Patchnodes the real pvp - why killing cloak ?

colossalvoids

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

AnduinTryggva

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

What the heeeeeel is that looool. Completely killed the skill for pvp.

Yeah the nb bombers and gankers will hate it. Now they have to be more careful of how to cloak.

Tommy_The_Gun

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

it will only impact those that use Cloak as a crutch.

So it will affect 99,99% of Nightbaldes (PvE & PvP) GJ ZOS

I also never understood this argument. Cloak as a crutch ? As if something that you stick to and it caries you ? Well.. it may have been true in the long long past, like 8 years ago or more, but the reality is that if the only line of defence of a NB is a cloak - then the NB is already dead. Relying just on invisibility in PvP is just a death sentence or suicide. No decent NB does that.

Kinda similar with Sorcs - They have Streak (and it could be said that Streak is a crutch), but then you have shields - another line of defence.

The issue is that what ZOS is doing is they are effectively taking one NB line of defence away. It is same as if they reduced Sorc shields by 50%.

Cloak is a crutch, and to deny that fact is ridiculous. Cloak is supposed to enable the "assassin" playstyle of nightblade in the first place, it's meant to help you do burst damage (hence why you get guaranteed crit). It's not a defensive skill the way you described it, and it's surely not meant to be used as a "last line of defense".
What kind of defensive skill gives you crit damage meant for burst? The reason it is defensive is because a lot of nightblades use it to hide away from enemies in most encounters, not to "assassinate" people like the archetype is meant for.

The fact that the skill gives you a lot more utility beyond just the offensive capability and people spam it to run from encounters is evident that players crutch on it.

Prior to hybridization NB's had to use a combo of cloak and shadow image to re-position themselves, but hybridization allowed for such easy sustain that NB no longer needs shadow image for mobility, they can just spam cloak. This is only a recent phenomenon that is a consequence of hybridization, and NB's do crutch on it now.

Maybe it was over nerfed but it needed a change nonetheless.

Is streak an offensive or defensive tool ? It deals dmg. It stuns the target. It is a perfect setup for burst. So applying same logic means that streak is not intended to be used defensively...

...And yet sorcs use this skill defensively, whenever the odds turns against them, they turn around & teleport 3 miles away.

Same as cloak - it is both offensive & defensive tool. It is not a crutch. Proc sets like Tarnished Nightmare or Dark Convergence are crouch carry sets. Cloak is not.

Streak is both. The base morph is literally called "bolt escape", if you don't know. Bolt escape at it's core is a gap creation skill, it has no damage, purely meant to create distance from enemies. The streak morph is meant to be make it both offensive and defensive and the other morph "ball of lightning" is fully defensive.

Cloak on the other hand is not both offensive, it's purely offensive. Dark cloak is the defensive morph.
It's not even the same argument, there's clearly an offensive and defensive morph and cloak players clutch on it to be able to get free defensive help by being able to run away from people.

The intentions behind these skills are not even the same so comparing them makes no sense.

I am not sure if you are "conveniently" forgetting about it or perhaps you don't know or don't remember it, but cloak used to have 2 morphs - one offensive & one defensive. But because of NB toolkit actually kinda um... was "lacking tools" (mainly a self heal), in order to give mag builds a decent heal so they would not have to rely on Vigor or having resto staff equipped, they completely sacrificed one of the cloak morphs & converted it to a heal. Btw. Did you not ever found that weird & out of place that one cloak morph is not a cloak at all ? Cuz it is a leftover from the past balance changes. And what happened later is that the only invisibility morph left (Shadowy Disguise) was both offensive & defensive as it combined a bit of both. I mean it had dot suppression for a while cuz zos did not knew how to code it properly as eveything (even dots) were removing cloak. Right now, as I have mentioned it combines both offensive & defensive stuff. Even something like more crit chance can be used as defensive tool for healing & healing over time. And cloak still protects from single target direct damage. If things won't lag out you can often see "miss" over your character if some one is attacking you with direct damage ranged attacks. In many "we want cloak gone from the game" threds, people were even mentioning that cloak is a good dmg mitigation tool because of that.

It is both offensive & defensive tool as it always was for 10 years. You just need to play as nb at least once to know that. Saying that it is a crutch & assuming things based on skill description & taking your knowledge only from reading skill description is just wrong as it justs spreads misinformation.

opethmaniac

How will the guaranteed crit work?

- will it automatically activated if you leave stealth?
- or do you have to activate cloak, and have to disable it within the 3 seconds?

The latter would be clunky as hell...

Some said, on the PTR cloak will not be automatically disabled when you leave stealth, draining mana if you are visible... this has to be changed because it simply makes no sense. I hope this is a bug and will be fixed.

Stamblades will be nerfed to the ground due to lack of mana, only viable option is bowblade then, which was and is weak for it's own (outside of the tarnished meta).

Oldaraness

Cloack is not a defensive or offensive skill, shadow is everything an NB needs. When you need an active defense, a decent passive, when you attack grants a crit, it makes you invisible if you have to get close to your opponent... Changing it like this after 10 years makes no sense. Those who complain are only because they don't know how to counter an NB in PVP. To counter Cloack you just need to have puddles eh, only that many do not use them ... but this is their problem, not NB.

There are classes instead that are OP by clicking 1-2 keys (Arcanist) or others that are almost impossible to kill (some builds for DK and some for SORC). Not to mention that there are super powerful class skills in many classes and Cloack doesn't have all that... It's a skill with different utilities that can be countered easily, I don't understand why all this fury against the only real skill that makes an NB ... an NB.

Aurielle

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). (EDIT: nah, it's just Darloc Brae. For some reason, I assumed any set that affects magicka recovery might be disabled by Shadowy Disguise, but it still works with Darloc Brae). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

colossalvoids

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

Not sure you're serious as casual players would just not engage with the skill and activities anymore and those surely are not seeking ways to make it work again through different niche interactions that would be patched next incremental and not hit live most probably. Those aren't seeking out specific builds nor ever used it to much or any advantage, as you've probably saw ingame throughout the years - cloaking to the last drop of health running away from actually competent players.

It's still a change that makes sense only for competitive players, no one else.

Aurielle

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

Not sure you're serious as casual players would just not engage with the skill and activities anymore and those surely are not seeking ways to make it work again through different niche interactions that would be patched next incremental and not hit live most probably. Those aren't seeking out specific builds nor ever used it to much or any advantage, as you've probably saw ingame throughout the years - cloaking to the last drop of health running away from actually competent players.

It's still a change that makes sense only for competitive players, no one else.

I think that if a casual player knew that simply putting Darloc Brae and Siphoning Attacks on their back bar would allow them to permanently stealth around any area of the game with ease, including dangerous areas like Imperial City and Cyrodiil, they'd almost certainly do it. Darloc Brae is a very cheap set to buy from traders. It's way easier to do PVE stealthy roleplay stuff on PTS than it is on live now, as you don't even have to remember to reactivate Shadowy Disguise before it drops off. Casual players typically seek the path of least resistance, and the video I've linked absolutely falls into path of least resistance territory. Assuming there are no further tweaks to skills like Siphoning Attacks before U44 goes live, and assuming it remains possible to maintain the benefits of Darloc Brae with Shadowy Disguise active before U44 goes live, it will become common knowledge that it's a good set for that thief playstyle -- much like it's common knowledge among casual players that Deadly is a good set for Arcanists, that Order's Wrath is a strong crafted set, etc.

colossalvoids

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

Not sure you're serious as casual players would just not engage with the skill and activities anymore and those surely are not seeking ways to make it work again through different niche interactions that would be patched next incremental and not hit live most probably. Those aren't seeking out specific builds nor ever used it to much or any advantage, as you've probably saw ingame throughout the years - cloaking to the last drop of health running away from actually competent players.

It's still a change that makes sense only for competitive players, no one else.

I think that if a casual player knew that simply putting Darloc Brae and Siphoning Attacks on their back bar would allow them to permanently stealth around any area of the game with ease, including dangerous areas like Imperial City and Cyrodiil, they'd almost certainly do it. Darloc Brae is a very cheap set to buy from traders. It's way easier to do PVE stealthy roleplay stuff on PTS than it is on live now, as you don't even have to remember to reactivate Shadowy Disguise before it drops off. Casual players typically seek the path of least resistance, and the video I've linked absolutely falls into path of least resistance territory. Assuming there are no further tweaks to skills like Siphoning Attacks before U44 goes live, and assuming it remains possible to maintain the benefits of Darloc Brae with Shadowy Disguise active before U44 goes live, it will become common knowledge that it's a good set for that thief playstyle -- much like it's common knowledge among casual players that Deadly is a good set for Arcanists, that Order's Wrath is a strong crafted set, etc.

Wish I had as positive outlook at the community and devs at the same time to not fix obviously unintended interaction. Will see how it goes to live and judge by that, but I still see it as the same deal like clipped wings or third sorc bar more or less (not for good players, those aren't affected much nor needed cloak to begin with apart from bombing).

Aurielle

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

Not sure you're serious as casual players would just not engage with the skill and activities anymore and those surely are not seeking ways to make it work again through different niche interactions that would be patched next incremental and not hit live most probably. Those aren't seeking out specific builds nor ever used it to much or any advantage, as you've probably saw ingame throughout the years - cloaking to the last drop of health running away from actually competent players.

It's still a change that makes sense only for competitive players, no one else.

I think that if a casual player knew that simply putting Darloc Brae and Siphoning Attacks on their back bar would allow them to permanently stealth around any area of the game with ease, including dangerous areas like Imperial City and Cyrodiil, they'd almost certainly do it. Darloc Brae is a very cheap set to buy from traders. It's way easier to do PVE stealthy roleplay stuff on PTS than it is on live now, as you don't even have to remember to reactivate Shadowy Disguise before it drops off. Casual players typically seek the path of least resistance, and the video I've linked absolutely falls into path of least resistance territory. Assuming there are no further tweaks to skills like Siphoning Attacks before U44 goes live, and assuming it remains possible to maintain the benefits of Darloc Brae with Shadowy Disguise active before U44 goes live, it will become common knowledge that it's a good set for that thief playstyle -- much like it's common knowledge among casual players that Deadly is a good set for Arcanists, that Order's Wrath is a strong crafted set, etc.

Wish I had as positive outlook at the community and devs at the same time to not fix obviously unintended interaction. Will see how it goes to live and judge by that, but I still see it as the same deal like clipped wings or third sorc bar more or less (not for good players, those aren't affected much nor needed cloak to begin with apart from bombing).

We'll see what happens. I understand why people are concerned, but I stress again that it's really important to actually test stuff before making massive claims like "PVE stamblades are dead." And remember, this is only the first pass of the Shadowy Disguise re-work -- even if they do disable "unintended" interactions that make it extremely easy to sustain cloak indefinitely on PVE stamblades, it is also quite possible that they will reign in the magicka drain a fair bit before it goes live.

RomanRex

All skills change over time. For better or worse.

Cloak was despised by many in its current state and overdue for a nerf.

LadyLavina

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

NBs in shambles because they'll actually have to think about how to cloak effectively vs just spamming it.

I respect you tremendously as I've seen you in BG's/you're exceptional at it, but this is a bad take. Competitiveness is fine, but try and be a little more compassionate/at the very least empathetic with your fellow gamer. We're all just people behind these screens playing something that has been lovely over the last decade. Think about how up in arms you'd be if a core part of whatever class you play were destroyed. You wouldn't take this approach, for sure.

Sarannah

Even though I hate stealthgankers with a fiery passion, this seems like another one of those nerfs that completely suck the soul out of the game. In this case for the nightblade class. So much has been changed/nerfed/removed for the sake of PvP already, that at this point I'd rather ZOS just remove PvP entirely instead of changing the whole game to encompass it. Or, better yet, separate PvE and PvP balancing!

Instead of changing cloak, change magelight: "Activating magelight on your skillbar allows you to see everything in stealth and invisibility, including enemies, as a nameless and factionless shadowy silhouette for 5 minutes."
This changes the entire way stealth works, makes stealthganking much much harder but keeps the NB"s identity and stealthganking intact. While at the same time gives players a reason to slot magelight, as something taking up a skillslot should be powerful.

PS: The current stealth change will make it even more unlikely for PvE players to ever enter PvP zones, as they would often use stealth to complete their goals(event tickets/quests/endeavours/etc). Including me!

Joy_Division

LadyLavina wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

NBs in shambles because they'll actually have to think about how to cloak effectively vs just spamming it.

Think about how up in arms you'd be if a core part of whatever class you play were destroyed. You wouldn't take this approach, for sure.

Most of us don;t need to think about it as ZOs has stripped away a lot of the core functionality, distinctiveness, or class identity from our favorite classes years ago.

I get the frustration, but many of the posts here about their class and build are overreactions and catastrophizing the situation. The skill still retains the functionality it once did (and thus these builds will retain their peak offensive and defensive capability). A templar player could only be so lucky that the original Eclipse, Blinding Flashes, Stuns on Jabs/Spears, etc., were nerfed such that they could merely only use these skills less often, rather than their original functionality no longer existing in the game. Every other class has had to undergo this adjustment process to the loss of a core functionality years and years ago and much more dramatically so.

One criticism I will agree with is the whole "accessibility" reasoning. That's just propaganda to make a nerf sound not as so bad. The skill is in zero way any more accessible that it was. Zos should just be honest and say "We are lessening the amount of times Nightblades can continuously cloak in PvP because no other spec has had remained a consistent top tier performer in PvP settings as a high damaging stamblade and these changes are primary meant to address that.

StihlReign

Used it on PTS, the skill change feels terrible, adding the monster buff feels like admitting npcs need tuning.

There's been nothing wrong with Shadowy Disguise for 10+ years (other than needed bug fixes).

Jaimeh

RomanRex wrote: »

All skills change over time. For better or worse.

Cloak was despised by many in its current state and overdue for a nerf.

This is not a nerf. If they wanted to nerf it, they could have increased the cost upon cast. They are changing how the skill fundamentally works, and it impacts both PvP and PvE. The way the skill worked was very intuitive, now it will requires such micromanaging that people will opt out. One of the most iconic skills in the NB tool kit just bit the dust. Because people want to run in 25k health and no detect pots.

xDeusEJRx

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

it will only impact those that use Cloak as a crutch.

So it will affect 99,99% of Nightbaldes (PvE & PvP) GJ ZOS

I also never understood this argument. Cloak as a crutch ? As if something that you stick to and it caries you ? Well.. it may have been true in the long long past, like 8 years ago or more, but the reality is that if the only line of defence of a NB is a cloak - then the NB is already dead. Relying just on invisibility in PvP is just a death sentence or suicide. No decent NB does that.

Kinda similar with Sorcs - They have Streak (and it could be said that Streak is a crutch), but then you have shields - another line of defence.

The issue is that what ZOS is doing is they are effectively taking one NB line of defence away. It is same as if they reduced Sorc shields by 50%.

Cloak is a crutch, and to deny that fact is ridiculous. Cloak is supposed to enable the "assassin" playstyle of nightblade in the first place, it's meant to help you do burst damage (hence why you get guaranteed crit). It's not a defensive skill the way you described it, and it's surely not meant to be used as a "last line of defense".
What kind of defensive skill gives you crit damage meant for burst? The reason it is defensive is because a lot of nightblades use it to hide away from enemies in most encounters, not to "assassinate" people like the archetype is meant for.

The fact that the skill gives you a lot more utility beyond just the offensive capability and people spam it to run from encounters is evident that players crutch on it.

Prior to hybridization NB's had to use a combo of cloak and shadow image to re-position themselves, but hybridization allowed for such easy sustain that NB no longer needs shadow image for mobility, they can just spam cloak. This is only a recent phenomenon that is a consequence of hybridization, and NB's do crutch on it now.

Maybe it was over nerfed but it needed a change nonetheless.

Is streak an offensive or defensive tool ? It deals dmg. It stuns the target. It is a perfect setup for burst. So applying same logic means that streak is not intended to be used defensively...

...And yet sorcs use this skill defensively, whenever the odds turns against them, they turn around & teleport 3 miles away.

Same as cloak - it is both offensive & defensive tool. It is not a crutch. Proc sets like Tarnished Nightmare or Dark Convergence are crouch carry sets. Cloak is not.

Streak is both. The base morph is literally called "bolt escape", if you don't know. Bolt escape at it's core is a gap creation skill, it has no damage, purely meant to create distance from enemies. The streak morph is meant to be make it both offensive and defensive and the other morph "ball of lightning" is fully defensive.

Cloak on the other hand is not both offensive, it's purely offensive. Dark cloak is the defensive morph.
It's not even the same argument, there's clearly an offensive and defensive morph and cloak players clutch on it to be able to get free defensive help by being able to run away from people.

The intentions behind these skills are not even the same so comparing them makes no sense.

I am not sure if you are "conveniently" forgetting about it or perhaps you don't know or don't remember it, but cloak used to have 2 morphs - one offensive & one defensive. But because of NB toolkit actually kinda um... was "lacking tools" (mainly a self heal), in order to give mag builds a decent heal so they would not have to rely on Vigor or having resto staff equipped, they completely sacrificed one of the cloak morphs & converted it to a heal. Btw. Did you not ever found that weird & out of place that one cloak morph is not a cloak at all ? Cuz it is a leftover from the past balance changes. And what happened later is that the only invisibility morph left (Shadowy Disguise) was both offensive & defensive as it combined a bit of both. I mean it had dot suppression for a while cuz zos did not knew how to code it properly as eveything (even dots) were removing cloak. Right now, as I have mentioned it combines both offensive & defensive stuff. Even something like more crit chance can be used as defensive tool for healing & healing over time. And cloak still protects from single target direct damage. If things won't lag out you can often see "miss" over your character if some one is attacking you with direct damage ranged attacks. In many "we want cloak gone from the game" threds, people were even mentioning that cloak is a good dmg mitigation tool because of that.

It is both offensive & defensive tool as it always was for 10 years. You just need to play as nb at least once to know that. Saying that it is a crutch & assuming things based on skill description & taking your knowledge only from reading skill description is just wrong as it justs spreads misinformation.

I was using the skill descriptions to primarily show what the skill is leaning towards and what it's supposed to add to your kit in the morph, additionally, I have played nightblade for over 5 years and mained it for 4 years, I've played all playstyles of Nightblade, both stam melee, mag melee, and ranged mag with swallow soul, with shadowy disguise and with dark cloak.

Here is me two days ago on a dark cloak Nightblade both stam Melee and Mag ranged with swallow soul:



Cloak has never been used defensively on my bar, people use that as a crutch to hide away from enemies. Nightblade has all the tools necessary to be defensive, now even more so than ever, but they crutch on how easy it is.

I've also never had any issue being defensive either since the addition of Mythics into the game, and I don't even use meta gear or setups in pvp. Neither my swallow soul build or stamblade using surprise attack are the "meta" way to play and I have no issue surviving or killing players.

If I can find easy success without crutching on cloak in off-meta so can people running meta gear. It's a learn 2 play issue created by relying on invisibility.
The people who are saying Nightblade will be "niche" is overreacting because being able to hit a 10k+ surprise attack alone puts them above classes like Templar and Necromancer, Necro wishes they could do this much damage to players in PVP. It might drop down on the tier list but it's better than half of the classes at PVP still.

Lastly, I would maybe agree 0 mag regen is too much of a nerf, but it should penalize cloak spamming nonetheless, hence why I support such a change despite maining Nightblade.

LadyLavina

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

If I can find easy success without crutching on cloak in off-meta so can people running meta gear. It's a learn 2 play issue created by relying on invisibility.

Saying that is akin to a Stamsorc telling a Magsorc to "just get good at Stamsorc" if a negative change to Magsorc happens.

Telling a Nightblade they're "crutching on cloak" is akin to telling a bird they're crutching on their wings. The logic just doesn't work. The NAME Nightblade suggests rogue-like stealth approach. If you manage to play otherwise, great, but don't let your experiences lead you to just discount the negative feedback others have on this.

I respect you and your opinion, I'm just passionate about this from the other side of the fence.

(Literally just engaging with differing opinions here ZOS_Icy, would appreciate some chill)

xDeusEJRx

LadyLavina wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

If I can find easy success without crutching on cloak in off-meta so can people running meta gear. It's a learn 2 play issue created by relying on invisibility.

Saying that is akin to a Stamsorc telling a Magsorc to "just get good at Stamsorc" if a negative change to Magsorc happens.

Telling a Nightblade they're "crutching on cloak" is akin to telling a bird they're crutching on their wings. The logic just doesn't work. The NAME Nightblade suggests rogue-like stealth approach. If you manage to play otherwise, great, but don't let your experiences lead you to just discount the negative feedback others have on this.

I respect you and your opinion, I'm just passionate about this from the other side of the fence.

(Literally just engaging with differing opinions here ZOS_Icy, would appreciate some chill)

I'm going to re-iterate what I said since you didn't get the memo of that message. There's a difference between using cloak as a tool and over-relying on invsibiility, hence why I said it the crutch was created by overreliance on being invisible.

Nightblade is an assassin class not a ninja or a spy, using cloak 3 times in a row to avoid enemies would make sense for a Ninja or spy class maybe, not an assassin. The cloak is to set up for big damage. It's totally possible to still use cloak for that reason.
That's why I support such a change, keep it within the assassin archetype.

Though I would also support a slight change because 0 regen is super drastic, but nonetheless it needed to be changed

Wandering_Immigrant

The main issue to me is the toggle. They want to increase the cost, ok. Cut off mag recovery while cloaked, fine. I don't spam cloak to stay invisible I use it to blink in and out repositioning, so yeah higher cost and no recovery will affect me but not kill the skill completely.

But a toggle, in heavy lag, is going to make the skill unusable. Think about all the times you have to press a skill 3-5 times before it activates then when it finally activates it goes off twice because the server had registered your button presses it just hadn't shown up on your end. Now imagine that skill is a toggle and hitting it that one extra time cancels the effect. Now imagine this ability is often the difference between life and death. Imagine hitting your burst heal twice in succession and the second cast drains the health recovered from the first cast. That's essentially what this is going to do to cloak.

Frostmear

Zos finally makes a good and justified nerf to cloak and all the NB's crying about it will likely have it changed every single week of this 5 week PTS cycle to appeal to them since they can no longer just spam cloak with almost 0 drawbacks.

This change 100% needs to go through.
(BTW i've played NB for years)

Frostmear

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

You cloak to get away and then crouch to remain stealthed. Mag recovery ins't disabled when crouched. If you can't get away while invisible for 10 seconds you shouldn't be getting away.

The issue here is speed & detection. In order to get away, you need to invest a lot into speed (and most NB already do). On top of that, you need to cast some CC inutility skill (like RAT), so you would not be cc-ed and most of those do cost mag. So that is like 3 seconds taken away from 10 already. Going into crouch stealth takes additional 3 - 3.1 seconds. So assuming your timing is perfect and you have minimal lag, out of those 10 seconds of being invisible, there is only 4 seconds of actual "moving away" part, as in order not be be cough by detection skill you need to be far away from the enemy. In a realistic scenario, it will be very hard to pull off or maybe even impossible. I also doubt 4 seconds of running away will get you even outside of the detection potion range.

Bro, NB already has insane speed without even building into it. Concealed weapon gives minor expedition, Refreshing path gives major, RAT will also give major if you slot that over phantasma escape.

Gendizer

First, they killed Arctic Blast, now Shadow Cloak. You're on the right track, ZOS. The track to shutting down the game.

CameraBeardThePirate

LadyLavina wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

NBs in shambles because they'll actually have to think about how to cloak effectively vs just spamming it.

I respect you tremendously as I've seen you in BG's/you're exceptional at it, but this is a bad take. Competitiveness is fine, but try and be a little more compassionate/at the very least empathetic with your fellow gamer. We're all just people behind these screens playing something that has been lovely over the last decade. Think about how up in arms you'd be if a core part of whatever class you play were destroyed. You wouldn't take this approach, for sure.

Here's the thing: at the end of the day, cloak is still cloak. You can't say the same for things like Stalking Blastbones that got completely deleted from the game.

Cloak is still going to be great at interrupting enemy targeting while setting up your own combos and guaranteeing a crit. You're still going to have the opportunity to lose people by using LoS cleverly with cloak.

The only thing this takes away is perma-cloak blades, which is a playstyle so far removed from the rest of the game that it should be heavily changed.

CameraBeardThePirate

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Interestingly the more I think about it the more I see that it changes literally nothing for gankers, some good bombers and really good brawler players needing just couple seconds in actual combat to reset but it's dead for literally any other travel, intelligence work, PvE etc. which is how most people actually used the skill.

Is that so, @colossalvoids ?

https://youtu.be/OHiQLEl4i0Q

Darloc Brae backbar. As you can see, activating crouch before hitting cloak seems to lessen the magicka drain from Shadowy Disguise somewhat (not sure if this is a bug, or working as intended). Thanks to these changes, PVE NBs can now enjoy being permanently cloaked in Imperial City and other locations by pressing three buttons. And I need to stress that this is cloak we're talking about here, not crouch. You can run up to mobs completely undetected while spamming Siphoning Attacks and Rally all day long. With this simple combo, you can easily complete the already easy non-combat fetch quests without even having to engage with mobs if you don't want to, significantly reducing your risk of being attacked by PVPers in combat. If the mobs detect you when you interact with a quest objective, toggle cloak on again, and off you go.

I really wish people would test stuff out before making hyperbolic claims like "PVE stamblades are dead!" Haven't tested this yet in a PVP context, but for PVE at least, it's very clear that NBs can still do their heists and stuff like that. If anything, this is a significant buff to that gameplay and anyone who roleplays a thief.

A ramping magicka cost tied to battle spirit would have been much better than this.

Not sure you're serious as casual players would just not engage with the skill and activities anymore and those surely are not seeking ways to make it work again through different niche interactions that would be patched next incremental and not hit live most probably. Those aren't seeking out specific builds nor ever used it to much or any advantage, as you've probably saw ingame throughout the years - cloaking to the last drop of health running away from actually competent players.

It's still a change that makes sense only for competitive players, no one else.

I think that if a casual player knew that simply putting Darloc Brae and Siphoning Attacks on their back bar would allow them to permanently stealth around any area of the game with ease, including dangerous areas like Imperial City and Cyrodiil, they'd almost certainly do it. Darloc Brae is a very cheap set to buy from traders. It's way easier to do PVE stealthy roleplay stuff on PTS than it is on live now, as you don't even have to remember to reactivate Shadowy Disguise before it drops off. Casual players typically seek the path of least resistance, and the video I've linked absolutely falls into path of least resistance territory. Assuming there are no further tweaks to skills like Siphoning Attacks before U44 goes live, and assuming it remains possible to maintain the benefits of Darloc Brae with Shadowy Disguise active before U44 goes live, it will become common knowledge that it's a good set for that thief playstyle -- much like it's common knowledge among casual players that Deadly is a good set for Arcanists, that Order's Wrath is a strong crafted set, etc.

Wish I had as positive outlook at the community and devs at the same time to not fix obviously unintended interaction. Will see how it goes to live and judge by that, but I still see it as the same deal like clipped wings or third sorc bar more or less (not for good players, those aren't affected much nor needed cloak to begin with apart from bombing).

It's not an unintended interaction though? Cloak disables your Magicka Recovery. Darloc Brae is flat mag restore. They're two different things.

Holding block disables your recovery too, but other sets that give flat resource restore still return resources to you while blocking. That's by design.

Iriidius

opethmaniac wrote: »

How will the guaranteed crit work?

- will it automatically activated if you leave stealth?
- or do you have to activate cloak, and have to disable it within the 3 seconds?

The latter would be clunky as hell...

Some said, on the PTR cloak will not be automatically disabled when you leave stealth, draining mana if you are visible... this has to be changed because it simply makes no sense. I hope this is a bug and will be fixed.

Stamblades will be nerfed to the ground due to lack of mana, only viable option is bowblade then, which was and is weak for it's own (outside of the tarnished meta).

Why am i not surprised cloak channel still drains magicka after invisibility ends? Already expected it when reading patch notes, after failing to fix all the bugged things removing cloak when they should not and not removing cloak when they should it would be a wonder if they managed to drain mag only when player id cloaked as parts of the game do not seem to know if a player is cloaked or not.

CrazyKitty

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

What the heeeeeel is that looool. Completely killed the skill for pvp.

They didn't completely kill cloak for use in PvP. They didn't even nerf it. They just changed how it works and made it so NB's can't regen mag while cloaked. NB will still be the S-tier class in PvP and NB's will still be one shotting players from stealth 42 meters from their victim.

CrazyKitty

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I am testing this right now on PTS and the nerf is actually pretty serious, with a potential to kill the class play-style in PvP & Solo PvE.

On live, even thought I have small mag recovery (650), I can sit around in cloak for around 18 - 20 seconds. All because cloak is a reactive skill. The better you time it, the longer you stay hidden.
On PTS, with same build I can sit around in cloak for around max 10 seconds. It is a passive skill. No player skill involved. Casting anything that costs magicka will also reduce the time (and you do cast things like RAT for example). So RIP.

More or less 50% nerf. Either base cost per second has to go significantly down or skill is useless & it will be better (or mandatory) for every NB to also be Vamp.


Cost per second is affected by stuff that reduces skill cost, but you will need a lot of investment in that.

So, I would say that while (if it will go live exactly like this) it will make class very niche in PvP & (paradoxically inaccessible - the opposite of the goal), it will hit more solo PvE rather than PvP. The whole reason why some one would pick a NB for Solo play will be kinda gone lol.

You think being invisible in a PvP situation for 10 seconds isn't long enough? ...and that's without making any changes to your build to accommodate the changes to the skill.

Bucky_13

Vulkunne wrote: »

ZOS,

The cost for this is too high for Stamblades. Please consider lowering the cost in a noticeable way so Stamblades can still use Cloak. I can see good & bad from using a toggle but one thing that sticks in my mind is this will effectively lock Stamblades out of using Cloak for much of the time which will make Cloak an unenjoyable and unfeasible skills to use especially in PvP.

*Please reduce the cost*

Edit:

After trying this on PTS I'm cool with how it works, which really, I could make it work either way, but I still think this is really expensive especially for a Stam Blade. It will most def cut down on how often the cloak can be used in PvP which I personally don't think that's fair considering how easy it is to break the cloak anyways. I'm also not entirely sure I follow what you guys are going on about with this 'Born from the Shadow' thing. I mean, NB DPS doesn't typically use the cloak in PvE and adding a more stable yet also more expensive cloak but then try and tie a little extra dmg to it... for PvE damage purposes? just doesn't make much sense to me. Note when I say PvE damage I'm talking about things like Trials and such, not questing.

It could be feasible if the duration of the 10% damage buff lasted longer. Not sure if there is a damage boost if you have to cast it every 10 seconds since that means one less Rapid Strikes or Killer's Blade. They might as well put the buff to 20 seconds and give us a much needed buff for PvE.

CrazyKitty

West93 wrote: »

Cloak receives nothing of what they did to jabs damage

Maybe they should make NB's walk on their hands while in cloak or something? Then we could say cloak got the jabs treatment.