Nightblade changes are good! Ty zos

TybaltKaine

I see some of y'all assume I don't test things. I do. I have and I did. It results in more presses for me, as I explained above. For my play style and with my challenges, it is not a good change.

EDIT: Just to confirm I tested again.

On live it takes me 17 button presses to run a route stealthed from the entrance of the Hall of The Lunar Champion to the statue in front of Rimmen. I finished with 68% magicka. Full disclosure, I lost stealth 3 times because my hands are stiff at this time of day.

On the PTS, with the exact same loadout it takes me 28 button presses and I finished with 7% magicka and 1.9% health thanks to Siphoning Strikes and Equilibrium spam.

That's not exactly sustainable in a fast paced PVP setting.

Yes, for PVE the toggle is fine, but in PVP it will not perform well at all, which I suppose is fine for those who want an end to the ganker play(I'm not a Ganker, I run a HA build that's predicated on controlling a small area with aoe's and stuns/snares).

Iriidius

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

There has never been a precedent before with a class skill that players use often, where they had to be put in an extremely specific box, build-wise, and micro-management of a skill, usage-wise, so that they can use it effectively.

Every Templar main just chuckled.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that the cloak toggle is silly, and a ramping magicka cost would be a much better alternative. But please don’t suggest NB is the only class that has ever had to build around a nerf to a key class skill that has long been part of the class’s identity. Many Templars don’t even slot jabs anymore, it was nerfed that hard.

Templar was my main from launch, post jab nerf, until the backlash nerf really and then NB, until I got bored and mixed it up. They'll still use cloak on NB. It's fine in most scenarios on PTS.

But mainly for major savagery and because dark cloak got base value nerfed to 60% of prenerf and you only get 150% when you not move while moving in PvP is very important.
Most brawlers did not even slot cloak before it got major savagery and now that aktive effekt gets nerfed there will be even less using it for invisibility/guaranteed crit rather than savagery and many will change back to camo hunter.
With toggle you have 10-15 seconds of invisibility before 20-30k magicka are empty which is often not enaugh to get out of sight of player(s) searching you( a single time).

necro_the_crafter

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Exactly! They changed magicka blastbones so new players don't have to press the ability every 3 seconds, now with cloak getting the same treatment it will be more accessible.

It would be a same treatment if zos would remove all previuos functional which is invisibility and guarantee crit, and instead made it a 20 second buff that increase damage dealt by 15% and makes all third cast of surprise attack/consealed weapon to be an aoe. Then it would be the same as necromancers.
Also toggles work just fine, its only overload that is buggy, because it interferes with GCD of skills and GCD of light and heave attacks making it act wierd sometimes. I ran sated fury (vamp health for damage toggle) on my necro for quite a while, I and can say that I didnt expiriense any lag or inconsistansies with it. You press the button - youre in, press it again and youre out, have no resourse to sustain - out automaticly.

So yeah only bad side of this rework is sustain with new cloak, and I hope it will be adressed, since devs didnt mention that they want to nerf this ability.

IncultaWolf

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I see some of y'all assume I don't test things. I do. I have and I did. It results in more presses for me, as I explained above. For my play style and with my challenges, it is not a good change.

EDIT: Just to confirm I tested again.

On live it takes me 17 button presses to run a route stealthed from the entrance of the Hall of The Lunar Champion to the statue in front of Rimmen. I finished with 68% magicka. Full disclosure, I lost stealth 3 times because my hands are stiff at this time of day.

On the PTS, with the exact same loadout it takes me 28 button presses and I finished with 7% magicka and 1.9% health thanks to Siphoning Strikes and Equilibrium spam.

That's not exactly sustainable in a fast paced PVP setting.

Yes, for PVE the toggle is fine, but in PVP it will not perform well at all, which I suppose is fine for those who want an end to the ganker play(I'm not a Ganker, I run a HA build that's predicated on controlling a small area with aoe's and stuns/snares).

Looks like the dev note mentioned the goal was to nerf the ability in pvp, and make it more accessible in pve. It feels a lot better to use in pve now from my testing.

Tommy_The_Gun

IncultaWolf wrote: »

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I see some of y'all assume I don't test things. I do. I have and I did. It results in more presses for me, as I explained above. For my play style and with my challenges, it is not a good change.

EDIT: Just to confirm I tested again.

On live it takes me 17 button presses to run a route stealthed from the entrance of the Hall of The Lunar Champion to the statue in front of Rimmen. I finished with 68% magicka. Full disclosure, I lost stealth 3 times because my hands are stiff at this time of day.

On the PTS, with the exact same loadout it takes me 28 button presses and I finished with 7% magicka and 1.9% health thanks to Siphoning Strikes and Equilibrium spam.

That's not exactly sustainable in a fast paced PVP setting.

Yes, for PVE the toggle is fine, but in PVP it will not perform well at all, which I suppose is fine for those who want an end to the ganker play(I'm not a Ganker, I run a HA build that's predicated on controlling a small area with aoe's and stuns/snares).

Looks like the dev note mentioned the goal was to nerf the ability in pvp, and make it more accessible in pve. It feels a lot better to use in pve now from my testing.

In this pass we're looking at the opportunity costs of Shadow Cloak and trying to create a more accessible skill for any Nightblade build, while simultaneously ensuring there are more stark costs associated with maintaining invisibility. The toggled nature should make the activation of Shadow Cloak feel significantly smoother to weave in and out of the shadows, while the disabling of Magicka Recovery should stomp out the ability to perpetually remain undetected without serious investment and attention. In addition to this, we're adding a small benefit for activating the skill in PvE situations, where the invisibility often outright doesn't work or incurs a heavy DPS loss. The goal with Born from Shadow is not to outright carry damage from the get go and make Shadow Cloak feel mandatory to juggle, but rather give us a framework to build off of in future updates by allowing us to easier track when Nightblades utilize the sneaky parts of their toolkit, so we can hopefully make a more self-synergistic toolkit that feeds off itself with neat interactions. We haven't finalized some of those details, so we'll keep hush hush until we're ready to divulge more information on that.

I don't think they mention PvP specifically in their dev comment.
TLDR: The issue with their changes to cloak is that the effect will be the opposite of their goal.

In this pass we're looking at the opportunity costs of Shadow Cloak and trying to create a more accessible skill for any Nightblade build, while simultaneously ensuring there are more stark costs associated with maintaining invisibility.

PTS cloak is actually not more accessible for more builds. It is the opposite. If you just toggle cloak on, without serious investments in max magicka, the duration you have will be far too short to do anything meaningful (even in PvE, like skip mobs etc). Only a handful of magicka builds will be able to use Cloak with acceptable effectiveness.

On top of that, there is the overall difficulty of how to use the PTS Cloak, if you want to use it on like 90% of the builds (like ZOS claims they want) as it is way harder than now.

On live, you just cast it every 2,9 seconds and you can get an acceptable duration even on a stamina build. In other words - cloak is usable & accessible skill for any Nightblade build.

On PTS however, you have to actually push more buttons more frequently vs Live. On PTS you have to activate cloak & then use siphoning or equilibrium every 2 seconds. You can technically also use Rally if you are low on health, effectively, potentially staying in cloak for a very long time.

And this also makes their efforts to "stomp out the ability to perpetually remain undetected without serious investment and attention" kinda pointless... that is unless by "attention" they mean pumping up magicka with Siphoning & health with Rally. (which is true even to the live server as there you also need to pay attention & play a rhythmic mini-game to keep cloak up).

In order to actually not allowing cloak to stay invisible for longer durations, they will gonna have to not just "block magicka recovery" (which is a substantial nerf on its own), but they will also have to block every single magicka gain from sets, potions & abilities... which would be not only too much of a hassle to do, but also it would be a "nuke from the orbit" nerf, even for ZOS standards and would effectively mean that Vamp & invisibility potions would be out-preforming NB's cloak by a mile.

Toggle part for sure sounds nice and smooth, but I have tested in on PTS and while I do agree that if tested in a "laboratory conditions", in a vacuum with no lag... it may work smother. But the reality is that with other players & even a tiny lag, Toggle skills tend to be very unreliable. This is how Cloak will also be working. It will be very unreliable & pretty much "rng" if it works or not - especially in PvP. With castable cloak it just feels better as you have better control over it & more feedback. Plus - there is also a "skill" part as if you press the button more precisely instead of spamming it - you are rewarded with longer duration.

Btw. I am not really sure why staying invisible "for longer durations" is an issue in a 1st place. Because again - who does that ? As far as I can tell only PvE players who want to avoid PvP. Actual PvP NB don't stay in perma-stealth. Also speaking of NB in PvP - this change (if it goes live) will actually increase the amount of gankers and especially ranged gankers, but also bombers as Meele gank & Brawling will be harder to pull off since if you fail, then cloak will be too unreliable on Meele range.

katorga

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

huskandhunger wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin thank you for this change, it's one of the best ones your combat team has ever made ✌️💕😊

Again: do you main a nightblade, and did you test it on the PTS? What are your findings? Why do you think it's a good change? Were you able to use the skill as before, better or worse? I tried it on both my stamNB and magNB on the PTS with a regen build (that had very low dps, even worse on my stamNB), the drain was still too much, the toggle super clanky. I wouldn't want to manage this for farming let alone anywhere else @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler.

I used to main a NB. I don’t main it now, but I think the general idea is if a build can potentially be mediocre because 1 skill gets reworked, then that build is mediocre in the first place.

I bet before Streak got a ramping cost, many ppl crutched on it for their only defense as well. But hey, unless it’s game-breaking or over-performing, ppl will adapt and everything will be ok.

I think when streak got ramping cost, it was before battle spirit was halfling shields and there was not critting shields, and there was no swift, not a lot of major expedition, yet yes; there was a freakout. lol

you did not the massive sustain we have now either.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

If you want invisibility why not just be a vampire?

IncultaWolf

Regardless, the dev note implies they have future plans with this rework and how it will synergize with the class, so this is most likely going through to live. If you remember how many players complained and made several threads and posts against the changes to jabs and stalking blastbones, arctic blast, etc. It's their game, and in the end they will do what they want or think is best. Based off other staple class abilities being reworked, I can see this being pushed to live regardless of what you want. Remember the forums are just a very small portion of the playerbase. There's a ton of casuals who will love this change to cloak.

DrSlaughtr

Respectfully, if you say "permacloak" or "permainvisible" then you don't understand the difference between stealth and invisibility.

No one is perma-invisible. You are invisible so long as you have an active invisible pot, sprinting in vampire until you run out of stamina, or hitting cloak until you run out of magicka.

There are clear counters to all three of those.

There is also no such thing as "abusing" a skill. You use the skill as intended. There is no such thing as abusing cloak, abusing streak, abusing coag, abusing arctic blast, etc. It's using the skill as designed for the playstyle it is meant to support.

The issue with this change is the extreme cost + no recovery. You are simply going to make people build more toxic builds to get around this. You will still die to ganking, especially from long range where you can't do anything about it anyway. This way the NB can use minimal magicka to cloak and skirt away before you can get in detect pot range.

bladenick

DrSlaughtr wrote: »

Respectfully, if you say "permacloak" or "permainvisible" then you don't understand the difference between stealth and invisibility.

No one is perma-invisible. You are invisible so long as you have an active invisible pot, sprinting in vampire until you run out of stamina, or hitting cloak until you run out of magicka.

There are clear counters to all three of those.

There is also no such thing as "abusing" a skill. You use the skill as intended. There is no such thing as abusing cloak, abusing streak, abusing coag, abusing arctic blast, etc. It's using the skill as designed for the playstyle it is meant to support.

The issue with this change is the extreme cost + no recovery. You are simply going to make people build more toxic builds to get around this. You will still die to ganking, especially from long range where you can't do anything about it anyway. This way the NB can use minimal magicka to cloak and skirt away before you can get in detect pot range.

True, if dev don’t do any redesign, in next version the stem proc NB ganker will be the only NB you will found in BG, cause it the only build could handle this god damn toggle cloak

However the mag tanker NB which use alternative Cloak morph totally not affected, but there way more class get much better build, no reason play tanker as NB

ForumSavant

No likey stealth.

endorphinsplox

Does anyone think the extra damage to monsters is going to be useful in any meaningful way?

Also, the fact that there are so many people to this day who do not know how to counter stealth is wild. It is a good defensive tool, certainly, but it is 1 detect potion or Meteor away from being useless already on live. Now, the only decent defensive tool in the NB kit is actively punishing players for using it.

Jaimeh

TybaltKaine wrote: »

On live it takes me 17 button presses to run a route stealthed from the entrance of the Hall of The Lunar Champion to the statue in front of Rimmen. I finished with 68% magicka. Full disclosure, I lost stealth 3 times because my hands are stiff at this time of day.

On the PTS, with the exact same loadout it takes me 28 button presses and I finished with 7% magicka and 1.9% health thanks to Siphoning Strikes and Equilibrium spam.

That's not exactly sustainable in a fast paced PVP setting.

Yes, the new cloak is actually much more difficult to use effectively---added the emphasis on the above comment, because that was my findings on the PTS as well @ZOS_BrianWheeler

DrSlaughtr

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I see some of y'all assume I don't test things. I do. I have and I did. It results in more presses for me, as I explained above. For my play style and with my challenges, it is not a good change.

EDIT: Just to confirm I tested again.

On live it takes me 17 button presses to run a route stealthed from the entrance of the Hall of The Lunar Champion to the statue in front of Rimmen. I finished with 68% magicka. Full disclosure, I lost stealth 3 times because my hands are stiff at this time of day.

On the PTS, with the exact same loadout it takes me 28 button presses and I finished with 7% magicka and 1.9% health thanks to Siphoning Strikes and Equilibrium spam.

That's not exactly sustainable in a fast paced PVP setting.

Yes, for PVE the toggle is fine, but in PVP it will not perform well at all, which I suppose is fine for those who want an end to the ganker play(I'm not a Ganker, I run a HA build that's predicated on controlling a small area with aoe's and stuns/snares).

It seems their idea of "it's more accessible" is the idea you can hit the button and not worry about reapplying it ever 3 seconds. But it's like they didn't even consider the weight of high cost and no recovery. I think the no recovery is on there simply for PVP purposes, but who knows.

It's 3500ish every 2 seconds. It would be rather difficult and punishing to negate all of that, or even most of that, with sets/potions. The amount you would have to give up is absolutely surreal to have "perma-cloak", which it still wouldn't be.

The skill, as it is on PTS, costs 130% more per second, while also blocking you from recovering magicka. THAT is the problem. So what they are implying is the increase in utility is equal to 130% cost increase and recovery block. I'm not sure in what world that makes sense, but it isn't reaity.

huskandhunger

Stage 4 vampire can let you enter cloak by sprinting if you need a more permanent option 🧛‍♂️