Ramping Cost for Nightblade Cloak

Bushido2513

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

I believe for a really skilled player nb will most definitely be god mode.

Nb can kite the hell out of zergs like no other class can. And the best part is it doesn’t need to take any damage while doing so.

No question that nb and dk are the overall highest performing classes at the moment.

The second part highly depends on the quality of the zerg and the location the kite takes place in. Also as I think about it I'd note that in dealing with a zerg dk has a better chance to turn and burn with the ability to hit multiple opponents in radius with relative ease while gaining resources and possibly some protection while doing so.

Tyrant_Tim

Good thing they added Major Savagery to Cloak, now we can run Ambush next patch to get another 10% damage, baked into a gap closer.

StaticWave

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my stamsorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB and giving Major Prophecy because I'm already getting Minor Berserk from Dark Deal.

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resumed cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

PhoenixGrey

StaticWave wrote: »

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my Sorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resume cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Its just that NB mains who play this game do not truly understand what their class is capable of. Most of them still dont even slot shade lol.

Cast_El

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my Sorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resume cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Its just that NB mains who play this game do not truly understand what their class is capable of. Most of them still dont even slot shade lol.

Shade is so much more powerful, you can teleport through wall, above, under,.... God mode in IC. My old fashion nightblade bomber build loves it

HalfDragoness

I just want to add a counter point from a PvE point of view. I built a character up around being 100% sneaky, she's a vampire, and uses the Darloc Brae set to invisibly crouch but move at a sprinting speed whilst also restoring magicka and stamina and thereby maintaining invisibility at all times without loosing any magicka. She is so much fun to play, but I never play her in PvP... her damage is so bad. A ramping cost in this scenario would just be really unfun but having been in PvP scenarios against invisibility I full understand how annoying it is in a PvP scenario.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my Sorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resume cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Yeah but even if the nb totally took cloak off wouldn't they still have the advantage over sorc? From what I recall of duels and 1v1 encounters with nb shade and roll dodge combined with good healing are enough to be oppressive in and of themselves.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my Sorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resume cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Yeah but even if the nb totally took cloak off wouldn't they still have the advantage over sorc? From what I recall of duels and 1v1 encounters with nb shade and roll dodge combined with good healing are enough to be oppressive in and of themselves.

They do, that's why brawler NBs destroy any iteration of sorc. The only sorc that might have a chance is full proc stamsorc, and that too is still getting destroyed by a proc NB lol.

I duel a lot in Stormhaven and once a brawler NB slots Way of Fire + a proc monster set instead of a pure stat build, it just rolls over any stamsorc, including the meta Maarselok/mDW/Vate stamsorc version.

emilyhyoyeon

HalfDragoness wrote: »

I just want to add a counter point from a PvE point of view. I built a character up around being 100% sneaky, she's a vampire, and uses the Darloc Brae set to invisibly crouch but move at a sprinting speed whilst also restoring magicka and stamina and thereby maintaining invisibility at all times without loosing any magicka. She is so much fun to play, but I never play her in PvP... her damage is so bad. A ramping cost in this scenario would just be really unfun but having been in PvP scenarios against invisibility I full understand how annoying it is in a PvP scenario.

The ramping cost would be for NB cloak, not sneak

HalfDragoness

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

HalfDragoness wrote: »

I just want to add a counter point from a PvE point of view. I built a character up around being 100% sneaky, she's a vampire, and uses the Darloc Brae set to invisibly crouch but move at a sprinting speed whilst also restoring magicka and stamina and thereby maintaining invisibility at all times without loosing any magicka. She is so much fun to play, but I never play her in PvP... her damage is so bad. A ramping cost in this scenario would just be really unfun but having been in PvP scenarios against invisibility I full understand how annoying it is in a PvP scenario.

The ramping cost would be for NB cloak, not sneak

I meant for invisibility, not sneak.. sorry if I wasn't clear.

warm_blanket

Cloak can be left as is if the opportunity cost for slotting it is made too high for nb brawler builds.

One way to do this is to transfer a big chunk of healing power from their class burst heal to the healing morph of cloak (Dark Cloak), which would give that morph a higher value over cloak for brawling playstyles.

This results in a nice compromise between offense and defense options for the class. Cloakblades would be squishier but have higher offensive stats, vs brawlblades being tankier but having relatively lower offensive potential.

StaticWave

The opportunity cost for slotting a Cloak counter is too great. That's why people are asking for Cloak to be nerfed. Like if I want to counter NBs right now, I have to either use a detect pot, slot Camo Hunter/Mage Light, or use soft counters.

Using detect pots means I'm losing out on sustain from tri pots, defense from armor pots, or extra damage from crit pots. It's also not a guarantee that I get the kill because a competent NB isn't going to let me kill him through detection. Only bad NBs die when revealed lol. A good NB would just delay the fight until my detect runs out and now I have no detect or any of the buffs from other pots.

Some classes slot Camo Hunter because they don't have a decent class ability giving Major Savagery/Prophecy, and Camo Hunter is the only decent option for them. The reveal is a nice bonus, but outside of revealing NB it has no other use. Compared to Green Lotus or FoO, Camo Hunter's active part is so bad lol. When better options come about people will 100% drop Camo Hunter and we can see that happening next patch as brawler NBs will be dropping Camo Hunter for Shadowy Disguise.

Soft counters can work but they aren't reliable (hence the name soft counter). Good NBs can counter soft counters too.

The point is, the sacrifices that people have to make to counter 1 ability are too great and not worth. The counters I use for Streak also have other use (i.e building extra movement speed to catch a Sorc also benefits your own survivability, or using a gap closer to counter a Sorc can also help you chase down other targets). Reveal has practically no other use outside of revealing stealth users. It's just too much sacrifice for what it brings to the table.

FoJul

infunite wrote: »

Please consider adding a ramping cost to the Shadowy Disguise morph of the Nightblade's Shadow Cloak, like there is for streak and mist form. Currently, it is already far too spammable. In this PTS preview, we see that it has been given a substantial buff. Now that it will be able to provide Major Savagery and Prophecy for slotting on either bar, I think it is more than fair that its cloaking utility get some penalty for spamming it too much. A simple ramping cost like there is for streak and mist form is perfect to keep its identity as a nightblade's defense/mobility/get away mechanism (just like streak and mist form are) while making sure it isn't as spammable as it is now.

It's far too easy for nightblades to hit cloak and maneuver around. Especially with positional desync, it's not reliable to predict where the nightblade went or will be. Detect pots having a larger radius does help, but a nightblade can move very far in a very short amount of time, so they can easily wait out the detect duration while staying out of reach. Additionally, using a detect potion means losing your normal potion (usually tri-stat potion, crit potions, or heroism potions). So it is a hefty investment. Skills like magelight and camo hunter simply cost too much and have next to no range.

Please add a ramping cost to cloak!

Yeah shadowy disguise maybe...i swear if dark cloak gets nerfed again im quitting..my rangeblade brawler is already hard to manage

FoJul

StaticWave wrote: »

NB mains in this thread still hard-focused on arguing about Cloak having counters, when many people pointed out the bigger opportunity cost for using Cloak counters compared to Streak counters.

I dueled a NB using Cloak and Shadow Image earlier today on my stamsorc. These were the sacrifices I had to make:

1) Sacrificed Major Prophecy to use a detect potion since I don’t have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light

2) Sacrificed an offensive ability for Camo Hunter/Mage Light that practically has no other use outside of revealing NB and giving Major Prophecy because I'm already getting Minor Berserk from Dark Deal.

All of that effort and the NB could still roll 3x in a row, then ported back to his Shadow Image and resumed cloaking.

You know what I do when I encounter a Streaking Sorc? I just run up to them if I’m melee, or ignore their Streak if I’m ranged. I don’t even need to put effort into countering Streak users. I simply play the game as normal lol.

It’s impossible to talk sense to NB mains on the forums. A simple comparison will easily tell why Cloak needs to be addressed, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

I'm a nightblade main and I can 100% agree with you. Though I play a very different and very forgotten playstyle. Im so sick of proc builds/Nightblade *META* builds. #nerfmeleeblade #buffrangeblade #buffswallowsoul #increaseshadowydisguisecost

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

The opportunity cost for slotting a Cloak counter is too great. That's why people are asking for Cloak to be nerfed. Like if I want to counter NBs right now, I have to either use a detect pot, slot Camo Hunter/Mage Light, or use soft counters.

Using detect pots means I'm losing out on sustain from tri pots, defense from armor pots, or extra damage from crit pots. It's also not a guarantee that I get the kill because a competent NB isn't going to let me kill him through detection. Only bad NBs die when revealed lol. A good NB would just delay the fight until my detect runs out and now I have no detect or any of the buffs from other pots.
.

The only problem is that you're speaking of a win every fight scenario. By that I mean that even in a balanced game it's not supposed to be easy to have access to tools to deal with every class/build at all times.

I say that to say that you should always have a decent fighting chance even if it means you just walk away but survive the encounter.

So if you don't want to slot camo or mage I get it and that's somewhat ok but detect pots are something you can slot on the fly and the idea is either you plan to see the nb so that you can try to kill them, escape, or both. If you kill them then great, if not then you will likely be able to escape. I mean if they are weak you kill them, if they are crafty then maybe you can't kill them and it is what it is.

StaticWave wrote: »

It's also not a guarantee that I get the kill

Nothing in the game is or should be a guarantee of a kill. You can only shift the odds possibly into your favor but that's about it.

There's sacrifices to countering each thing and yes some seem more useful than others but you're making it much more simple than it appears. Yes players can build into speed and catch me as a sorc but not every class takes the loss of the traits that were sacrificed as well. Currently only a fast nb or dk are troublesome for me because they have good damage even when they give up some for speed but other classes are noticeably weaker when they build into speed.

Gap closers are meh to me and just something that works better in a group hunting down other players. As a sorc I've rarely cared about anyone gap closing me other than maybe templar who has a good kit for gap closing damage.

My point in saying all of this is that as an IC main (debatable home of the nb) but someone who's played in all areas of the game, I've not really found myself at any crazy disadvantage to nb when it comes to cloak. Sometimes I catch em, sometimes they kill me, sometimes they get away but the ratio has never been out of control to where I feel like man if I just has my regular pots I would have won several more of those fights.

I mostly use pots by the way because it just gives a more reliable effect and I can swap them on just when I need them.

The only unfairness I see is that nb as a whole is over tuned and so they do have more damage and survivability in one package than other classes but that's separate from cloak counters working or being decently useable.

I do understand how someone can make the argument of why do I have to do this specific thing for this class when my build works decently as is against all the other classes. I get that and to some degree I agree that there's a balance issue there but a ramping cost to cloak would hurt all playstyles using cloak and some a lot more than others which doesn't sound as good.

I believe the better option was when nb was a lot more squish with high damage but had free access to cloak. At least then when the player makes an active choice to counter the reward is greater.

In your dueling scenario I get it that you don't want that guy to have continuous access to cloak but at the same time there are just going to be duels that you just have to walk away from if you're unhappy about the matchup. That doesn't just happen with cloaking nbs, could be a proc set user, pet sorc, tanky opponent with no damage, etc.

I think a ramp cost on cloak sounds like a good idea until you honestly try to apply it across the board to all nb styles of play.

System_Data

Glad some people can see that slapping an increased cost to cloak isn't a good idea.

Cloak and streak are fundamentally different and shouldn't even be viewed the same.

Streak is closer to a roll dodge, except it's worse. Skills still tracks you when you streak when they shouldn't. Doesn't make sense thematically as well.

That's something that could be improved upon as well as increasing the range traveled by streak. Can add an additional second of evasion upon completing streak, or even make the stun area larger. Another possible quality of life is decreasing the animation delay both of when entering and exiting streak.

ProudMary

System_Data wrote: »

Glad some people can see that slapping an increased cost to cloak isn't a good idea.

Cloak and streak are fundamentally different and shouldn't even be viewed the same.

Streak is closer to a roll dodge, except it's worse. Skills still tracks you when you streak when they shouldn't. Doesn't make sense thematically as well.

That's something that could be improved upon as well as increasing the range traveled by streak. Can add an additional second of evasion upon completing streak, or even make the stun area larger. Another possible quality of life is decreasing the animation delay both of when entering and exiting streak.

Everyone who doesn't main NB feels that ramping cost for cloak is a good idea and makes good sense in terms of balance. Cloakblades are OP in PvP due to huge burst damage, huge burst healing ability, and you can't fight something you never see. It's just a bad mechanic to let someone play offensively while invisible.

System_Data

I'm not an NB main, more a Templar kind of person. No need to exaggerate about who's in favor of what when you can only speak for yourself.

Cloak and streak are not the same mechanic, therefore the solutions applied to them are different.

Cloak by itself is not the problem, it's other parts of NB's kit that makes it strenuous to deal with, like say a too high tooltip on certain skills.

As a casual PVPer and playing for a few years, my experiences against NB were adequate. I've found DK more troublesome, i don't believe in any game that a class that can be so tanky should deal the amount of damage they do. Not a fan of the tank meta in ESO.

If anything, this is just another showcase of how underwhelming Sorcerers are and lack better tools to deal with NBs.

Bushido2513

ProudMary wrote: »

Everyone who doesn't main NB feels that ramping cost for cloak is a good idea and makes good sense in terms of balance. Cloakblades are OP in PvP due to huge burst damage, huge burst healing ability, and you can't fight something you never see. It's just a bad mechanic to let someone play offensively while invisible.

I don't main NB and I don't think it's a good idea. NB are op because of the first two things you listed. The invisible is strong but easily countered. Problem is that you counter it and a good NB still has heals and damage to fall back on.

Having healing, damage, and a great evasion package in one class is a problem

But a ramp cost nerf on cloak hurts multiple playstyles to very different degrees and doesn't really address the other balance issues.

FoJul

System_Data wrote: »

I'm not an NB main, more a Templar kind of person. No need to exaggerate about who's in favor of what when you can only speak for yourself.

Cloak and streak are not the same mechanic, therefore the solutions applied to them are different.

Cloak by itself is not the problem, it's other parts of NB's kit that makes it strenuous to deal with, like say a too high tooltip on certain skills.

As a casual PVPer and playing for a few years, my experiences against NB were adequate. I've found DK more troublesome, i don't believe in any game that a class that can be so tanky should deal the amount of damage they do. Not a fan of the tank meta in ESO.

If anything, this is just another showcase of how underwhelming Sorcerers are and lack better tools to deal with NBs.

Wonder what people would think about the old cloak, LOL.

I can agree to the tooltip part, Merciless resolve is most definitely the hardest hitting burst in the game. Especially, with Dual wield, incap, and DW passive giving it like 50% extra damage done. That's for just the base hit, you top that with critical damage cap, and bam that's 20k-25k just from merciless alone. With Incap doing 10-15k aswell.

There is nothing in the game that can 2 piece a tank faster than a melee nightblade. But ranged nightblade on the other hand is a different story. Giving a class access to doing 40k-50k 2 tap potential would be the start of the "gankblade" issue. I will argue however, you can counter stealth yes, but most of the time your not just going to be popping flares/camo hunter/detect pots before getting ganked off your mount, or entering a keep.

With the addition of U39, and making merciless resolve not have a uptime timer. gankblades can now save their assassins will for ganks; easier. As a gankblade I can build my stacks on one side of the continent, run over to a keep and incap bow someone from stealth and have them dead before they realize that I'm even there. THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING.

I personally have been experiencing snipe spamming cloak blades, that use dots/procs. So this is showcasing that gankblades are still possible even without certain NB abilities. However, they don't hit as hard as the Titanborn/stygian blades.

In conclusion, stealth and tooltip numbers are both the issue. Being the tooltips are the #1 culprit. A increase cost on stealth will definitely help with defensive cloak abusers, and tooltip damage reduction will help with the cheesy gankers.

Major_Toughness

No.

Bushido2513

FoJul wrote: »

With the addition of U39, and making merciless resolve not have a uptime timer. gankblades can now save their assassins will for ganks; easier. As a gankblade I can build my stacks on one side of the continent, run over to a keep and incap bow someone from stealth and have them dead before they realize that I'm even there. THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING.

I mean it usually isn't a thing if the player is paying attention and has a decent build. I'm not saying that nb doesn't have higher damage than it should but that incap bow isn't really an automatic death sentence most of the time. In most cases you eat one or the other and then get a chance to respond. The issue comes in when you pull someone out of stealth and they still have great heals, evasion, etc.

Though I will say with gankblades situational awareness, having a good build, and knowing how to recover/respond to a gank will save you most of the time.

FoJul wrote: »

In conclusion, stealth and tooltip numbers are both the issue. Being the tooltips are the #1 culprit. A increase cost on stealth will definitely help with defensive cloak abusers, and tooltip damage reduction will help with the cheesy gankers.

You forgot about healing, without the healing a lot of this wouldn't be an issues. That being said and as I've said before, a cost increase would hurt more playstyles than it corrects. Not everyone uses cloak in the same way and the cost increase doesn't account for that.

Damage reduction or maybe a few key nerfs to the overall kit would help to balance things out. I'd also add that the more other classes are brought up, the less of a nerf there'd have to be. Something I wish the devs would get on to.

FoJul

Bushido2513 wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

With the addition of U39, and making merciless resolve not have a uptime timer. gankblades can now save their assassins will for ganks; easier. As a gankblade I can build my stacks on one side of the continent, run over to a keep and incap bow someone from stealth and have them dead before they realize that I'm even there. THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING.

I mean it usually isn't a thing if the player is paying attention and has a decent build. I'm not saying that nb doesn't have higher damage than it should but that incap bow isn't really an automatic death sentence most of the time. In most cases you eat one or the other and then get a chance to respond. The issue comes in when you pull someone out of stealth and they still have great heals, evasion, etc.

Though I will say with gankblades situational awareness, having a good build, and knowing how to recover/respond to a gank will save you most of the time.

FoJul wrote: »

In conclusion, stealth and tooltip numbers are both the issue. Being the tooltips are the #1 culprit. A increase cost on stealth will definitely help with defensive cloak abusers, and tooltip damage reduction will help with the cheesy gankers.

You forgot about healing, without the healing a lot of this wouldn't be an issues. That being said and as I've said before, a cost increase would hurt more playstyles than it corrects. Not everyone uses cloak in the same way and the cost increase doesn't account for that.

Damage reduction or maybe a few key nerfs to the overall kit would help to balance things out. I'd also add that the more other classes are brought up, the less of a nerf there'd have to be. Something I wish the devs would get on to.

Your addressing healing as if the healing is what making gankblades OP. I have to disagree strongly. Also situational awareness/basically skill only goes so far. You got to take in consideration of high ping/lag/desync and what not. Reducing the healing from nightblades will affect nightblades across the spectrum.

For example, I run at 100 ping usually, and I was ganked by a destro ult and bow...I saw my health disappearing and didnt see the destro ult/ the ganker until I was to far gone. I was standing in a keep tower while an EP zerg was rolling in. If I could see that ganker 2 seconds heck even 1 second sooner, I would've got away.

Another example, there was a nightblade running the titanborn setup, and killed my Arcanist friend (In defensive CP and Defensive Sets) and he died before he could out heal it.

In both of these situations the healing from the gankblade played no role in the actual gank. The healing is practically all they have. Well and cloak of course...if they can cloak and negate your meteor, or cloak and negate your radiant opression. Then cloak is negating the damage.

The only thing making their healing insane is being able to evade all attacks with cloak disappear and then heal, its not the healing itself. Most classes are healing with Rally/Vigor and some form of burst heal. Some classes better than others, but I promise the healing is not what's carrying gankblades.

Bushido2513

FoJul wrote: »

Your addressing healing as if the healing is what making gankblades OP. I have to disagree strongly. Also situational awareness/basically skill only goes so far. You got to take in consideration of high ping/lag/desync and what not. Reducing the healing from nightblades will affect nightblades across the spectrum.

For example, I run at 100 ping usually, and I was ganked by a destro ult and bow...I saw my health disappearing and didnt see the destro ult/ the ganker until I was to far gone. I was standing in a keep tower while an EP zerg was rolling in. If I could see that ganker 2 seconds heck even 1 second sooner, I would've got away.

Another example, there was a nightblade running the titanborn setup, and killed my Arcanist friend (In defensive CP and Defensive Sets) and he died before he could out heal it.

Correct they aren't the same issue I was addressing. So let me focus in on the gankblade piece. Now I'm speaking as a person that has played and fought gankblades.

Honestly I don't find them to be that strong in attacking me other than when I'm not paying attention or the game decides to favor them with desync. But let's be clear in that we can't balance around desync, that just needs to be fixed in general but should never be how the game is balanced because it's just random and again, needs to be fixed.

So yeah if a gankblade hits me every now and then I'll die but most times I just hear the audio cue and either block or heal into a roll dodge. And yes make sure my buffs are up.

Now when you talk about bombs, that's its own thing and again is very much about situational awareness and a decent build.

I've also found that yes I can kill like 3 people in a row on my gankblade but that's in comparison to when I meet targets that know how to play the game and basically just kill me once the attack fails.

I main IC which can sometimes be the home of the nb/gank and I can say that honestly most gank attempts fail on me as long as I'm paying attention. To the point that I wouldn't call them op at all or something that ruined my experience down there. And that's me playing on sorc so it's not like I have a ton of healing to rely on, I just stay on the move.

We're all going to die to something from time to time and it's just a question of asking was there any fair counterplay to it or was this something that would just kill me no matter what I do. Gankblades have counterplay as I've described above.


I mean honestly in this game you don't even have to get ganked at this point if you don't want to and that's without even really doing much. Get on a high health build, put on like pariah, zoals, and some other proc heal or tanky set then set your cp to auto break free with other defensive stars and you wouldn't even have to do much to defend yourself. Not that this setup would provide damage but my point was just to show that you can either setup your build to allow you to actively defend against a gank or you can setup your build to just no really allow you to get ganked but either way ganking has counterplay that's not hard to achieve.

Iriidius

ProudMary wrote: »

System_Data wrote: »

Glad some people can see that slapping an increased cost to cloak isn't a good idea.

Cloak and streak are fundamentally different and shouldn't even be viewed the same.

Streak is closer to a roll dodge, except it's worse. Skills still tracks you when you streak when they shouldn't. Doesn't make sense thematically as well.

That's something that could be improved upon as well as increasing the range traveled by streak. Can add an additional second of evasion upon completing streak, or even make the stun area larger. Another possible quality of life is decreasing the animation delay both of when entering and exiting streak.

Everyone who doesn't main NB feels that ramping cost for cloak is a good idea and makes good sense in terms of balance. Cloakblades are OP in PvP due to huge burst damage, huge burst healing ability, and you can't fight something you never see. It's just a bad mechanic to let someone play offensively while invisible.

Sure it is annoying and bad that nightblades can stay offensive while invisible but a ramping cost to cloak would make it also more difficult to stay cloaked without attacking to avoid or escape fights.

FoJul wrote: »

System_Data wrote: »

I'm not an NB main, more a Templar kind of person. No need to exaggerate about who's in favor of what when you can only speak for yourself.

Cloak and streak are not the same mechanic, therefore the solutions applied to them are different.

Cloak by itself is not the problem, it's other parts of NB's kit that makes it strenuous to deal with, like say a too high tooltip on certain skills.

As a casual PVPer and playing for a few years, my experiences against NB were adequate. I've found DK more troublesome, i don't believe in any game that a class that can be so tanky should deal the amount of damage they do. Not a fan of the tank meta in ESO.

If anything, this is just another showcase of how underwhelming Sorcerers are and lack better tools to deal with NBs.

Wonder what people would think about the old cloak, LOL.

I can agree to the tooltip part, Merciless resolve is most definitely the hardest hitting burst in the game. Especially, with Dual wield, incap, and DW passive giving it like 50% extra damage done. That's for just the base hit, you top that with critical damage cap, and bam that's 20k-25k just from merciless alone. With Incap doing 10-15k aswell.

There is nothing in the game that can 2 piece a tank faster than a melee nightblade. But ranged nightblade on the other hand is a different story. Giving a class access to doing 40k-50k 2 tap potential would be the start of the "gankblade" issue. I will argue however, you can counter stealth yes, but most of the time your not just going to be popping flares/camo hunter/detect pots before getting ganked off your mount, or entering a keep.

With the addition of U39, and making merciless resolve not have a uptime timer. gankblades can now save their assassins will for ganks; easier. As a gankblade I can build my stacks on one side of the continent, run over to a keep and incap bow someone from stealth and have them dead before they realize that I'm even there. THIS SHOULD NOT BE A THING.

I personally have been experiencing snipe spamming cloak blades, that use dots/procs. So this is showcasing that gankblades are still possible even without certain NB abilities. However, they don't hit as hard as the Titanborn/stygian blades.

In conclusion, stealth and tooltip numbers are both the issue. Being the tooltips are the #1 culprit. A increase cost on stealth will definitely help with defensive cloak abusers, and tooltip damage reduction will help with the cheesy gankers.

The duration of merciless resolve was not the reason that gankblades couldnt use assassins will. You keep the stacks when you recast the ability even when it ran out. The problem is that you instanly loose all stacks when you are out of combat, so you have to stay in combat between creating the stacks and using the bow. Combat Bug can be useful then, but keeping combat bug is as unreliable as removing it, often combat stops for 1 second only to start again without receiving or dealing dmg, too short to do (change gear, quickslots, mount) what you wanted to do but enaugh to loose stacks. Or you dont kill npc and let it hit you while you wait for a target coming nearby.

Bushido2513

Iriidius wrote: »

. Combat Bug can be useful then, but keeping combat bug is as unreliable as removing it, often combat stops for 1 second only to start again without receiving or dealing dmg, too short to do (change gear, quickslots, mount) what you wanted to do but enaugh to loose stacks. Or you dont kill npc and let it hit you while you wait for a target coming nearby.

Funny thing about the combat bug is that it seems to not want to stick around as much when you have effects that benefit from being in combat. But yeah just be a regular player with no benefit to being in combat and it just hangs in there!

Turtle_Bot

Not sure if its a bug or a deliberate change (since it buffs NBs, I'm going to assume its deliberate and another secret buff to NB), but a few days ago when I was testing this exact thing (keeping stacks outside of combat), I was able to keep the stacks indefinitely until I used my spec bow proc, even leaving combat..

EDIT: Jumped on my NB against just now to confirm this. Here's a screenshot of my NB, just killed one of the Alits outside of vivec city with light attacks to charge my merciless resolve. No longer in combat (target reticule is white, if I am in combat it shows as yellow) but I still have the 5 stacks active and if I hover my targeting reticule over an enemy it highlights and I am able to use my spec bow without re-entering combat and recharging the stacks again



So yes, it is completely possible for NBs to precharge their spec bows on one side of the map, ride somewhere else and just immediately gank someone with a precharged guaranteed crit spec bow from invis.

As I was typing this edit out, I left my character logged in. Been a solid 3-5 minutes now and the charges are all still there, merciless still highlights as ready to fire when I target over an enemy.

Turtle_Bot

Another update, switching zones has caused the stacks to finally fall off, but unless you are porting to IC or going into a delve, you're not switching zones in Cyrodiil meaning those pre-charged stacks are permanent until that spec bow is fired.

And no, mounting up does not drop the stacks either.

Bushido2513

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Another update, switching zones has caused the stacks to finally fall off, but unless you are porting to IC or going into a delve, you're not switching zones in Cyrodiil meaning those pre-charged stacks are permanent until that spec bow is fired.

And no, mounting up does not drop the stacks either.

Nice find! I'm thinking it's a bug since they seemed to have to do a few passes on this particular change. That being said I suppose it's really only useful for gankers so I'm curious to see how that goes!

FoJul

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Not sure if its a bug or a deliberate change (since it buffs NBs, I'm going to assume its deliberate and another secret buff to NB), but a few days ago when I was testing this exact thing (keeping stacks outside of combat), I was able to keep the stacks indefinitely until I used my spec bow proc, even leaving combat..

EDIT: Jumped on my NB against just now to confirm this. Here's a screenshot of my NB, just killed one of the Alits outside of vivec city with light attacks to charge my merciless resolve. No longer in combat (target reticule is white, if I am in combat it shows as yellow) but I still have the 5 stacks active and if I hover my targeting reticule over an enemy it highlights and I am able to use my spec bow without re-entering combat and recharging the stacks again



So yes, it is completely possible for NBs to precharge their spec bows on one side of the map, ride somewhere else and just immediately gank someone with a precharged guaranteed crit spec bow from invis.

As I was typing this edit out, I left my character logged in. Been a solid 3-5 minutes now and the charges are all still there, merciless still highlights as ready to fire when I target over an enemy.

This is showcasing that the people trying to argue with me dont play nightblade lol. Thanks for this example!