NB skill line adjustment is so bad, melee stemNB goodbye

bladenick · July 30

I don’t see any good side of this adjustment, it seem only on purpose of make melee NB more difficult, especially for melee stemNB

1. It difficult for a melee StemNB to maintenance major resolve both PVP / PVE, as there no stem skill in shadow skill line, a melee magNB don’t get even better, need cast cloak during melee fight to maintain major resolve
2. Make it more difficult to located skill in 1st/2nd skill bar, normally Surprise Attack/conceal weapon and Cloak drop in different skill bar, then both bar get shadow skill line passive as 8% health, after this new adjustment, this 8% health only apply for 1 bar, another skill bar don’t get this make this passive useless
3. Melee NB it difficult for dog fight in melee, surprise attack/conceal weapon triggered major resolve is very good design for Melee NB, as this shift surprise attack to assassin line make Melee NB very awkward in PVP melee fight, it only buff range proc NB which already suppress Melee build, and all class range pro build also great benefits from undeath nerf

LittlePinkDot · July 31

I can't speak in regards to NB in PVE.
I can see what you mean about the shadow passives and stamina NB. It's kinda how I feel about the siphoning passives I'm lacking on my front bar. I wish the passives on the back bar could still apply to the front bar.
You automatically get penalized for using a weapon skill. I like shrouded daggers for major brutality better than power extraction. I can easily proc major brutality from a distance and then into merciless resolve if I want to.
It's also convenient to be able to ping people running away from me.

I see no point in Stamina NB anymore. I'm only using my Magicka NB now. I wish I could change the class of my stamina NB.

bladenick · July 31

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

I can't speak in regards to NB in PVE.
I can see what you mean about the shadow passives and stamina NB. It's kinda how I feel about the siphoning passives I'm lacking on my front bar. I wish the passives on the back bar could still apply to the front bar.
You automatically get penalized for using a weapon skill. I like shrouded daggers for major brutality better than power extraction. I can easily proc major brutality from a distance and then into merciless resolve if I want to.
It's also convenient to be able to ping people running away from me.

I see no point in Stamina NB anymore. I'm only using my Magicka NB now. I wish I could change the class of my stamina NB.

Yes, the shadow passive just like pain on the ass now

StemNB will forever gone

TX12001rwb17_ESO · July 31

This change has no effect on my stamina nightblade whatsoever, infact it is a buff because I don't use Suprise Attack.

I am happy though that it is finally where it should be.

Urzigurumash · July 31

You have a great point. You may be right that this was precisely why the initial design of NB called for a Stam skill in the Shadow line, despite the Assassination tree being "its correct place" as so many are saying.

But is it right, is it wrong, that a class kit focused NB must be a MagNB? That the only reason to stack Stam should be to sustain a Weapon Skill dependent offense?

NB is not alone on this issue. In fact it is maybe only Warden for whom Stam Stacking remains relevant to the meta (speaking of PvP, and without regard for Arcanist).

There was just a post made by a StamSorc main @StaticWave on this subject:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/662948/why-does-eso-favor-magicka-specs-so-much

Here is a post on this subject I made about DK, Cro, and Plar 2 years ago:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/608080/are-stamdk-stamcro-and-stamplar-obsolete-in-pvp

Tommy_The_Gun · July 31

I tested it on PTS and it is quite horrible indeed (both PvE & PvP). And it is not just meele stam NB. Ranged bow build also will have hard time.

The thing is that stam already has its mag sustain pushed to the limits. But next patch you will have to use additional magicka costing skill in order to maintain Shadow Barrier - a "must have" thing on a NB.

In PvE this means that stam NB rotation will be screwed as you can not use your spamable to keep the buff up. You also can not use your main resources (stamina) to keep the buff up and (as mentioned) your magicka is already used for other buffs.

In PvP it is the same thing - but with a caveat - it should not be as bad since duration of the buff is longer. And NBs in general use Shadow Cloak & morphs often. But this means that you will now "have to" use it and it also potentially means that stuff that removes buffs may be way more harmful. Something tells me that while in theory it should not be as bad, in practice it will be way worse. Of course this affects only stam nb.

The bottom line is the same - stam NB since hybridization is way behind mag NB in both PvE & PvP and now the gap will be even greater.

Also, just a side note in general - why ESO has so much bias for making magicka builds drastically stronger than stamina builds ? I mean even when it comes to new Scribing system both destro & resto staff skills cannot be customized to cost stamina, but every other stam weapon scribing skill can be customized to cost magicka. Why ? It is just too obvious bias at this point.

Edit:
I posted my feedback in the 1st week of the PTS... Of course they did nothing with it...

xylena_lazarow · July 31

NB has been hybrid ever since hybridization years ago. You get the same skills and playstyle whether you use green or blue cost, so use the strongest morphs, if you're trying to force green magic for RP yeah you'll have a bad time.

NuarBlack · July 31

Sorry, but this seems like a NB entitlement problem. Many Stam classes have had to cast a magicka ability to maintain major resolve. Even before hybridization you still built around optimizing using both resource pools. Stam infact had an advantage cause draining mag didn't mean you wouldn't be able to break free unlike magicka builds that had to make sure they didn't burn too much Stam to not be able to break free when needed.

BasP · July 31

Considering you also mentioned PvE - if anything, this seems like a minor buff to me? If you use Surprise Attack as a spammable, you gain a bit more crit chance on your front bar which is nice. And now that the default duration of Shadow Barrier has been increased to 12 seconds, matching the duration of Twisting Path, it's also easy to keep up the Major Resolve buff when you switch from using your spammable to an execute skill.

Besides, if Stamina Wardens for example want to get the buff from a class skill they'd have to spend a skill slot on Ice Fortress, which costs 4050 Magicka to cast, while Nightblades get the buff from a passive just by using skills that most NBs use already. As a Warden I'd happily trade Frozen Armor for Shadow Barrier if that'd mean I'd get Major Resolve just by casting Winter's Revenge.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 31

NuarBlack wrote: »

Sorry, but this seems like a NB entitlement problem.

I would not call that entitlement. It has rather to do with the fact that it will be 1st time ever in history of ESO when ZOS for whatever reason removes non-magicka costing skill from one of the NB's Skill tree.

If you are not aware, then NB class design was like this since day 1. This class always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in each of 3 major class skill trees. Sometimes it was Stamina, sometimes it was health or sometimes it was a toggle.

So, this skill switching between trees caused this. All Shadow skills will exclusively cost magcka - which again - was never a case in the past since like I have said - NB always had at least 3 non-magicka costing skills - one for each class skill tree.

It is so big of a departure from the class design, that I simply think that it is an oversight. They focused on switching skills, but somehow did not noticed what effect it will have.

It seems to me like they are not doing it with balance in mind, but rather for pure "cleanliness and order".
Assassination... will have all the damage skills. (DPS)
Shadow... will have all the CC/Support/Survival skills. (Tank)
Siphoning... will have all of the healing/live steal skills. (Healer)

It looks nice on paper, but won't work well in practise.

Class will feel less "organic" and less like a well thought out, but rather it will feel like... umm... "70% of the buildings in the area have red roof, so we were told that we also need to paint our roof red..."

NuarBlack · July 31

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

NuarBlack wrote: »

Sorry, but this seems like a NB entitlement problem.

I would not call that entitlement. It has rather to do with the fact that it will be 1st time ever in history of ESO when ZOS for whatever reason removes non-magicka costing skill from one of the NB's Skill tree.

If you are not aware, then NB class design was like this since day 1. This class always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in each of 3 major class skill trees. Sometimes it was Stamina, sometimes it was health or sometimes it was a toggle.

So, this skill switching between trees caused this. All Shadow skills will exclusively cost magcka - which again - was never a case in the past since like I have said - NB always had at least 3 non-magicka costing skills - one for each class skill tree.

It is so big of a departure from the class design, that I simply think that it is an oversight. They focused on switching skills, but somehow did not noticed what effect it will have.

If you have really played the game for a long time all class skills used to cost exclusively magicka, there were zero Stam or health morphs. So this isn't that big of a departure. It is more like putting NB in line with other class design philosophy. NB is still getting Major resolve for free just not for free with arguably the best spammable in the game.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 31

NuarBlack wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

NuarBlack wrote: »

Sorry, but this seems like a NB entitlement problem.

I would not call that entitlement. It has rather to do with the fact that it will be 1st time ever in history of ESO when ZOS for whatever reason removes non-magicka costing skill from one of the NB's Skill tree.

If you are not aware, then NB class design was like this since day 1. This class always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in each of 3 major class skill trees. Sometimes it was Stamina, sometimes it was health or sometimes it was a toggle.

So, this skill switching between trees caused this. All Shadow skills will exclusively cost magcka - which again - was never a case in the past since like I have said - NB always had at least 3 non-magicka costing skills - one for each class skill tree.

It is so big of a departure from the class design, that I simply think that it is an oversight. They focused on switching skills, but somehow did not noticed what effect it will have.

If you have really played the game for a long time all class skills used to cost exclusively magicka, there were zero Stam or health morphs. So this isn't that big of a departure. It is more like putting NB in line with other class design philosophy. NB is still getting Major resolve for free just not for free with arguably the best spammable in the game.

Nope.

NB always had "non-magicka" costing things.
- Siphoning Strikes had a toggle morph (no cost, u were dealing 10 or 15% less damage, but had better sustain)
- Veiled Strike always had stamina morph, but in the past "converts to stamina ability" was considered "an effect" so it was a weaker morph.
- Assassin's Blade or Teleport Strike - can't remember if both or only one of those had same feature in one of the morphs (converts to stamina ability).

Bottom line is - NB always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in every of it's skill lines. It was like this since day 1. It was this class design's philosophy.

NuarBlack · July 31

Sorry, my friend, I have played since beta. Prior to around One Tamriel class abilities all cost magicka so I'm not sure what Day one you are talking about.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 31

Day 1 = April 4, 2014 - ESO release date... at least this is what I remember.

"Beta" is before that, so it might be true that in Beta all class skills, regardless of a class were all costing magicka. I won't argue how things were in Beta cuz I did not played ESO pre-launch.

Also, truth be told - One Tamriel felt like ESO 2 - it was such a big update. But even if it was since One Tamriel - then It is still a very big departure from the class design (One Tamriel was not so long after ESO launch as the game was dying and this updated saved this game).

monkidb16_ESO · July 31

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

If you are not aware, then NB class design was like this since day 1. This class always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in each of 3 major class skill trees. Sometimes it was Stamina, sometimes it was health or sometimes it was a toggle.

That's not true btw, at launch every single class ability was Magicka based.
They only started implementing Stamina class abilities shortly before the launch of Morrowind.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 31

monkidb16_ESO wrote: »

That's not true btw, at launch every single class ability was Magicka based.
They only started implementing Stamina class abilities shortly before the launch of Morrowind.

That is weird. I clearly remember playing around stam NB & trying to optimise the build in Gold Coast Zone - which was Dark Brotherhood DLC, before Morrowind.

In Morrowind, they added Warden that was the 2nd Class that had some stamina morphs and around that time they also started adding stam morphs to other classes.

Also (back to the topic) - it is not like they are removing some of the NB's Stam skills. They are just switching them around. And it just so happens that they "switched" the only non-magicka costing morph. Like... Assassination will now have 4 stamina morphs.

Again, I do think that is not done with balance in mind, but rather for pure "cleanliness and order". So that it would "look nice". Kinda like MS was thinking when they were designing start menu for Windows 11. It looks nice, but is much worse in terms of functionality vs Windows 10 & 7.

bladenick · August 1

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

NuarBlack wrote: »

Sorry, but this seems like a NB entitlement problem.

I would not call that entitlement. It has rather to do with the fact that it will be 1st time ever in history of ESO when ZOS for whatever reason removes non-magicka costing skill from one of the NB's Skill tree.

If you are not aware, then NB class design was like this since day 1. This class always had at least 1 non-magicka costing skill in each of 3 major class skill trees. Sometimes it was Stamina, sometimes it was health or sometimes it was a toggle.

So, this skill switching between trees caused this. All Shadow skills will exclusively cost magcka - which again - was never a case in the past since like I have said - NB always had at least 3 non-magicka costing skills - one for each class skill tree.

It is so big of a departure from the class design, that I simply think that it is an oversight. They focused on switching skills, but somehow did not noticed what effect it will have.

It seems to me like they are not doing it with balance in mind, but rather for pure "cleanliness and order".
Assassination... will have all the damage skills. (DPS)
Shadow... will have all the CC/Support/Survival skills. (Tank)
Siphoning... will have all of the healing/live steal skills. (Healer)

It looks nice on paper, but won't work well in practise.

Class will feel less "organic" and less like a well thought out, but rather it will feel like... umm... "70% of the buildings in the area have red roof, so we were told that we also need to paint our roof red..."

Vote for “ pure "cleanliness and order"”, it also actually my feeling of this skill line change

LittlePinkDot · August 1

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I tested it on PTS and it is quite horrible indeed (both PvE & PvP). And it is not just meele stam NB. Ranged bow build also will have hard time.

The thing is that stam already has its mag sustain pushed to the limits. But next patch you will have to use additional magicka costing skill in order to maintain Shadow Barrier - a "must have" thing on a NB.

In PvE this means that stam NB rotation will be screwed as you can not use your spamable to keep the buff up. You also can not use your main resources (stamina) to keep the buff up and (as mentioned) your magicka is already used for other buffs.

In PvP it is the same thing - but with a caveat - it should not be as bad since duration of the buff is longer. And NBs in general use Shadow Cloak & morphs often. But this means that you will now "have to" use it and it also potentially means that stuff that removes buffs may be way more harmful. Something tells me that while in theory it should not be as bad, in practice it will be way worse. Of course this affects only stam nb.

The bottom line is the same - stam NB since hybridization is way behind mag NB in both PvE & PvP and now the gap will be even greater.

Also, just a side note in general - why ESO has so much bias for making magicka builds drastically stronger than stamina builds ? I mean even when it comes to new Scribing system both destro & resto staff skills cannot be customized to cost stamina, but every other stam weapon scribing skill can be customized to cost magicka. Why ? It is just too obvious bias at this point.

Edit:
I posted my feedback in the 1st week of the PTS... Of course they did nothing with it...

Yeah it's cloak cost in general that made Stam NB in PvP less viable for me.

xylena_lazarow · August 1

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Yeah it's cloak cost in general that made Stam NB in PvP less viable for me.

You can build a NB with a higher stam pool but high mag regen and spam cloak all you want. You can run a DW/Bow traditional stam playstyle but using your mag pool and mostly mag skills. Embrace hybrid meta.

Durham · August 1

It’s not just night blade … ranged damage vs melee is a complete mess. Currently with destro staffs and changes to status effects melee is a worse option in almost every case!

I would like to how elemental sus has not been adjusted yet one of the most unbalanced abilities in the game (no cost does damage and debuffs major for a crazy amount of time).

bladenick · August 1

Durham wrote: »

It’s not just night blade … ranged damage vs melee is a complete mess. Currently with destro staffs and changes to status effects melee is a worse option in almost every case!

I would like to how elemental sus has not been adjusted yet one of the most unbalanced abilities in the game (no cost does damage and debuffs major for a crazy amount of time).

There all adjustments make the melee even worst, just join them switch to range build

I previously build NB blade with 2H, because this class called Night Blade, it lore friendly to wield melee weapon however it dominates by range NB, but I don’t see any reason to continue, already switch to bow/des staff yesterday to prepare this U43, it obviously more powerfull in BG

LittlePinkDot · August 2

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Yeah it's cloak cost in general that made Stam NB in PvP less viable for me.

You can build a NB with a higher stam pool but high mag regen and spam cloak all you want. You can run a DW/Bow traditional stam playstyle but using your mag pool and mostly mag skills. Embrace hybrid meta.

I'm very hard on resources. My mag blade is a bit hybrid. I like shrouded daggers for major brutality instead of power extraction.
I changed her race to imperial and cured vampirism.
Even with atronach mundus it can be hard to sustain if a fight is lasting too long in BG.

I just want a class change token so I can change my wood elf Stam NB to a stam sorc, because I'm changing my altmer stamsorc to a magsorc... I want to see for myself what all the fuss is about in regards to magsorc.

bladenick · August 2

NB is struggling with sustain

emilyhyoyeon · August 2

To me this sounds like instead one of the Blur morphs should be changed to cost stamina.

bladenick · August 2

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

To me this sounds like instead one of the Blur morphs should be changed to cost stamina.

It not spamable, surprise attack is spamsble stem/mag skill with major resolve, it gone

Galeriano2 · August 2

bladenick wrote: »

NB is struggling with sustain

Huh?

Galeriano2 · August 2

bladenick wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

To me this sounds like instead one of the Blur morphs should be changed to cost stamina.

It not spamable, surprise attack is spamsble stem/mag skill with major resolve, it gone

As someone else already pointed out since the buff will be now 12 seconds in PvE it will be aligning with twisting path which even stamblade can use and in PvP stam, mag and hyrbid nightblade are using cloak and usually 1 piece of heavy armor which makes that major resolve to last 14 seconds which is far more than most nightblade spends without using cloak.

NuarBlack · August 2

bladenick wrote: »

NB is struggling with sustain

Maybe try wearing something other than all damage sets.

Tommy_The_Gun · August 2

Galeriano2 wrote: »

bladenick wrote: »

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

To me this sounds like instead one of the Blur morphs should be changed to cost stamina.

It not spamable, surprise attack is spamsble stem/mag skill with major resolve, it gone

As someone else already pointed out since the buff will be now 12 seconds in PvE it will be aligning with twisting path which even stamblade can use and in PvP stam, mag and hyrbid nightblade are using cloak and usually 1 piece of heavy armor which makes that major resolve to last 14 seconds which is far more than most nightblade spends without using cloak.

Rotation changes is only a tip of the iceberg of artificially generated problems this change will cause. I mean I do wonder why this skill swap is even being pushed in a 1st place. To me it looks like it is not done with balance in mind, but rather for the skill trees to "look nice". Usage & functionality will be actually worse.

bladenick · August 3

For PVP, currently I just use surprise attack as spammable, so in most case melee NB will slot this skill, it get 6s major resolve, as it spamable, 6s is quite good
After patch43, I need figure out other way, as cast shadow path is not option as I don’t slot this, need cast cloak even I don’t need invisible, just for major resolve, it really very bad for spamable surprise attack build

Bucky_13 · August 3

NuarBlack wrote: »

bladenick wrote: »

NB is struggling with sustain

Maybe try wearing something other than all damage sets.

For PvE I use all damage sets and still have no sustain issues. I do tend to backbar Siphoning Attacks, one of the NB skills that I do like the recent changes to.