EMERGENCY MEETING: New Concealed Weapon changes

OnGodiDoDis

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

katorga

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Umm, hybridization. There are no mag or stam builds now.

BTW, 100% crit on surprise attack, why would you ever, ever run this morph?

Thecompton73

katorga wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Umm, hybridization. There are no mag or stam builds now.

BTW, 100% crit on surprise attack, why would you ever, ever run this morph?

Agree, being able to use cloak to guarantee a crit on incap or dawnbreaker and then hitting someone with a 2nd guaranteed crit on SA as part of a gank will be more impactful. Gankers build for high WD/SD and when you already have over 6000 a bump of 300 more doesn't add much to damage numbers.

Jaimeh

Yeah but even with this change, is it really worth using over the other morph?

OnGodiDoDis

katorga wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Umm, hybridization. There are no mag or stam builds now.

BTW, 100% crit on surprise attack, why would you ever, ever run this morph?

For the speed bonus? Concealed also has a 100% crit chance due to the Shadowy Disguise effect.

fred4

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Agree, being able to use cloak to guarantee a crit on incap or dawnbreaker and then hitting someone with a 2nd guaranteed crit on SA as part of a gank will be more impactful.

That's NOT how burst works. No one wastes a GCD on cloak to guarantee two consecutive crits. That would be pretty much a guaranteed way NOT to kill your target, who will use the second you are cloaking to heal back up or, at the very least, for a break free and dodge roll.

Gankers build for high WD/SD and when you already have over 6000 a bump of 300 more doesn't add much to damage numbers.

I agree with this assessment. Whether Concealed truly needs the change, I'll leave for others to decide.

Surprise Attack has always been stronger. You pay quite dearly for running a fast build with Concealed and other speed, so I wouldn't mind, but I don't have strong feelings about it.

Stamina-focused builds switching to Concealed, I don't know. Having your spammable on your off resource usually doesn't work too well.

Thecompton73

fred4 wrote: »

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Agree, being able to use cloak to guarantee a crit on incap or dawnbreaker and then hitting someone with a 2nd guaranteed crit on SA as part of a gank will be more impactful.

That's NOT how burst works. No one wastes a GCD on cloak to guarantee two consecutive crits. That would be pretty much a guaranteed way NOT to kill your target, who will use the second you are cloaking to heal back up or, at the very least, for a break free and dodge roll.

Gankers build for high WD/SD and when you already have over 6000 a bump of 300 more doesn't add much to damage numbers.

I agree with this assessment. Whether Concealed truly needs the change, I'll leave for others to decide.

Surprise Attack has always been stronger. You pay quite dearly for running a fast build with Concealed and other speed, so I wouldn't mind, but I don't have strong feelings about it.

Stamina-focused builds switching to Concealed, I don't know. Having your spammable on your off resource usually doesn't work too well.

So to explain how a NB gank works: Cloak is cast as you approach the victim from behind, giving you a guaranteed crit on your first hit, so then you cast Incap--> LA-->SA, all of which land before the break free completes and since you're behind the target you'll now get a 2nd guaranteed crit on SA, which also has a damage boost of 20% from Incap.

Metemsycosis

More like cloak incap then SA from flank @fred4

Thecompton73

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Umm, hybridization. There are no mag or stam builds now.

BTW, 100% crit on surprise attack, why would you ever, ever run this morph?

For the speed bonus? Concealed also has a 100% crit chance due to the Shadowy Disguise effect.

While fred was a bit confused on the setup I was talking about he is totally right in that you can't afford to cast cloak in the middle of a combo and expect to get a kill. So using cloak to force a crit from Concealed mean you have to use it first , which robs it of hitting with the 20% damage buff from Incap applied not to mention the big buff to WD and Pen you get from Balorghs and you waste the 1 guaranteed crit in the combo on an ability with a lower tooltip than Incap. And if you're doing concealed->LA->Incap you'll miss the Incap fairly often due to the cast time giving your opponent the time they need to break free and roll/block vs SA being instant as the third move.

lean

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Actually Caluurion's was stealth nerfed. It now procs every 5s for about 1/3 the damage.

XiangliSYD

lean wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Actually Caluurion's was stealth nerfed. It now procs every 5s for about 1/3 the damage.

NB will just use flame blossom instead. not much difference really.

lean

XiangliSYD wrote: »

NB will just use flame blossom instead. not much difference really.

Flame blossom does 25% less damage than Cal on live, and it can be dodged since there's a 1s delay. It's a good set but there's simply no direct substitute for Cal.

fred4

Thecompton73 wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

Umm, hybridization. There are no mag or stam builds now.

BTW, 100% crit on surprise attack, why would you ever, ever run this morph?

For the speed bonus? Concealed also has a 100% crit chance due to the Shadowy Disguise effect.

While fred was a bit confused on the setup I was talking about he is totally right in that you can't afford to cast cloak in the middle of a combo and expect to get a kill. So using cloak to force a crit from Concealed mean you have to use it first , which robs it of hitting with the 20% damage buff from Incap applied not to mention the big buff to WD and Pen you get from Balorghs and you waste the 1 guaranteed crit in the combo on an ability with a lower tooltip than Incap. And if you're doing concealed->LA->Incap you'll miss the Incap fairly often due to the cast time giving your opponent the time they need to break free and roll/block vs SA being instant as the third move.

Thanks for clearing that up. How did I ever misread that? I must have been very tired .

Tommy_The_Gun

Out of those 2, Concealed is actually way better. Minor Expedition just for slotting is very nice. On top you get 300 weapon / spell damage when exiting stealth.

If you know how Veiled Strike works in PvP, then you probably know that it is hard to land more than 2 times, as it has short range & a distinct sound que. So every consecutive use of this skill is almost always dodged or blocked or target just moves away. You can speak of a success if you land it 2 times in a row. Usually you have to either use it from stealth or use some battle chaos to your advantage to successfully land it - it is that predictable.

And you still have guaranteed crit chance from nb's cloak. So good players will actually use this combo.

The Surprise Attack feels more like a PvE morph or morph for PvP brawler build.

I guess they wanted to make people use Concealed Weapon more, so they buffed it, but later they realised that if they don't add anything to Surprise Attack - then no one would use Surprise Attack morph.

Personally, I like what they did because you have 2 very good morphs to pick and you need to decide. And it is actually better than non-class skills.

fred4

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Out of those 2, Concealed is actually way better. Minor Expedition just for slotting is very nice. On top you get 300 weapon / spell damage when exiting stealth.

If you know how Veiled Strike works in PvP, then you probably know that it is hard to land more than 2 times, as it has short range & a distinct sound que. So every consecutive use of this skill is almost always dodged or blocked or target just moves away. You can speak of a success if you land it 2 times in a row. Usually you have to either use it from stealth or use some battle chaos to your advantage to successfully land it - it is that predictable.

And you still have guaranteed crit chance from nb's cloak. So good players will actually use this combo.

The Surprise Attack feels more like a PvE morph or morph for PvP brawler build.

I guess they wanted to make people use Concealed Weapon more, so they buffed it, but later they realised that if they don't add anything to Surprise Attack - then no one would use Surprise Attack morph.

Personally, I like what they did because you have 2 very good morphs to pick and you need to decide. And it is actually better than non-class skills.

I disagree. Surprise Attack already has a flanking bonus. The chaos of combat is a fair point and all of that is true, however I believe the flanking window is pretty large, more like 200+ degrees than strictly from behind. I accept that you're not fully in control of your flanking angles or even hitting the target successfully at all, however what this change essentially boils down to is giving stamblade substantially more crit% while they're spamming Surprise Attack, but without having to build into crit. All medium, Shadow mundus, axes, that will be the meta. This is IMO way too strong.

As a melee magblade main, I will add this: I like the permanent speed, even if I lose 10% speed in cloak. I think that will be a net win, especially with hybridisation, having a good self heal, and being able to choose a bow as one of the weapons for the Major Expedition, or running RAT as usual. However, having the speed tied to Concealed was always a problem.

If you're a pure ganker, you're a different breed. You build for maximum damage and you choose your targets carefully. Preferably isolated targets. If you're a cloaking melee magblade, like me, who wants to participate in all out brawls, that's when you're really reliant on the speed. Shadow Image is a different playstyle again. For my playstyle, without Shadow Image, I find myself reliant on speed so much, being at the cap is basically the only way I survive. My survivability has already taken a hit due to the Oakensoul meta, using that ring over Wild Hunt. Being fast in cloak is what has set magblade apart from stamblade thus far. It feels quite different.

The above was for context. Perhaps you'll understand when I now say: To use the Concealed speed buff successfully, you end up double-slotting it. Cloak naturally resides on your defensive bar (Oakensoul won't be forever). You need Concealed there. It's also too good of a skill for your offensive bar. The stun, combined with the damage of a spammable is hard to be beat. I've tried mixing it up. I played with a melee and a ranged bar in the past, but having to bar swap within your offensive window is basically a no. It doesn't play well. You also really want Concealed, Cloak and Barrier on the same bar, for the +10% magicka recovery to improve cloak sustain and have more flexibility in your mundus, set and jewelry choices overall.

In short, using the Concealed speed bonus has resulted in double-slotting the skill in the past. This is the real reason I've always been jealous of stamblades and their Surprise Attack. Stamblade, as a package, works so much better. Melee magblade pays dearly for the cloak sustain and the speed in cloak. Now, I grant you, Minor Expedition in combat, not just in Cloak, is nothing to be sneezed at. This will make it more viable to single bar the skill on the offensive bar. However, if I want to retain my identity as the "I am fast in cloak" build, which feels so distinctly different to stamblade, the one edge that melee magblade has held for me up to this point, I may still end up double-slotting Concealed. Giving up a slot to do so is the reason why Concealed is not as attractive as you make it out to be, at least for my playstyle.

Your mileage may vary, I guess. It tends to be heavily influenced by your paystyle and the tradeoffs you've become accustomed to, the tradeoffs you subsequently take for granted I guess.

fred4

By the way, it was someone else, another long-term magblade, switched to stamblade, that remarked how much better stamblade "flows" as a class, how much better everything fits together. I didn't press them as to why, but I would say it's using a bow for the Major Expedition, it's the naturally greater dodge roll sustain, it's the +5% speed you get from being one of the favorite races, a woodelf.

You could say everything is hybrid now, but that's not exactly true. If you're a Breton for the magblade sustain, especially the Cloak sustain, try building for maximum stamina. It doesn't work. Due to racial passives and Siphoning passives, building for magicka is better. I'd have to go back over all my UESP trial and error, but I think that was even marginally true when I built my woodelf as a magblade.

At any rate, it's the stam sustain that's always been a big factor for me. You want to be a melee nightblade, I find that roll dodge sustain, not merely high stamina but actual sustain, trumps or at least equals all other forms of defense (such as the light armor shield) on average. Hybrids are nice and all, but how many people actually use the Torc? I know I don't. Building and playing hybrids is hard. Having a single stat pool for most of your needs means you're more flexible in how you use that. A stamblade at full stamina may decide to blow their stat pool on attack, or they can blow their entire pool on defense by dodge rolling, sprinting and so on. I grant you there is fatigue, but still. Dodge rolls are that powerful, especially on a nightblade.

I'm married to my magblade. I got extremely used to high cloak sustain since the early days, when I didn't know how to fight and this was by far the best way to survive in Imperial City from among my characters. Yes, it has advantages over stamblade. Big ones in IC, because sustained cloaking allows you to disengage from NPCs in a way that mixed cloak and crouch does not. On the other hand, I've always had to gimp myself by building into speed, into mag sustain and, on top of that, into stam sustain to make this playstyle work. As a pure PvP tool, stamblade has historically always felt stronger, so I don't know why it needs or deserves a buff to Surprise Attack. Only the current Oakensoul patch is so weird, I don't know for sure. Waiting for some sort of normality next patch.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

they nerfed caluurians damage into the ground its just not posted, and with heavy attack nerf ganking too a massive hit to burst.

Kory

It's just good to have two genuinely good options.

OnGodiDoDis

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

OnGodiDoDis wrote: »

The new morph will now grant NBs 300 weapon and spell damage when they leave stealth. This change can absolutely not happen. They said that this will help stealthy magicka builds gain the additional burst they need. What they DON'T know is that it's the STAMINA builds that are using this skill to run around in perma stealth, ganking people. Do I really need to explain why this is a horrible idea? Do not give gank builds more damage without adjusting Caluurion's first.

they nerfed caluurians damage into the ground its just not posted, and with heavy attack nerf ganking too a massive hit to burst.

I posted this without knowing Caluurion's was nerfed, since it was done secretly. Clearly the more problematic morph is Surprise Attack with its guaranteed crit chance.