[Class Rep] Nightblade Feedback Thread

Annurang

Hi, I've been maining a dark elf NB for 2 years now and always have been a bow/bow (mainly PvE). What bothers me the most about the class is that in order to reach high DPS numbers all stamblades rely heavily on their killer's blade+ Incap strike, which are melee skills forcing me into melee range as a supposedly ranged build. Would it be too much to ask a medium (like 18m+) range on any of the two skills so NB bow/bow can actually be ranged viable? Impale (the magicka version of the execute) has the full 28m as if magicka is entitled to range but stamina is mandatory melee. Plz halp.

master_vanargand

Please remove the melee range, which is the condition that triggers the heal of Assassin's Will in Grim Focus.
Heal should be triggered if it hits, no matter how far away.

Ezorus

master_vanargand wrote: »

Please remove the melee range, which is the condition that triggers the heal of Assassin's Will in Grim Focus.
Heal should be triggered if it hits, no matter how far away.

100% agree, there's so much rolling in this game and not enough ranged stamblade options.

Speaking of range its VERY annoying how you can be hit by two Dizzy Swings across map instantly (despite it supposed cast time). But Surprise Attack requires you to be inside the enemy to hit once.

Doczy

Ezorus wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Please remove the melee range, which is the condition that triggers the heal of Assassin's Will in Grim Focus.
Heal should be triggered if it hits, no matter how far away.

100% agree, there's so much rolling in this game and not enough ranged stamblade options.

Speaking of range its VERY annoying how you can be hit by two Dizzy Swings across map instantly (despite it supposed cast time). But Surprise Attack requires you to be inside the enemy to hit once.

It must be reward nb's for landing grim. cuz you know landing that .... is like a %5

JayKwellen

Honestly, if you can hit that spec bow from anything other than point blank then good on you, you absolutely should get that heal, on the mag version at least.

The thing is so damn loud I've had people shoot it from the top of a keep and I can still hear it, and it's so slow I can still dodge it even if I'm only half paying attention. I haven't been hit by one in ages. If you dodgeroll as soon as you hear that cannon go off, even if they're literally in your face, it'll still miss.

ZOS just give our mag brothers this little reprieve and let the stupid bow heal them whenever it lands. Giving them one little heal isn't going to make the class OP. It won't even make it competitive, but at least it will be a small step in the right direction.

LeonNoir

as a pvp player:

Teleport Strike - lost uniqueness due to "Flying Blade"
I use it for the aesthetic part in pvp, and I am ready to endure its weak damage, useless Empower, but its long "instant" casting time simply makes this abbility impossible to use it in half of situations.

Mass Hysteria - lost uniqueness due to "Circle of Protection"
deprived of "at least only we have stun through the block" exscuse

Soul Siphoner Passive
if I do not want to lose health when swaping, I need to refuse to invest a point in this passive.

i can live with uncloak in the middle of a fight
i can live without Major Brutality and Sorcery self skill buff before the fight
i can live with Grim Focus, Shadow Image "not always" working

it is difficult for me that the class has lost its uniqueness, now even a cloak is not unique! (4lv vampires)


I will not even describe the uselessness of Killer's Blade in comparison with Reverse Slash, and in general, I decided not to write more than three painful things. just so many of it.

Nick_Balza

With new patch nb was totally murdered by ZoS. I can't find any purpose except farming resources with stamina nb. Magicka nb was dead long time ago, but with penalties on light armor it is just impossible. Nerfing crit (the only way for nb to be a strong opponent) is the last nail in the nb's casket.

Other than that:
Phantasmal Escape - I didn't find any CC that could be countered by it. Literally. I was looking for wb, random mobs, PvP. It is just not working at all.
Shadow Image - works kind of in 50% of cases
Assassins Will/Relentless focus - sound of the bow can hear almost everyone and everywhere and whole enemy team goes to block. Assassination must be silent.
Death Stroke/Incapacitating strike - landing them is almost impossible. 30% of cases if I am lucky. But if wb and random mobs are EVADING it - the ult is absolute garbage.
Cloak - broken and expensive.NOT providing guaranteed crit.
If you are not a vampire (the only way to get good invisibility) - no point in playing nb. But if you are a vampire - your life lasts even less.

I love nb class, but it is not possible to play nb at all. ZoS, just remove this class from the game and add rogue or some sort of. You can't design an assassin. Or even after success with that (like in 2017-2018) - you'll ruin it anyway.

master_vanargand

Thanks to ZoS for buffing the Surprise Attack.
But there is still a problem with Nightblade.
Power Extraction is not used in PvE and PvP, so it needs to be buffed.

AhSeLYaG

So many comments. So many ideas. So much time and several patches.. what has changed?? Magblade pvp main here and finally lost timed burst set (as we dont have such skills)caluurion and gave up pvp. İ have to carry a resto staff to heal cos no class heal. Now also i lost the resto staff heal with changes to heal and i cast it to heal someone else lol Great work!!!!!!!!!!!

Raegwyr

Who even is a class rep for Nightblade? @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam do devs even got our feedback about the class? MagNB is dead in pvp for a really long time, stamNB is okayish at best. Can we get some acknowledgement for our concerns or will you be silent as usual?

Doczy

Raegwyr wrote: »

Who even is a class rep for Nightblade? @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam do devs even got our feedback about the class? MagNB is dead in pvp for a really long time, stamNB is okayish at best. Can we get some acknowledgement for our concerns or will you be silent as usual?

they dont care

JayKwellen

Doczy wrote: »

they dont care

Probably. Nightblades will always be good at mashing potatoes and mid-tier level players, and because of that the forums and feedback will always be as salty as the red sea.

A lot of people also seem to have great trouble understanding that stamblade - a fairly solid solo PvP class that, while it has many of its own issues, can still be quite serviceable, is in a much different spot than magblade, which is a class that basically requires proc sets (be it VD for bombers or Caluurion for everyone else) to be viable as the classes kit is remarkably underwhelming.

Doczy

JayKwellen wrote: »

Doczy wrote: »

they dont care

Probably. Nightblades will always be good at mashing potatoes and mid-tier level players, and because of that the forums and feedback will always be as salty as the red sea.

A lot of people also seem to have great trouble understanding that stamblade - a fairly solid solo PvP class that, while it has many of its own issues, can still be quite serviceable, is in a much different spot than magblade, which is a class that basically requires proc sets (be it VD for bombers or Caluurion for everyone else) to be viable as the classes kit is remarkably underwhelming.

yea but they are busy for keeping op their stamden and stamcro for money

MindOfTheSwarm

Nightblades are fine as tanks in my opinion. They are however weak healers and their assassination skill line does not feel like an assassin at all.

1. Assassination is a weak skill line. You don't feel like a class that bursts down low health targets or exposed flanks. Perhaps increased damage from flanking and/or damage increases on the skill line's abilities as health of target gets lower.

2. Killer's Blade/Impale: Why use this when we have a better execute on 2-handed skill line. I'd make it apply a bleed instead and add the execute component to the ultimate ability, but have it work like the 2-handed execute in that it increases in damage as the target's health gets lower from the 50% point.

Tommy_The_Gun

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

2. Killer's Blade/Impale: Why use this when we have a better execute on 2-handed skill line. I'd make it apply a bleed instead and add the execute component to the ultimate ability, but have it work like the 2-handed execute in that it increases in damage as the target's health gets lower from the 50% point.

Tbh. That is problem of many NB's abilities. Why use them if we have other non-class skills (weapon / guild / world) that work better and are more reliable:
- Surprise Attack -> Dizzying Swing
- Aspect of Terror -> Turn Evil
- Incapacitating Strike -> Dawnbreaker of Smiting
- Killer's Blade -> Executioner
- Cloak -> Unnatural Movement passive (I know you need to sprint for that, but at least it is reliable and is not getting interupted by literally everything).
- Phantasmal Escape -> Race Against Time

I literally made a better nb build without using any nb skills...

Sahidom

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/05/29/the-tactical-combat-of-the-elder-scrolls-online.aspx

IF only their combat team kept to their vision and made classes unique. Obviously, they have under estimated the progressive negative impact on sets, massive changes to class skills, and all in-between; they strayed and lead them to how do we re-introduce class uniqueness (identity) after we destroyed combat balance with successively poor decisions. I'm sure the interviewees were just taking marching orders from their boss...on how things have changed radically since 2012.

miguelcura

Dark Cloak's morph should give invisibility, it's horrible to have to lose the only class distinction with this morph.

PD: Magblade is a unique class, a ranged magical rogue (the reason so many of us play this game), please don't screw it up.

MindOfTheSwarm

Veiled Strike and morphs should be on Assassination with Blur in Shadow.

master_vanargand

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Veiled Strike and morphs should be on Assassination with Blur in Shadow.

Veiled Strike should be Shadow.
Shadow offers enormous benefits.
Shadow is sober that it's hard to understand, but even in PvE DPS, the benefits of Shadow are great.

miguelcura wrote: »

Dark Cloak's morph should give invisibility, it's horrible to have to lose the only class distinction with this morph.

PD: Magblade is a unique class, a ranged magical rogue (the reason so many of us play this game), please don't screw it up.

I think it is dangerous to combine invisible and heal.

exeeter702

miguelcura wrote: »

Dark Cloak's morph should give invisibility, it's horrible to have to lose the only class distinction with this morph.

PD: Magblade is a unique class, a ranged magical rogue (the reason so many of us play this game), please don't screw it up.

I have been playing magblade since the second beta test and have nerve once played it as a rogue. Stealth based builds are one aspect of nb, not their exclusive defining characteristic. Dark cloak does not need to have stealth. It fulfills a completely different build archetype in it's current form. Even its second version from back in the day was designed around the assumption that you will be breaking the stealth effect immediately yourself.

Ranged magblade is just as much a life draining caster that kites and sustains through hots and attrition. Think wow shadowpriest, swtor madness sorc, etc etc. They are now as they have always been, far more than ESOs "rogue".

exeeter702

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Veiled Strike and morphs should be on Assassination with Blur in Shadow.

Agreed but the design philosophy there was that non stealth based builds would have a melee spammable tied to enabling their source of major resolve to help brawler style builds, which assasination isnt really geared towards. Of course having it bound to a refreshing defensive buff like blur would make more sense today, but they already offer that with dark cloak. Abilities like path and dark cloak are balanced around their durations in relation to maintaining the resistance buff.

exeeter702

master_vanargand wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Veiled Strike and morphs should be on Assassination with Blur in Shadow.

Veiled Strike should be Shadow.
Shadow offers enormous benefits.
Shadow is sober that it's hard to understand, but even in PvE DPS, the benefits of Shadow are great.

miguelcura wrote: »

Dark Cloak's morph should give invisibility, it's horrible to have to lose the only class distinction with this morph.

PD: Magblade is a unique class, a ranged magical rogue (the reason so many of us play this game), please don't screw it up.

I think it is dangerous to combine invisible and heal.

And completely counter to the intended design of the skill.

master_vanargand

Nightblade's Assassination, Shadow, Siphoning are not neatly divided into DPS, TANK, HEALER.
Assassination, Shadow, and Siphoning all have powerful attack skills.
That is Nightblade's class identity.

Sahidom

PLEASE Regress many of the class kit skills before 4.00 Update and revert out identifying skills to 2.00 thereabouts changes.

Thank you.

Sleevez340

Here's what I can come up with after some serious time as a mag night blade main. (I hate stamblade so I can't speak to that) Yes even now I main a magblade in primarily a pvp role.

Given the state of Light armor, and what I provides too many magblade class skills are close range.

Sap essence - no thanks I'll get major sorc elsewhere. And that truly sucks, because magblades don't have enough healing ability as it is. And we lose a bar slot to degeneration, or are forced to drink spell power pots and lose major endurance.

Concealed weapon - it was amazing for the melee magblade days. But since nerfing phantasm escape, and our only survival tool (pirate skeleton) the severely lacking damage of this skill, coupled with its melee range is not a skill used by anyone outside of cloak speed. Which should just be a class passive at this point.

Lotus fan - similar to concealed wpn. This is a magicka ability that's purpose is now been funneled into use only for 1 shot bomb builds. Which in all honesty is fun, but something that ZOS as a whole has said they don't want. (Big bursty 1 shots)

Malevolent offering and its morphs - utter trash, no one wants to spend their hp for a skill in pvp. Not even many necromancer want to spend it for a cleanse. So why would I want to spend it on a lack luster HOT? Also, malevolent offering implies I'm offering something evil to the enemy. Not to myself. This skill needs a complete rework, something creative. (Maybe a heal or cleanse that requires an enemy target, siphon their resources to heal me/ourselves or team)

Debilitate - a ranged dot and snare. The dmg of this ability is so low and the access to snare removal makes it completely useless. Crippling grasp is not much better, but at least they hold still for a second before they ruin my cc combo. Compared to any other DOT in the game. Debilitated should have its damaged raised significantly, and or tick faster so it has appeal.


Merciless resolve - hits way too hard if you want it to. (ie - triggered and ready, buffed, stealth for forced crit) damage should be reduced, but also I feel like this should auto fire when it's charged, and 4 stacks instead of 5.

Swallow soul - this needs its animation sped up, it also needs to be undodgable. This skill is has potential to be great. But its just not. I get asked how I do well as a magblade without using swallow soul. Well.... its cuz I dont use swallow soul. This skill is great when you're fighting bots in the middle of the night bgs. But anyone with a clue, take it off your bar!

Incap/soul harvest - it hits hard, but so do all other ults in the game. And this has a massively ridiculous animation that's also dodgable, but the big thing is. This is one of the only single target ult in the game besides the 2h one.... and the warden bear? They should hit hard. They should kill ppl.


I'm certain there's a few things I've left out. But I'm doing this from my phone. I don't want to buff the heck out of NB or magblade specifically. What I want is to feel like I can leave cloak. Because a mag sorc doesn't have cloak, and doesn't die instantly. A magcro doesn't have cloak and doesn't die instantly. Mag warden, magplar, there is no other class that plays magicka and is forced into light armor to be 1 shot by everyone out there. Not to mention the access to obnoxious aoes that counter cloak. It really limits the amount of enjoyment we can have. I have no desire to play other classes. I love magblade I just dont want to feel like my purpose is to make others feel strong.

exeeter702

Sleevez340 wrote: »

Malevolent offering and its morphs - utter trash, no one wants to spend their hp for a skill in pvp. Not even many necromancer want to spend it for a cleanse. So why would I want to spend it on a lack luster HOT? Also, malevolent offering implies I'm offering something evil to the enemy. Not to myself. This skill needs a complete rework, something creative. (Maybe a heal or cleanse that requires an enemy target, siphon their resources to heal me/ourselves or team)

Malevolent offering is quite possibly the strongest ally pvp burst heal in the game full stop. It hasnt been a hot for 3 years now. And when it was first changed from agony, it was the strongest single target hot in the game. It is a burst heal that gives 100 percent minor mending uptime, heals through all los and ignores elevation which no other heal in the game does both, has the highest tooltip of any burst heal in the game when used on a magblade actually built for healing, and comes with it a very rewarding risk vs reward throughput that is sorely lacking in this game. It is quite possibly one of the better designed skills currently and should not be touched at all. Please do not make suggestions to abilities of which you have little to no experience actually using in their proper capacity or criticizing them armed with outdated information. Malevolent offering is a healer defining skill for magblades that rewards more skilled players. It needs absolutely no change.

Shrewd could use a change as there is little reason to run that morph. Making it a self target heal with a magicka cost, as some suggest, is not ideal because it would lock out magblade healers from a strong defensive heal. Unless dark cloak is changed to be more generous In it's hot value on lower hp builds, having magblade healers give up their strongest burst heal for allies for a self heal is counter intuitive. Magblades dont need a one button self burst heal, they to once again have their hot based attrition returned to what it once was. If a magblade is not playing a stealth based high burst damage build, then their primary gameplan is sustaining through life steal and self hots as was once upon a time the case.

Raegwyr

Sleevez340 wrote: »

Merciless resolve - hits way too hard if you want it to. (ie - triggered and ready, buffed, stealth for forced crit) damage should be reduced, but also I feel like this should auto fire when it's charged, and 4 stacks instead of 5.

It is already hard to line up burst on magblade and you want to give up on our burst control + nerf damage? Really bad idea.
Bow needs to be faster and undodgeable if launched from close distance (like 7m). And before someone tell me that is too op, necro can fire their undodgeable bb each third sec which also leaves body on the ground that can buff other necro skills.
Currently even generic skills are superior tomost of magblade kit with shade being the only good nb ability that left

Vermintide

I'm not ready to make judgement on this patch just yet. Undeniably magicka nightblade in particular is still weaker than other classes due to its fundamental mechanics- HOWEVER, the changes to base stats have opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of sets.

No longer is a set like Shacklebreaker near mandatory, because in noCP I now have more stamina than that set game me. This opens up the option of using a real defensive set; or doubling down on damage sets for realistic glass cannon play.

I don't think anyone should be crying about how squishy they are in 7 pieces of light armour, because in PVP I don't think anyone should have been full LA to begin with. I'm currently testing out a setup 5L/2H Fortified Brass and Spinners, see if it can't give me a bit of staying power in melee range to do what this class needs to do.

MindOfTheSwarm

master_vanargand wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Veiled Strike and morphs should be on Assassination with Blur in Shadow.

Veiled Strike should be Shadow.
Shadow offers enormous benefits.
Shadow is sober that it's hard to understand, but even in PvE DPS, the benefits of Shadow are great..

Disagree. If that's the case, then why not put other class spammables on their own tanking lines too? Makes no sense that the primary class DPS skill is on the TANKING skill line.

MindOfTheSwarm

Raegwyr wrote: »

Sleevez340 wrote: »

Merciless resolve - hits way too hard if you want it to. (ie - triggered and ready, buffed, stealth for forced crit) damage should be reduced, but also I feel like this should auto fire when it's charged, and 4 stacks instead of 5.

It is already hard to line up burst on magblade and you want to give up on our burst control + nerf damage? Really bad idea.
Bow needs to be faster and undodgeable if launched from close distance (like 7m). And before someone tell me that is too op, necro can fire their undodgeable bb each third sec which also leaves body on the ground that can buff other necro skills.
Currently even generic skills are superior tomost of magblade kit with shade being the only good nb ability that left

Agree fully. Burst is what NB should be about. I am all for getting rid of bomb blades as that is a bit too effective. Instead just make them single target burst and like an ACTUAL ASSASSIN. Where they need to pick their target carefully and then burst them down without getting caught out by their team mates. Low survivability but tremendous single target surprise damage should be the name of the game. Not saying they should burst down tanks in PVP but certainly should be able to take care of Magicka classes if they are caught out of position. I am speaking about melee builds. Melee should always have more burst available than ranged. It takes more time to get close to a player and should be rewarded. Ranged can just poke from a safe distance all the while doing more damage 9 times out of 10, and this applies to all classes.