NB Skill Morphs - which one should I choose?

tintin_milou · July 2014

Hi NB experts and everyone!

Which morphs for Haste, Shades, and Drain Power do you find more useful/often? Thanks much for your help!

Sharee · July 2014

Never used haste morphs.

Drain power with the healing morph is useful for AOE tanking/mob farming(together with refreshing path). I used it briefly when i was giving the heavy armor NB a whirl. The preformance was satisfactory, but the playstyle was not my cup of tea.

I had both shade morphs at one time - the teleport morph seemed like an useful way to get to places in pvp (send shade somewhere, then teleport to it), unfortunately it didn't work - the teleport morph shade is actually an archer, so it doesn't move when you set him on a target. One interesting thing is that the teleport works through solid matter, as long as you still are in range.
The other morph is somewhat useful as a damage debuff in pve and new-player-confuser in pvp.

Lynx7386 · July 2014

For stamina heavy builds with haste i'd go with the stamina regeneration morph. For healer/caster builds that use a resto staff the heavy attack damage morph is probably better.

Cant say on shade yet, as I dont really use it.

For drain power, it's a tossup - if you're a pure DPS role, go with power extraction. In dungeons there are plenty of situations where you'll aoe down more than 6 enemies at a time, and the higher power gain per enemy is worth it alone. I went with sap though, since I tend to heal for dungeons and having an aoe damage + heal is pretty useful.

CapuchinSeven · July 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

For stamina heavy builds with haste i'd go with the stamina regeneration morph. For healer/caster builds that use a resto staff the heavy attack damage morph is probably better.

Cant say on shade yet, as I dont really use it.

For drain power, it's a tossup - if you're a pure DPS role, go with power extraction. In dungeons there are plenty of situations where you'll aoe down more than 6 enemies at a time, and the higher power gain per enemy is worth it alone. I went with sap though, since I tend to heal for dungeons and having an aoe damage + heal is pretty useful.

I'd argue that stamina builds are about sustained damage and using light/heavy attacks as part of their attack rotations rather than skill spaming, therefore the small amount of extra stamina regen might not be that useful (as a Wood Elf Nightblade even with my full magic build I'm over the stamina regen cap), given it's been shown that heavy attacks do more DPS than light attacks, having the morph that gives higher damage heavy attacks might be better than even more stamina regen (which isn't that much anyway if I remember).

I could maybe see a use for it in my bow bar maybe. I mostly use my bow bar to build ultimate for my 3 hit you're dead Soul Harvest melee bar but also to rebuild resources with ranged Siphoning Strikes, the haste might be useful there and the stamina regen would help build my stamina up I guess... maybe...

...still for a stamina build in the VR ranks, I'm not sure the bit of regen would be as useful as it sounds on paper.

Lynx7386 · July 2014

I thought it was something like 30% stamina regen boost? pretty significant all things considered.

Then again, it's not so necessary now that nightblades have a constant 30% stamina regeneration bonus through the passive in shadow now.

CapuchinSeven · July 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I thought it was something like 30% stamina regen boost? pretty significant all things considered.

Then again, it's not so necessary now that nightblades have a constant 30% stamina regeneration bonus through the passive in shadow now.

Yes, but NBs should mostly be sitting at soft cap already with no effort at all, so that 30% looks a lot less interesting.

kirnmalidus · July 2014

CapuchinSeven wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I thought it was something like 30% stamina regen boost? pretty significant all things considered.

Then again, it's not so necessary now that nightblades have a constant 30% stamina regeneration bonus through the passive in shadow now.

Yes, but NBs should mostly be sitting at soft cap already with no effort at all, so that 30% looks a lot less interesting.

Agreed. My NB has been soft-capped in stamina regen since level 15, even before the Shadow passive was always active. The 30% stam regen isn't that useful for a nightblade that is properly built.

tintin_milou · July 2014

Thanks so much for your help everyone!

I now have some ideas on the Haste morph - the one with more stamina regen is of secondary importance.

For shades - it seems that having two shades would deal more damage. So in terms of commands - they will both attack the same target, right? We can't select different targets for each?

Lastly, both morphs for drain power are useful. I'll decide on which when morphing becomes available.

CapuchinSeven · July 2014

tintin_milou wrote: »

Thanks so much for your help everyone!

I now have some ideas on the Haste morph - the one with more stamina regen is of secondary importance.

For shades - it seems that having two shades would deal more damage. So in terms of commands - they will both attack the same target, right? We can't select different targets for each?

Lastly, both morphs for drain power are useful. I'll decide on which when morphing becomes available.

Thing about the Shades is that they do next to no damage anyway, 2 times next to nothing is a little more than nothing and the two shade morph they each deal less damage then a single anyway.

The 15% damage is useful though and you have double the chance of applying it, so it's not a bad morph, just don't look at it as a damage thing, they are not.

The port though, that is epic if used right and if I could just decide which skill to give up on my 2 bars I'd slot it. Build up my Ultimate, Ambush, Soul Harvest, Impale = a dead target, then port out and stealth before his friends can catch you. Classic.

Stannum · July 2014

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tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi NB experts and everyone!

Which morphs for Haste, Shades, and Drain Power do you find more useful/often? Thanks much for your help!

It depends on weapon and build you use.
In my classic duals\bow build i use only haste with stamina morph allthought I have soft cap is stamina regen in base these ability boosts it. So I spam my stamina attack (flying blade for example) without thinking of my stamina rapidly comes down and have time for light attacks between. I think doing simply heavy attacks will make less DPS.
Shade is useless. There are lots of more usfull abilities for any case to have in active panel.
Drain power makes sence when you fight among large number of foes. So in most cases it's not for solo. It's good in group and public dungeons and there you should DD but not heal. So I morph it in power extraction.

Aeratus · July 2014

Haste - stamina regen is better. The immobilization is insubstantial because it only comes every 10th hit. However, Haste in general is not a great skill because NB damage output is dependent upon class and weapon skills, not weapon attacks. Thus, not many people use it.

Shades - the two shades morph gives insubstantial increase in damage becuase shades don't do much damage anyways. On the other hand, the one-shade morph allows you to teleport back, which is fun and confuses people in pvp. I use the one-shade morph.

Drain Power - Players are divided between power extraction and sap essence. There are definitely some situations where you can have 9 mobs around you for power extraction, to gain a ridiculous increase in weapon damage (mainly for impulse). However, one hidden advantage of sap essence is that your heals on your allies also generate ultimate. So sap essence can always "hit" 10 targets (6 mobs + 3 allies + yourself) for ultimate generation.The verdict: go Power extraction if pure dps; go with sap if you're tank or healer.

Lynx7386 · July 2014

I discovered today that if you use haste with a destro staff and time your mouse releases properly, you can fire off heavy attacks in rapid succession - faster than even clipping light attacks.