Shadow needs more Love

CheenTheCat · July 23

It feels like among all the Class Skill Lines being adressed, Shadow is entirely overlooked or, even worse, nerfed for no good reason.

So why is it so overlooked? Because almost no one plays it.

And why is almost no one playing it? Because it is severely underperforming and desperately needs some rework.

The Ult, for example, it severely lacking in any utility, whether PvP or PvE.

The passives "Dark Vigor" and "Dark Veil" are almost comically lackluster in the currenty environment that is subclassing.

And the nerf to Dark Cloak is entirely out of touch with gameplay.

Can we please see a major improvement? Like up the skill durations by 2s and move the w/s damage loss in Grim Focus to Shadow passives. Or give it a pen line.

Just so SOMETHING - Because it could be really fun if it wasn't so underwhelming.

CheenTheCat · July 23

Moving the w/s damage from Grim Focus to Shadow passives would also mitigate the issue of pure classes falling behind subclasses to a certain extent!

robpr · July 23

If passives are too much, even giving that buff to Dark Shade would suffice

Vaqual · July 23

Dark Vigor is fine as it is. I wouldn't want to see it over buffed and it is very versatile and build friendly.

The Ult needs some recompensation for the caster, as it can be very easily wasted if the fight moves away from it, but the caster himself is the only one who can't tap into the synergy. It has a lot of potential in groups, but it is by far less reliable and slower than other options.

The fact that Dark Veil does very little and many timers in the skill line don't interact with it at all is the biggest issue Shadow has. Not even the Expedition on Path gets buffed. This is one of the deadest passives in the game. If power needs to be added to the line it needs to go here, rather than on Shade directly, as mentioned above. Firstly, because the two Dots (Shade and Twisting) will lose a couple % of damage from a change on this passive. Secondly, because they are somewhat balanced in PvE, but both are very situational and unreliable in PvP when it comes to their damage effect and are mostly played for utility. For that reason it would be more sensible to properly adjust Dark Veil.

And yes, Dark Cloak has only gotten worse over time. The heal ticks you can get with 40-50k HP are decent when the bonus kicks in, but it is very clunky. Considering it also lacks a true burst portion, it needs to be used rather proactively, which completely goes against the baked in mechanic. It isn't quite horrible, especially on low WD and high HP builds, but it is basically a wasted slot for everyone else due to its direct competition with Vigor.
In the past I have been "trapped" in several scenarios where moving out of the danger zone would kill me
A.) because the Dark Cloak heal would be gutted due to movement,
B.) remaining in place to capitalize on the heal put me in a losing position.
Changing the condition to blocking does in fact very very little for anyone who isn't running a shield (regarding sustain and effective mobility).
I could say it is ok if there are special synergies between some abilities and weapons, but locking more than half of an abilities healing power behind a biased mechanic is too much.
I think catering abilities to such a super specific niche group of players (High HP shield users) is not necessary or good. We do not need to encourage more block-tanking in PvP, and PvE use can easily be incentivised by other means.

Truth be told, I am however also not sure in which direction this ability should be taken. It struck me as an ability for all NBs who don't want to hide when I was new to the game, but for a couple years now it seems more and more geared to pure PvE main tanking.

Nemesis7884 · July 23

Shadow os certainly the worst offender but dragonic could also use some love...

Maybe shadow should be completely redesigned from the ground up as tanking line and looked at with completely fresh eyes.

madmufffin · July 23

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Shadow os certainly the worst offender but dragonic could also use some love...

Maybe shadow should be completely redesigned from the ground up as tanking line and looked at with completely fresh eyes.

Draconic is at least a defined tank line. Everything in it sucks, but it's at least something. Shadow is almost poorly designed enough to be Sorc worthy.

Navaac223 · July 23

Nightblade is getting the necro treatment xD
I truly have seen everything

MincMincMinc · July 23

Oh for a second there i thought the thread was going to be about the mundus, I had to click to see why it needed a buff

CheenTheCat · July 23

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Oh for a second there i thought the thread was going to be about the mundus, I had to click to see why it needed a buff

Lmao, sorry about that, I'm terrible at titles x.x

Lebensf0rm · August 12

This thread is old, but I thought I'd add my two cents. Basically every skill in the Shadow line needs some love. Thankfully there are tons of ways to play into its theme to create fun, useful abilities.

Consuming Darkness is an ultimate with two dead morphs, which is just sad. The base snare effect just isn't something players need given the amount of AoE crowd-control sets and abilities in the game now. The Hidden Refresh Synergy is also pretty underwhelming: I'm unsure where a short burst of speed and HoT are worth spending an ultimate on. I like the idea of splitting the skill into support and damage morphs to keep the line flexible. Here's an idea for revamping the skill to thematically fill some interesting niches: The base skill roots enemies and inflicts Major and Minor Cowardice and the Hidden Refresh synergy is removed to make space in the power budget. Bolstering Darkness augments the base ability by spawning shadow clones of allies inside the ring that function like necro's Spirit Guardian, taking some portion of the damage allies take. Veil of Blades changes the debuffs to Major Vulnerability and some new debuff that increases the damage enemies in the ring take by a fixed number akin to a much, much stronger Stagger.
I almost like where Shadow Cloak is at (though I still think stealth in ESO is too powerful in PvP). The recent Dark Cloak change is bizarre given how weak it is compared to other health-based healing abilities. If I had the ability to change Dark Cloak, I think I would make it more unique by making it a toggle similar to Shadowy Disguise: in exchange for constantly draining mag, Dark Cloak would constantly heal and provide a unique -dmg taken buff (or perhaps provide a free blocked attack on a cooldown). This would synergize with one of the passive changes I have in mind.
Blur's morphs are too similar. Phantasmal Escape is in a good place, but Minor Resolve and cost reduction are both weak and insufficient to differentiate Mirage from Phantasmal Escape. If the devs want to keep the lines of the base game classes mixed-use instead of making them role specific (which I would prefer), making Mirage an offensive ability somehow makes sense. Here's one way to do that: Mirage keeps Major Evasion, but eschews the roll dodge cost decrease for some offensive buff or buffs like Minor Force and/or Minor Courage. Alternatively, Mirage could create some sort of distracting aura that deals damage and/or causes enemies in range to take more damage.
Path of Darkness' damage morph is what needs the most work, IMO. I'd love to see Twisting Path provide a damage bonus for remaining in the path similar to (but not as strong as, obviously) DK's Standard of Might.
Aspect of Terror is similar to Blur in that its morphs are too similar. If I had to pick a morph to replace with something else, I'd say Manifestation of Terror. Ideally, the new Manifestation of Terror would have an offensive function that Shadow is missing, whether it's a strong single target DoT like DK's Searing Strike or even a spammable. Perhaps this ability could also apply some sort of +class ability damage buff.
Dark Shade is an ability with an awesome description and a very underwhelming effect. If the shade is supposed to be a shadow clone of the player, its damage should be tied to the damage we do somehow. I think what I would like to see is the shade create clones of our damage ticks that do a fraction of the damage we deal. A balanced number and resource cost for this kind of ability is probably a question for PTS testing.
There are two passives I would change: Dark Vigor and Dark Veil. To support Shadow being more than a tank line, I think Dark Vigor should also have a weapon and spell damage increase like Aedric Spear's Balanced Warrior passive. Dark Veil, on the other hand, needs a complete rework. I suggest baking the duration increase into the relevant skills and incentivizing using skills in this line by making the "veil" a simultaneous increase in damage done and decrease in damage taken based on the number of Shadow skills active. In conjunction with the above changes to the active abilities in the line, I think a passive like this could see Shadow being picked for a lot more setups in both PvE and PvP.

If anyone has feedback, I'd love to hear it.

hoangdz · August 12

From a PvP perspective, Shadow is a pure defensive skill line that either costs too much or lasts too short. Having Major Resolve on a passive is actually very nice, but the only 2 skills worth running from that line are Refreshing Path and Phantasmal Escape, and those skills are either confusing to use or too expensive to keep up.

Refreshing Path provides speed, sustain, and healing, but requires you to stay in the area to benefit. This is rather confusing because the AoE provides Major Expedition, yet you can only gain the buff while staying on a 17 x 7 area lol? If you leave the area, the effects only last for 4s, forcing you to recast them again. For a skill that costs more than 3.5k mag, that's definitely not worth the hassle.

Phantasmal Escape is a great defensive skill. You get Major Evasion, a 4s snare/root immunity that also removes existing snare/root effects, and up to 100% reduced cost for your next roll dodge. However, it costs over 3.5k mag and you don't get any speed buff for casting it. This means you will have to combine it with another ability that gives Major Expedition (Refreshing Path).

These 2 skills usually go together, but due to how they individually function, you often end up spending so much magicka. At that point, it's much better to just use Quick Cloak + Race Against Time, or Deceptive Predator and achieve almost the same effect, while having access to better passives that boost your overall damage.

Turtle_Bot · August 12

madmufffin wrote: »

Shadow is almost poorly designed enough to be Sorc worthy.

This gave me a good chuckle.

When it comes to the shadow line itself, I find it in a strange spot through no fault of its own, rather it's position is more to do with how the current metas revolve around buffing beam (PvE) and sustain + healing + mobility as defense (PvP).
Shadow is clearly setup to be a tanking/utility line, but it's setup to be a selfish tanking line, where the current meta both in PvP and PvE just don't suit the type of tanking line that shadow is.
- For PvE, selfish tank lines are not in a good spot right now because the meta is to just put everything into buffing beam to skip past everything (including the tank/support lines, which is the only reason we see daedric summoning picked at all for atro to buff the groups beams) while keeping just enough survivability to survive relevant hits/mechs.
- For PvP, Restoring Light provides much more rounded and relevant benefits as a defensive line via much more healing and sustain, and then there are the mixed lines like storm calling, aedric spear and animal companions that provide both offensive and defensive capabilities that are currently extremely strong in PvP (high mobility, CC, crit passives, sustain, mitigation + damage bonuses, etc.), so taking a purely selfish tanking line that focuses primarily on mitigation like shadow isn't worth it over a group healing + sustain line like restoring light or a mixed line that provides more relevant defensive tools (for PvP) as well as damage bonuses.

Just 1 change would make Shadow a meta contending skill line (for PvE) imo:
Move the born from shadow buff on cloak to one of the passives and have the born from shadow buff apply to self and allies when casting a shadow ability.
This instantly makes the line attractive for PvE tanks/healers/support DDs that get to benefit from the selfish tanking/support bonuses the line provides while still getting to buff group damage. Support DDs especially would love this change since they would get to benefit from the additional health and sustain as well as the free major resolve from the lines passives just for buffing their own and groups DPS.

xylena_lazarow · August 13

Drives me insane that Dark Vigor effectively damages me if my Shadow slots are uneven.

I'm on board for the Grim Focus switch. Give them Dark Shade or Twisting Path for PvE dots or something and get rid of the idiotic overpowered crit passives that have Assassin near mandatory in both PvE and PvP.

CheenTheCat · August 14

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Just 1 change would make Shadow a meta contending skill line (for PvE) imo:
Move the born from shadow buff on cloak to one of the passives and have the born from shadow buff apply to self and allies when casting a shadow ability.
This instantly makes the line attractive for PvE tanks/healers/support DDs that get to benefit from the selfish tanking/support bonuses the line provides while still getting to buff group damage. Support DDs especially would love this change since they would get to benefit from the additional health and sustain as well as the free major resolve from the lines passives just for buffing their own and groups DPS.

That is such a good solution! I hope they take something along those lines into consideration..

Vaqual · August 14

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Drives me insane that Dark Vigor effectively damages me if my Shadow slots are uneven.

I agree, that is very annoying, but I feel this is why they increased the strength of the buff in the first place. Currently it is at a point where the drawback and the potential are somewhat even.

Lebensf0rm · August 14

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Shadow is almost poorly designed enough to be Sorc worthy.

Just 1 change would make Shadow a meta contending skill line (for PvE) imo:
Move the born from shadow buff on cloak to one of the passives and have the born from shadow buff apply to self and allies when casting a shadow ability.
This instantly makes the line attractive for PvE tanks/healers/support DDs that get to benefit from the selfish tanking/support bonuses the line provides while still getting to buff group damage. Support DDs especially would love this change since they would get to benefit from the additional health and sustain as well as the free major resolve from the lines passives just for buffing their own and groups DPS.

I think it would be great to see Born From Shadow become a group wide buff, but I'd still like to see Shadow's actives get some buffs (especially Consuming Darkness).

Turtle_Bot · August 15

Lebensf0rm wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Shadow is almost poorly designed enough to be Sorc worthy.

Just 1 change would make Shadow a meta contending skill line (for PvE) imo:
Move the born from shadow buff on cloak to one of the passives and have the born from shadow buff apply to self and allies when casting a shadow ability.
This instantly makes the line attractive for PvE tanks/healers/support DDs that get to benefit from the selfish tanking/support bonuses the line provides while still getting to buff group damage. Support DDs especially would love this change since they would get to benefit from the additional health and sustain as well as the free major resolve from the lines passives just for buffing their own and groups DPS.

I think it would be great to see Born From Shadow become a group wide buff, but I'd still like to see Shadow's actives get some buffs (especially Consuming Darkness).

ZOS needs to be extremely careful buffing shadow though, especially if those buffs will apply in PvP.
Blur is an insanely strong (and unique) ability and is wildly overloaded when factoring in the passive major resolve
Refreshing path + shade provides unmatched kiting power in IC/BG environments (small spaces with lots of different heights)
Fear is still (outside of charms bugs) the strongest CC effect in the game due to its minimum CC duration and NB fear is still one of the few unique sources of major cowardice.
Invis is still the strongest effect in ESO's PvP, being locked behind a selfish purely mitigation based tanking line is what makes it less attractive for sub-classing in PvP
Consuming definitely needs a rework. Not sure what to, since the line itself as a whole is 1 change/buff away from being a PvE meta contender already and is only a slight shift in the meta away from being the meta defensive line in PvP.

This is why I suggested the born from shadow change. It's PvE exclusive (doesn't affect PvP), gives the line a way to fit into the current PvE meta for tank/support lines and it's not a full rework of the entire line, so would be easy enough to implement compared to a full rework.

xylena_lazarow · August 16

Since this is NB we're talking about, I don't think anything has Major Toughness yet, I'm sure a 20% hp buff for the whole 12 raid will make Shadow meta relevant again! /s

CheenTheCat · August 24

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Since this is NB we're talking about, I don't think anything has Major Toughness yet, I'm sure a 20% hp buff for the whole 12 raid will make Shadow meta relevant again! /s

We're not demanding something overpowered or suppressive. Just a change to make the skill line more befitting the current environment which hopefully turns it somewhat viable in existing content.

randconfig · September 2

Navaac223 wrote: »

Nightblade is getting the necro treatment xD
I truly have seen everything

False. Their abilities still function.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · September 2

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Since this is NB we're talking about, I don't think anything has Major Toughness yet, I'm sure a 20% hp buff for the whole 12 raid will make Shadow meta relevant again! /s

Don't speak this curse into existence :P

It would actually be nice if Shadow just generally increased the duration of all buffs not just 'shadow skill buffs'

It would become it's own mini jorvulds and would have interesting interactions due to it.

Also the ulti is kinda rubbish since the major protection nerf, honestly I wouldn't be mad to see veil of blades give major slayer or aegis whilst standing in it.