people have much better builds, they know how to keep their buffs up and their HoT's rolling, they know how to take advantage of their group mates healing and synergies, they know how to move and interrupt and block and roll, and so on.

It makes any kind of ganking an impossibility. Unless you come across another ganker, or are the glassiest glass cannon ever built, chances are you're not quickly ganking anybody. Even the squishier targets will be tougher to kill, and if the team has a good healer and/or cross-healing, forget about it.

So what do I, as a NB, offer then?

Picking off stragglers? Maybe. Literally anybody could do that though. Bursting down targets? Maybe. Hard to do when so many BG's turn into stamina-brawling mosh pits, and you're trying to focus one dude weaving in and out of 11 others -- and good luck wandering into that pit to get your incap/soul harvest off. AoEs? Trying to get a tether off in a group of people is extremely difficult, and other than that what do I have? Am I gonna spam sap essence and twisting path or something? What about buffs then? Well, tether has a synergy, which, I don't know about anyone else but I swear to god it's almost always impossible for me to even see it, let alone activate it. Same for consuming darkness. I can give everyone minor brutality though. That's cool I guess.

As a general rule, I'd rather have any other class on my team, the sole exception being a stamblade.

For me personally, when I go into BG's these days I usually completely alter my build. I get rid of every close quarters ability I have, throw on a mutagen, purge, another heal and a resto ult, and just try to position myself somewhere in the back so I can DPS away while dropping heals. Even when I do this I feel kind of crappy, because I'm seriously gimping myself by trying to 50/50 heals/damage, all the while other classes can damage better than me, heal better than me, and buff their groups better than me. I'm not doing anything another class couldn't be doing better, so really, why am I even here? What do I add to the group?

MindOfTheSwarm

As much as we all agree that NB's have lost their identity, I still do pretty well in PvP. I run Gryphon's Set with Acrobat, and push for mobility and slippery gameplay. We shall see how things go with the nerf to healing as that was a major pain point for many.

Deathlord92

JayKwellen wrote: »

SHOW wrote: »

In addition to the cast times and travel times:

Don't forget about the ridiculous audio cue on magblade's assassins will... easiest thing to dodge even blindfolded.

Why is it so preposterously loud?

One of my favorite things to do when I'm just kind of hanging out on the periphery of a fight is to find someone who is adequately squishy and otherwise distracted, then throw a full heavy attack/merciless combo at them. On the (very) rare occasion that it actually lands it's always fun to see their health bar get deleted.

However the bow is literally so damn loud and moves so slow that I've had players who weren't even facing me and fighting someone else still hear the bow while decently far away and dodge out of its path without even seeing me/it. Not that I honestly expect to land it on a decently aware player without a hard CC first anyway (and even then they still CC break and dodge before it lands most of the time anyway), but still, it's absurd that a slow-moving, telegraphed, single-target, slow to build, not usable on demand ability is also louder, and more easily mitigatable, than most ultimates.

I'm totally ngl though, when you're in a tough fight with someone and manage to finish them with the bow, there's something just so incredibly satisfying hearing that deep "thoom" sound and seeing them drop, knowing that was the last thing they heard before going down. It's totally awesome in that regard. From an actual gameplay perspective though, yeah, it's not as awesome.

Hahaha your right it’s a very nice feeling when you execute someone with the bow for me it’s relentless focus I always start it off with a heavy attack to 😂

OWLTHEMAD

JayKwellen wrote: »

Crow_IX wrote: »

2: Lack of group utility
-The class is basically useless in battlegrounds. While most nightblades are your typical snipe and cloak spammers and can potentially yoink kills for what ever reason, and get away with a decent amount of kills in a game, these are usually low mmr matches. In higher mmr with more intense pvp going on, more grouping, more support, the nightblade is very much useless.

@Crow_IX ain't that the truth. Once I started playing in higher MMR battlegrounds this became extremely obvious. At higher levels people have much better builds, they know how to keep their buffs up and their HoT's rolling, they know how to take advantage of their group mates healing and synergies, they know how to move and interrupt and block and roll, and so on.

It makes any kind of ganking an impossibility. Unless you come across another ganker, or are the glassiest glass cannon ever built, chances are you're not quickly ganking anybody. Even the squishier targets will be tougher to kill, and if the team has a good healer and/or cross-healing, forget about it.

So what do I, as a NB, offer then?

Picking off stragglers? Maybe. Literally anybody could do that though. Bursting down targets? Maybe. Hard to do when so many BG's turn into stamina-brawling mosh pits, and you're trying to focus one dude weaving in and out of 11 others -- and good luck wandering into that pit to get your incap/soul harvest off. AoEs? Trying to get a tether off in a group of people is extremely difficult, and other than that what do I have? Am I gonna spam sap essence and twisting path or something? What about buffs then? Well, tether has a synergy, which, I don't know about anyone else but I swear to god it's almost always impossible for me to even see it, let alone activate it. Same for consuming darkness. I can give everyone minor brutality though. That's cool I guess.

As a general rule, I'd rather have any other class on my team, the sole exception being a stamblade.

For me personally, when I go into BG's these days I usually completely alter my build. I get rid of every close quarters ability I have, throw on a mutagen, purge, another heal and a resto ult, and just try to position myself somewhere in the back so I can DPS away while dropping heals. Even when I do this I feel kind of crappy, because I'm seriously gimping myself by trying to 50/50 heals/damage, all the while other classes can damage better than me, heal better than me, and buff their groups better than me. I'm not doing anything another class couldn't be doing better, so really, why am I even here? What do I add to the group?

You dont have to do it that way though it is often simpler. If you can master elusiveness with cloak as your main defense, and a very frantic combat style, you could run a pure stat setup and stay near your group/team but outside of it in hiding. When your team clashes with another you vircle behind the enemy team and they will immediately divide (they have too or youll pick em off from behind) putting your own team into a strategically superior position.

After that its up to you and your teamates skill.

The nightblade is the assassin/rogue archetype. Even in group play you have to play it as one if you want good results. Focus on rogue like strategies.

OWLTHEMAD

To add to that, i run a max mag settup with damage enchants on jewelry and backbar weapon. I keep bow proc up for mitigation and only rarely use it for damage or heal when oppurtunity arises. Front bar is disease enchant to pair with soulharvest. I alternate between thurvokun and zaan situationally. Disease is used despite being a mag build for major and minor defile.

There are more details, but its possible to stack a ton of value on all your statistics, as well as buffs and debuffs while still maintaining that cloaky playstyle. Its a damage loss, but i think the key is getting minor defile in your build someway to synergy with soulharvests major defile. With that lotus fan debilitate and your spammable you put ALOT pressure on your opponents.

Its counter intuitive in current meta but it is a very divide and conquer type of playstyle. It only works though if the other three members of your group stick together and is definitely high risk.

Crow_IX

couldnt figure out how to delete posts OMEGALUL

Crow_IX

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

You dont have to do it that way though it is often simpler. If you can master elusiveness with cloak as your main defense, and a very frantic combat style, you could run a pure stat setup and stay near your group/team but outside of it in hiding. When your team clashes with another you vircle behind the enemy team and they will immediately divide (they have too or youll pick em off from behind) putting your own team into a strategically superior position.

After that its up to you and your teamates skill.

The nightblade is the assassin/rogue archetype. Even in group play you have to play it as one if you want good results. Focus on rogue like strategies.

this isn't always the case, as where the situation is specific. high mmr bgs. meaning each team usually has at least 1 support, meaning no one will die to your slow range spam. Meanwhile picking off kills from a range being a stealthy is leaving your team with less dps and quiet honestly you're more likely to give another team the kill. Now that we have established that bow blade and stealthing away is useless is skill based pvp, throw a very good nb in a high mmr bg, they will get eaten alive by aoe's and debufs and ulti dumps. the class itself lacks a lot of suitability especially with the healing nerf and even greater than that, the nb has no useful group utilit. (while some might try to point out things like bolstering darkness, i'd like to counter that with brp dw and necromancer) [/quote]

OWLTHEMAD

Crow_IX wrote: »

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

You dont have to do it that way though it is often simpler. If you can master elusiveness with cloak as your main defense, and a very frantic combat style, you could run a pure stat setup and stay near your group/team but outside of it in hiding. When your team clashes with another you vircle behind the enemy team and they will immediately divide (they have too or youll pick em off from behind) putting your own team into a strategically superior position.

After that its up to you and your teamates skill.

The nightblade is the assassin/rogue archetype. Even in group play you have to play it as one if you want good results. Focus on rogue like strategies.

this isn't always the case, as where the situation is specific. high mmr bgs. meaning each team usually has at least 1 support, meaning no one will die to your slow range spam. Meanwhile picking off kills from a range being a stealthy is leaving your team with less dps and quiet honestly you're more likely to give another team the kill. Now that we have established that bow blade and stealthing away is useless is skill based pvp, throw a very good nb in a high mmr bg, they will get eaten alive by aoe's and debufs and ulti dumps. the class itself lacks a lot of suitability especially with the healing nerf and even greater than that, the nb has no useful group utilit. (while some might try to point out things like bolstering darkness, i'd like to counter that with brp dw and necromancer)

[/quote]

I play in high mmr bgs. You assume i play at range but i dont. I use the gap closer to stay on top. The minor vulnerability aoe needs to be kept up. I always attack the same group my party does but from their rear or flank. Trust me the moment you start putting the pressure down the attention your opposing team has is going to be divided. I fight at close to mid range. For aoes? Major evasion on Phantasmal escape combined with bow proc mitigation is lovely. I only use one maybe 2 heals depending on how i settup my bar and rely on a combo of roll dodge and in and out cloak and shade to stay alive. I typically run bolstering darkness on back bar and can get two soul harvests in before it runs out if im lucky. The combo of minor maim, merciless resolve mitigation, major protection and major evasion is very strong defensively. By going mostly max mag with damage enchants on back bar and jewels you can bring a lot of offensive power to the table. Zaans is great for controlling a fight or finishing people, or thurvokun to get aoe minor defile to really stack up the pressure. All these things require close range and you can get kills. I will say i do run triple swift though, and sometimes the steed.

If you get caught in a heavy burst without all your defenses up you go down pretty quick, but the whole playstyle on that is based on prediction and reaction.

It is still possible to be decent on a nightblade. Even if its much more deifficult and rigid.

The biggest concern is to just make sure you keep an eye on your own flank and rear lest you get caught between your opponents and the third team

UrbWzrd

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The purpose of this thread is to give you a place to post your current top two pain points with the Nightblade. Our new Class Representatives will be keeping a close eye on this thread, and will utilize it to gather additional feedback for the notes they’re currently compiling for their first meeting with the Dev Team next week. Please be sure and keep your post clear and succinct, and focus more on what is currently frustrating you rather than potential solutions. Thanks!

Sorry if that will be over two.

I am a new player, like only 6 months in the game, so I don't have the memory of glorious Nightblade times every assassion/rogue hater keeps posting.

My biggest complaint, and I am sure it is not specific to NB class, you touch the game A LOT. You do it to "balance" the game, but other than the game you break everything other. It is only 6 months I am in the game and I could easily witness and feel this. You first touched the sets; one being Mighty Chudan, which I was after, and now critical resistance, which I was naturally building my character around. I am trying to self sustain, because I don't have a playing schedule allowing me to hang out with a group, so I heavily invest in crafting and creating my own sets, which are crit focused. Both my focal points are "balanced", in a 6 months notice! Yes, for a single player game 6 months is quite a time, but for an MMORG?

About the character? 2H being superior to DW, heavy armor superior to medium armor, Turn Evil superior to Mass Hysteria... I think you already know them and more...

You guys should decide; is this game an RPG or a battle royale?

Because all you are doing is for the sake of a battle royale like PvP experince.

I hope you are aware that you cannot have both. You should decide, and make it clear to us. Because I don't want to get frustrated with each time I invest to this game. And if you decide a battle royale PvP focus, that is also fine, I will be looking for another game. I want a lasting RPG experience.

Minaithelan

As a nightblade healer in PvE I just want to add another perspective on the subject of utility. And I know most people dislike the idea of nb healing... but we have necro healers now, c'mon!

My first pain point: Synergies

The lack of a synergy tied to a class skill (both synergies the class offers are provided by ults) and the fact that Alkosh is still the dominant set for tanks means you need, in the most optimized of cases, at least two synergies to refresh Alkosh on cd. Otherwise you just end-up with the tank yelling for synergies, while you stand there in an awkward silence hoping they haven't noticed you are on a nb. In Craglorn trials, MoL and HoF is not that much noticeable because in most cases you stack, but in newer trials where one of the healers needs to kite, this pain point has become very apparent.

There are only three skills you can use in Trial Healing as a nb: Siphoning Attacks, Healthy Offering and Refreshing Path. One is a self buff which means out of the question for synergies, the second one already provides a very strong burst heal and is not meant to be spammed, and the last one is a ground HoT... the perfect candidate to offer a synergy. Remove the synergy from Bolstering Darkness and change the speed buff from Refreshing Path so that it requires synergizing (is that even a word? lol).

Why Bolstering? well, you already made it clear it creates an area you are not meant to stay for long ("Major Protection remains on you and your allies even after leaving the area"), so why even offer a synergy there.


My second paint point: Utility

People have already stressed how narrow nb utility skills feel, but from a healer on Trials/PvE they feel even worse: It's sad that even with some PvE healers now going for dot builds (Z'en/MK), the nb still can't aspire to compete. In theory you could slot debilitate to apply minor magickasteal with one of your dots, something no other class can do. But the travel time, the fact the magickasteal from this skill is not always tracked by addons, plus the fact that the visual effect is not that noticeable means you are better off asking the other healer to keep slotting both "minor steal" debuffs; and you replacing your own skill for another mages guild skill. Which by the way means you lose the passives granted by one whole skill line. All this without even mentioning the fact that unlike every other "minor steal" debuff, you can't pre apply it because the effect is tied to a dot and causes aggro.

And I don't mean offer more utility, you have other classes for that, just provide a way to offer utility that is actually compatible with the healing role.

Crow_IX

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

Crow_IX wrote: »

I play in high mmr bgs. You assume i play at range but i dont. I use the gap closer to stay on top. The minor vulnerability aoe needs to be kept up. I always attack the same group my party does but from their rear or flank. Trust me the moment you start putting the pressure down the attention your opposing team has is going to be divided. I fight at close to mid range. For aoes? Major evasion on Phantasmal escape combined with bow proc mitigation is lovely. I only use one maybe 2 heals depending on how i settup my bar and rely on a combo of roll dodge and in and out cloak and shade to stay alive. I typically run bolstering darkness on back bar and can get two soul harvests in before it runs out if im lucky. The combo of minor maim, merciless resolve mitigation, major protection and major evasion is very strong defensively. By going mostly max mag with damage enchants on back bar and jewels you can bring a lot of offensive power to the table. Zaans is great for controlling a fight or finishing people, or thurvokun to get aoe minor defile to really stack up the pressure. All these things require close range and you can get kills. I will say i do run triple swift though, and sometimes the steed.

If you get caught in a heavy burst without all your defenses up you go down pretty quick, but the whole playstyle on that is based on prediction and reaction.

It is still possible to be decent on a nightblade. Even if its much more deifficult and rigid.

The biggest concern is to just make sure you keep an eye on your own flank and rear lest you get caught between your opponents and the third team

thurvokun is no longer great and a lot of people, like myself, refuse to run zaan's cheese. Sure you can dip out of fights but that 1: doesn't always work since cloak is easily broken and only works half the time, 2: shade will leave your team with less dps. Seeing as you're "not rang" I'm gonna assume you don't have snipe on your bar, so we are going to ignore the whole "dip out and use range dps" argument. Experiencing high mmr bgs typically don't benefit range nbs anyways. With that being said, major evasion hardly helps, it's more of a mental thing i feel seeing as aoe's still melt nbs, it doesn't seem to scale properly. Shuffle is also an expensive skill. I also want to point out that I addressed bolstering darkness in my original post.

The original topic was the lack of group utility and you've made it very apparent in this post that the nb playstyle is a more self based one. Not only that but the nb is typically under performing in BGs. You specifically may not think so, and i have no idea how your perform in BGs, but typically NBs are either useless or a burden to the team. Any higher mmr player will tell you the same.

Again I want to draw it back to the original topic, NBs lack group utility. Which I'm sure you can agree with.

OWLTHEMAD

Lol ironically i run zaans defensively and thurvokun offensively.

Trying to chase a single target into the middle of his group with a zaan proc is a surefire way to get ded, however when it procs it gives you a lot of breathing room. Thurvokun on the other hand offers solid up time on aoe minor defile due to disease damage.

Anyway, to address your points

1: shade is easily broken: eh, not as much as people seem to say in my opininion. For sure there are broken aspects right now but it is basically spammable, if you preface with a roll dodge you should be able to do fine.
2 of course i dont have snipe, im mag. I said this to begin with. Not everyone runs stam.
3 even though your post didnt have a three. You vastly underestimate major evasion. Phantasmal escape especially with 4 second snare removal is a godsend. 25% aoe damage mitigation combined with minor maim and merciless resolve mitigation. Its actually pretty big if you build your technique around it.
4, pvp isnt about 'dps', its about pressure and well timed burst. Shade being a 'dps loss is kind of irrelevant. You need only enough to take out your opponent in a timely fashion. The utility and confusion ability you gain from the skill far outweighs any dps you might gain from some other skill.

The biggest offenders to nightblade competence at the moment are cast times and travel times.

Im not even arguing that nightblades are really good right now, but too many exagerate the weakness of the class and speak in a manner that implies that it is impossible to keep up on a nightblade and that is simply not true. Certainly far less forgiving, and definitely far more rigid than any other class. Yes its stupid difficult to land heavy burst from the class toolkit right now (cast times and travel times again) but its still very doable to rapidly grind an opponent down. And if you catch someone off guard you can still land that heavy burst. Nightblade HAS to be somewhat unorthodox when compared to other classes. Theyre not designed to play to the same strategies.

GrumpyDuckling

If Mark Target is slotted, it should passively apply Major Fracture/Breech to the enemy once you attack. As it currently works, you have to cast it on the target, which notifies that target that they are going to be attacked -- that's not very assassin-like.

OWLTHEMAD

Personally i think this skill should be reevaluated as a group/support skill. Give the kill reward of reapers mark to either the group or at least the caster and the player who secured the kill.

Revealing mark should be reworked into something else.

MindOfTheSwarm

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

Personally i think this skill should be reevaluated as a group/support skill. Give the kill reward of reapers mark to either the group or at least the caster and the player who secured the kill.

Revealing mark should be reworked into something else.

Piercing Mark (Shield and blocking wrecker).

MindOfTheSwarm

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

If Mark Target is slotted, it should passively apply Major Fracture/Breech to the enemy once you attack. As it currently works, you have to cast it on the target, which notifies that target that they are going to be attacked -- that's not very assassin-like.

Hmm. Not entirely sure on this one. If I am a player and I get marked, I would like to know about it. I agree with OWLTHEMAD, give it group utility. Maybe it could be the 'execute' skill instead of Assassin's Blade. Instead of having a single skill execute, Mark could indirectly increase the damage you deal to enemies below a certain amount of health. For Example:

Reapers Mark:

Expose an enemy's weaknesses to cause them to take 5% more damage from all sources for 20 seconds. This damage increases against enemies with 50% health or less, dealing an extra 1% damage for every 2% missing. When a marked enemy dies, you heal for 5597, and you grant gain Major Berserk to you and your group, increasing your damage done by 25% for 8 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Maximum Health. You can only have one Reaper's Mark active at a time.

In summary, this would mean that any enemy above 50% health would only take 5% extra damage which is not that much. But once an enemy gets below 50% its starts to ramp up. At 40% health this would equate to 10% extra damage. At 30% health/15% extra damage. etc. Of course an enemy could only be affected by one mark at a time.

Now you have a real use for the skill, that benefits solo players and groups. If Major Fracture was returned to Surprise Attacks and perhaps Breach put on something like Concealed Weapon or maybe a Cripple morph, you could combine them.

Deathlord92

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

If Mark Target is slotted, it should passively apply Major Fracture/Breech to the enemy once you attack. As it currently works, you have to cast it on the target, which notifies that target that they are going to be attacked -- that's not very assassin-like.

Hmm. Not entirely sure on this one. If I am a player and I get marked, I would like to know about it. I agree with OWLTHEMAD, give it group utility. Maybe it could be the 'execute' skill instead of Assassin's Blade. Instead of having a single skill execute, Mark could indirectly increase the damage you deal to enemies below a certain amount of health. For Example:

Reapers Mark:

Expose an enemy's weaknesses to cause them to take 5% more damage from all sources for 20 seconds. This damage increases against enemies with 50% health or less, dealing an extra 1% damage for every 2% missing. When a marked enemy dies, you heal for 5597, and you grant gain Major Berserk to you and your group, increasing your damage done by 25% for 8 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Maximum Health. You can only have one Reaper's Mark active at a time.

In summary, this would mean that any enemy above 50% health would only take 5% extra damage which is not that much. But once an enemy gets below 50% its starts to ramp up. At 40% health this would equate to 10% extra damage. At 30% health/15% extra damage. etc. Of course an enemy could only be affected by one mark at a time.

Now you have a real use for the skill, that benefits solo players and groups. If Major Fracture was returned to Surprise Attacks and perhaps Breach put on something like Concealed Weapon or maybe a Cripple morph, you could combine them.

You got some really good ideas about nb I agree with most of them only one I dislike is moving surprise attack to assassin skill line as that a really good source of major resolve gone

Sanguinor2

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Hmm. Not entirely sure on this one. If I am a player and I get marked, I would like to know about it. I agree with OWLTHEMAD, give it group utility. Maybe it could be the 'execute' skill instead of Assassin's Blade. Instead of having a single skill execute, Mark could indirectly increase the damage you deal to enemies below a certain amount of health. For Example:

Reapers Mark:

Expose an enemy's weaknesses to cause them to take 5% more damage from all sources for 20 seconds. This damage increases against enemies with 50% health or less, dealing an extra 1% damage for every 2% missing. When a marked enemy dies, you heal for 5597, and you grant gain Major Berserk to you and your group, increasing your damage done by 25% for 8 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Maximum Health. You can only have one Reaper's Mark active at a time.

In summary, this would mean that any enemy above 50% health would only take 5% extra damage which is not that much. But once an enemy gets below 50% its starts to ramp up. At 40% health this would equate to 10% extra damage. At 30% health/15% extra damage. etc. Of course an enemy could only be affected by one mark at a time.

Now you have a real use for the skill, that benefits solo players and groups. If Major Fracture was returned to Surprise Attacks and perhaps Breach put on something like Concealed Weapon or maybe a Cripple morph, you could combine them.

Would be insanely broken in PvE.

MindOfTheSwarm

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Hmm. Not entirely sure on this one. If I am a player and I get marked, I would like to know about it. I agree with OWLTHEMAD, give it group utility. Maybe it could be the 'execute' skill instead of Assassin's Blade. Instead of having a single skill execute, Mark could indirectly increase the damage you deal to enemies below a certain amount of health. For Example:

Reapers Mark:

Expose an enemy's weaknesses to cause them to take 5% more damage from all sources for 20 seconds. This damage increases against enemies with 50% health or less, dealing an extra 1% damage for every 2% missing. When a marked enemy dies, you heal for 5597, and you grant gain Major Berserk to you and your group, increasing your damage done by 25% for 8 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Maximum Health. You can only have one Reaper's Mark active at a time.

In summary, this would mean that any enemy above 50% health would only take 5% extra damage which is not that much. But once an enemy gets below 50% its starts to ramp up. At 40% health this would equate to 10% extra damage. At 30% health/15% extra damage. etc. Of course an enemy could only be affected by one mark at a time.

Now you have a real use for the skill, that benefits solo players and groups. If Major Fracture was returned to Surprise Attacks and perhaps Breach put on something like Concealed Weapon or maybe a Cripple morph, you could combine them.

Would be insanely broken in PvE.

Explain more please. Is 5% really that much? Remember, I said that it would not stack with other marks. So the group could only benefit from 1 NB running it.

Sanguinor2

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Explain more please. Is 5% really that much? Remember, I said that it would not stack with other marks. So the group could only benefit from 1 NB running it.

Allow me to put a 5% Damage increase for the whole Group into perspective: Healers sacrifice a 5 piece set, multiple ability Slots and an enchant and run a semi (sometimes full) dps Rotation for the 5% increase of the Zen set. The 5% alone would make mark strong and would make Picking atleast 1 nightblade very attractive, all that isnt the issue.

However the entire Suggestion with a higher increase the lower the Health makes it much much stronger, at 25% it would be a 17.5% increase for the whole Group which would melt bosses in exectue even more than they already do.

Add to that the ability to give the entire Group Major berserk when a marked target dies and you have a very broken ability (0 cost btw) quite a few boss fights have some sort of add that dies relatively quickly so bringing 2 nightblades (or more) and one nightblade dd keeping it on the boss and a nightblade offtank perhaps keeping it on an add that will die quick will give the Group a decent Major berserk uptime which will be incredibly strong.
For example in asylum sanctorium you could mark every protector while a nightblade maintank marks Saint Olms and a dd marks protectors and Spiders, you could probably reach a Major berserk uptime of 20% and higher for the whole Group. In Cloudrest one dd could mark the orbs or adds that come out of the Portal. In Sunspire you can mark the flame atronarchs in every fight and drag them into cleave and give the Group Major berserk for every add that dies.

kalunte

nb needs a "major wilt"' debuff on one of their skill which would reduce healing done by the target by 30% for Xsec (let's say 6) or some passive "minor wilt" that would have the same effect but with 8% and for 10s + removal of all cast times. travel times are [snip] but everyclasses have them so, it's "ok". let's add some random synergies that would help our team, hot/dot/invisible but not on ult that cost 150/200 and are never usable

at least for pvp.

for pve well... any dmg increase to nb skills would be cryed at by the entire community but NB even if nbs are far from top, either single target and aoe dmg but tweaking numbers by 5% would be nice.

[edited for profanity bypass]

ImmortalCX

kalunte wrote: »

nb needs a "major wilt"' debuff on one of their skill which would reduce healing done by the target by 30% for Xsec (let's say 6) or some passive "minor wilt" that would have the same effect but with 8% and for 10s + removal of all cast times. travel times are [snip] but everyclasses have them so, it's "ok". let's add some random synergies that would help our team, hot/dot/invisible but not on ult that cost 150/200 and are never usable

at least for pvp.

for pve well... any dmg increase to nb skills would be cryed at by the entire community but NB even if nbs are far from top, either single target and aoe dmg but tweaking numbers by 5% would be nice.

Noob question, isnt there a poison that does that?

[edited to remove quote]