Why so many stealth NBs now?

moo_2021

There has been a sharp increase in recent months in PC-EU, went from almost non-existent to one third and sometimes half.

Today there were two teams made entirely of stealth NBs, quite hilarious as none in their teams was built to do objectives.


But why? What changed to make stealth NB more appealing now?

CameraBeardThePirate

Because they've received buff after buff after buff for almost 2 years now, despite being at or near the top of the classes in PvP during that entire time.

Casual players have caught on to this, so the number of nightblades continues to rise.

Necrotech_Master

i have regularly seen groups of gankblades in cyro blackreach now for the past like 3 years lol

Turtle_Bot

because zos refuses to implement NB buffs that only apply in PvE, so in PvP the already decently strong NB class just continued to get buff after buff after buff putting the class far ahead of everything else in PvP and over the past few months the regular player base has finally realized what the rest of us were saying about these generic buffs to NB all along.

KS_Amt38

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

because zos refuses to implement NB buffs that only apply in PvE, so in PvP the already decently strong NB class just continued to get buff after buff after buff putting the class far ahead of everything else in PvP and over the past few months the regular player base has finally realized what the rest of us were saying about these generic buffs to NB all along.

This has nothing to do with PVE otherwise NBs wouldnt be the worst DD Class in the Game. What Nightblade lack is Cleave dmg and they only get their Single Target damaged buffed which is almost only useful in PvP.

xDeusEJRx

KS_Amt38 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

because zos refuses to implement NB buffs that only apply in PvE, so in PvP the already decently strong NB class just continued to get buff after buff after buff putting the class far ahead of everything else in PvP and over the past few months the regular player base has finally realized what the rest of us were saying about these generic buffs to NB all along.

This has nothing to do with PVE otherwise NBs wouldnt be the worst DD Class in the Game. What Nightblade lack is Cleave dmg and they only get their Single Target damaged buffed which is almost only useful in PvP.

The nightblade changes are certainly not PVP focused, just because players don't get desired buffs doesn't mean the devs intention isn't PVE focused.

A LOT of the changes were to make PVE nightblade better, not PVP. The devs RARELY make updates with PVP in mind.

They even changed the melee spammables to make it less effective in pvp by taking away the guaranteed stun (in the devs own words)


They also changed dark cloak because they DIDN'T want it to be so strong in PVP, but only strong in PVE, even though most Nightblade PVP players use shadowy disguise.


Source: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/615315/pc-mac-patch-notes-v8-1-5-lost-depths-dlc-update-35#latest

Also current iteration of the Grim focus ability was done with the intention of getting around critical cap penalty of the old crit buff from bow and because they thought "it was a loss in some group content" (devs own words paraphrased). Not to mention Dark cloak first got buffed for PVE tanks, not PVP.


Source: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590109/pc-mac-patch-notes-v7-2-5-deadlands-update-32#latest

Death stroke buffed to help Nightblades increase DPS, so a PVE update.


Source: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/635069/pc-mac-patch-notes-v9-0-5-necrom-update-38#latest


So I have no idea what you're talking about saying that "this has nothing to do with PVE".
Zos does not do these updates with PVP in mind, PVP is not a major focus of the game anymore. They did majority of the Nightblade updates to make PVE nightblade better, PVP just ate the scraps that PVE players got
Just because they aren't the updates you wanted, doesn't mean ZOS hasn't been throwing PVE nightblade all of the bones.

Sluggy

I mean, when haven't nightblades primarily relied on stealth? Literally the very first PvP fight I ever had was myself and another nightblade popping in and out of cloak hopelessly trying to kill each other with pathetic attacks.

It's not only a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's also a get-into-fort-knox-free card! For this event I was running just a tad over 18k hp which guaranteed my death if anyone pulled of a combo on me and I still maintained a 10 for my kdr. And I suck at nightblading lol. Why wouldn't you be relying on stealth as much as possible when it triggers nearly every benefit the class has at its disposal?

Turtle_Bot

KS_Amt38 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

because zos refuses to implement NB buffs that only apply in PvE, so in PvP the already decently strong NB class just continued to get buff after buff after buff putting the class far ahead of everything else in PvP and over the past few months the regular player base has finally realized what the rest of us were saying about these generic buffs to NB all along.

This has nothing to do with PVE otherwise NBs wouldnt be the worst DD Class in the Game. What Nightblade lack is Cleave dmg and they only get their Single Target damaged buffed which is almost only useful in PvP.

It has everything to do with PvE, PvE is the only reason why NB is still getting any buffs to its kit at all (even though the buffs they are getting clearly aren't having the desired effect and are only further buffing NB in PvP).
As Deus explained/showed above, every change made to NB has been with the intention/focus of buffing PvE NB as stated by the devs themselves in their comments/explanations.
But because ZOS keeps constantly buffing the wrong skills, instead of focusing on the right skills to give buffs to, these buffs always end up buffing NB in PvP more as a result, even though that was never the devs original intentions.

You are right in that ZOS doesn't focus their buffs on the right skills for PvE NB, but that is the issue, because in their attempts to keep buffing NB for PvE while keeping the "Single target assassin" theme of the class, ZOS keeps buffing the single target abilities (Merciless Resolve, Concealed Weapon/Surprise Attack, cloak and Incap) in different ways instead of buffing the AoE DoT abilities (lotus fan, twisting path and veil of blades) that would actually have the desired outcome of buffing PvE NB without buffing PvP NB.

RetPing

You really wonder why people play developers favourite son?
Imagine having stealth, strong burst healing, strong burst damage and minor expedition for just slotting your spammable.

moo_2021

Sluggy wrote: »

I mean, when haven't nightblades primarily relied on stealth? Literally the very first PvP fight I ever had was myself and another nightblade popping in and out of cloak hopelessly trying to kill each other with pathetic attacks.

It's not only a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's also a get-into-fort-knox-free card! For this event I was running just a tad over 18k hp which guaranteed my death if anyone pulled of a combo on me and I still maintained a 10 for my kdr. And I suck at nightblading lol. Why wouldn't you be relying on stealth as much as possible when it triggers nearly every benefit the class has at its disposal?

They can't sprint or teleport in stealth. It's unlike to get out of gap closer range and nothing like streak.

Sluggy

moo_2021 wrote: »

Sluggy wrote: »

I mean, when haven't nightblades primarily relied on stealth? Literally the very first PvP fight I ever had was myself and another nightblade popping in and out of cloak hopelessly trying to kill each other with pathetic attacks.

It's not only a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's also a get-into-fort-knox-free card! For this event I was running just a tad over 18k hp which guaranteed my death if anyone pulled of a combo on me and I still maintained a 10 for my kdr. And I suck at nightblading lol. Why wouldn't you be relying on stealth as much as possible when it triggers nearly every benefit the class has at its disposal?

They can't sprint or teleport in stealth. It's unlike to get out of gap closer range and nothing like streak.

You can teleport in stealth. Its very common in fact and many people mistake it for cloak. As for sprinting, who needs it? I personally was rocking major and minor expedition as well as the Ring of the Wild Hunt. Moved nearly at speed cap without ever leaving invisibility. Between speed without sprinting, teleporting when in trouble, two-tapping many people straight out of stealth without them even knowing it was coming it all kinda just fits together with invisibility quite nicely.

And yeah, the odd streaking sorc or CritRushing RoA user would catch me. But that's only if they knew I was there which is where invisibility helps in the first place. I probably spent about 45 seconds out of every minute smacking cloak every 2.5 seconds because there's no reason not to.

Aces-High-82

Stage 4 Vamp.
Shade.

You're right....its nothing like streak bc streak doesn't prevent to eat full damage during its teleport instance.

Major_Toughness

NBs are the best pug stomping class especially at low MMR because people don't know when to dodge or block the bow proc.