Magelight will be OP in PVP

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

Anyone test Inner Light on the PTS?

That patch notes made it sound like it is no longer a toggle, and gives Spell Crit and 5% magicka for being slotted...

So what does the actual ability do now when you activate it?

GreenSoup2HoT · February 2016

It reveal's stealth and invisible player's for an 8 meter radius when you activate it for 5 seconds, once someone is revealed they cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 5 second's...... WTF ZOS

ONLY radiant mage light should have this function. might as well delete nightblade's now. literally every magicka build is going to be running this skill now.

I personally love the shadow cloak change. it's this one with mage light that completely ruin's shadow cloak play.

might as well not even run this ability (shadow cloak)....

I guess siphoning attacks will replace it and you will just roll and cc with the new eternal hunt set.

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

Uggghhhh, that's what I was afraid of.

Honestly, I think that ALL builds will be running one of the morphs now.

Magicka builds will run inner light for the crit and max magicka, stealth detection, and empower buff

Stamina builds will run magelight for stealth detection and getting empower out of stealth.

I totally agree that Radiant Magelight should have been the only morph to have this.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2016

The real nerf to Cloak lies in the insane buffs to Inner Light. To quote someone on the forums:

Inner Light is now so effective, most magicka players would be crazy not to use it. Just by slotting it, my magicka nb gains 2000 magicka and 10% crit chance. In addition, it is also a hard counter to stealth and cloak (6 second detect + 5 second cloak negate) that grants Empower. Making Inner Light so attractive is an indirect nerf to cloak. IMO, a majority of magicka users will use it. Surely many Stamina users will also use it for Empower.

This is the real nerf to Cloak. Not only will you slot Inner Light for its great passive buffs, but you will use it as regular part of rotation (so at least every 5-10 seconds) for Empower buff. This means someone using it in their rotation will nearly always have a the detection up for the duration of the fight. No need for detect pots or flare any more (or cloak for that matter).

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

The rise of the Mag Sorc...

CP: All into Elemental and Magic now, so Frags and Overload will hit like a truck. Also can reduce physical damage with CP.

Meanwhile they will have inner light up constantly as they proc C-frags giving max mag, spell crit, stealth counter, and empower. All the while with shields up.

Guess I'll re-roll now

cschwingeb14_ESO · February 2016

The need to recast inner light is quite a nerf to the ability if it only has a 5 second duration. +20%damage on the next attack and dealing no damage or just attacking twice at 100%damage each

Ditto with radiant. It's no longer long term gank protection

GreenSoup2HoT · February 2016

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

The need to recast inner light is quite a nerf to the ability if it only has a 5 second duration. +20%damage on the next attack and dealing no damage or just attacking twice at 100%damage each

Ditto with radiant. It's no longer long term gank protection

no. the radiant part is base while slotted now

magelight is the crit.
inner light is the max magicka and crit.

activating the ability grants the stealth/invis detection 8/12 (mage or inner light/ radiant) meters and empower

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

radiant is still gank protection while slotted.

You can activate it for 12 meter visibility, which is pretty substantial in my opinion. You don't lose any max magicka. And can activate for Empower.

But now that Inner Light reveals invis enemies and grants empower, I do not see a single Magicka build that wont be running this, and activating it for empower prior to hard hitting abilities like C-Frag procs or Meteor Ultimates.

RinaldoGandolphi · February 2016

Yes but 8 meters is pretty small and with medium armor passive a you will literally have to be standing right on top of the nightblade to reveal

Radiant Magelight will still be the only one used for revealing in pvp for that reason

Xeniph · February 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Yes but 8 meters is pretty small and with medium armor passive a you will literally have to be standing right on top of the nightblade to reveal

Radiant Magelight will still be the only one used for revealing in pvp for that reason

Yes, but why would anyone use Inner in pvp, due to the changes.

Radiant no longer has any downside. Sure you lose 5% magicka by switching, but lets be honest here, for the added gain by switching to Radiant this is a no brainer, for pvp of coarse.

cschwingeb14_ESO · February 2016

It does indeed look bad for melee NB, both magicka and stam as far as using invisibility as defense. Although shade teleport before cloaking will still work.

Anyone know (I mean really know... With testing) if medium armor stealth passives or sets/passives that reduce detect radius work against mage light?

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

Alright, I changed the title of this post. The more I think about it, Magelight (in its current PTS form) is going to make some builds, especially Magicka Sorcerer, OP in PVP .

I would say all Magicka builds will use the Radiant Magelight morph due to its passives for just being slotted (and likely many stam builds for empower and gank protection):

1) Give 10% spell crit just for being slotted
2) Gives 56% damage reduction from stealth attacks for being slotted
3)Adds 2% Max Mag and Mag Regen for being slotted
4)Gives 12 meters of Stealth Detection when activated
5)Grants Empower when activated

A Magicka Sorcerer on top of this will have shields stacked on top of the 56% stealth damage resistance, CP to negate physical damage, and an easy empower button when they proc a C-Frag or now un-reflectable meteor

@ZOS_GinaBruno I think this may need to be looked into. At least when a player needed entropy on their bar they had to give up a slot for the empower buff. Now it will be an absolute no-brainer to have Radiant Magelight on your bar at all times, especially now that their is no max magicka penalty. ALL magicka builds will run this, and a good majority of Stam builds just for the gank protection and empower buff.

I can't think of any ability in the game that gets close to how much you gain from slotting a single ability.

AddictionX · February 2016

I think its great that it'll take more to actually gank some one... the camo hunter >surprise attack> cloak repeat.... was abit over the top.

TheBull · February 2016

Sorcs are gonna *** on nbs so hard.

AddictionX · February 2016

It sucks that they get yet another buff tho.. this excluded.

Pomaikai · February 2016

Wait, you mean the NB ganking is now just a wee bit more difficult?

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

About freaking time.

Sureshawt · February 2016

Well I knew it was going to be bad for NBs but not this bad. Glad I saw the writing on the wall and stopped my subscription months ago. Won't pay for this kind of crap.

Going to try and adapt as always but it looks like I will be firing up one of standby alts unfortunately. I just don't understand why they have to make changes that clearly support creation of FOTM builds just be competitive.

The game needed some balance tweaks but they seem to prefer to use a sledgehammer over a scalpel. Bizarre approach to balance continues.....

Lava_Croft · February 2016

I'm surprised casting Magelight doesn't proc Meteors on your enemies.

Drakilian · February 2016

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Sureshawt · February 2016

Drakilian wrote: »

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Well that is where you are misinformed. That one skill combined with any gap closer, both of which can be spammed, it will be easy to counter any NB (magic or stam). However, combined with the change to snares and DoTs well it becomes laughably easy for any competent player to kill any NB.

Drakilian · February 2016

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Well that is where you are misinformed. That one skill combined with any gap closer, both of which can be spammed, it will be easy to counter any NB (magic or stam). However, combined with the change to snares and DoTs well it becomes laughably easy for any competent player to kill any NB.

No.. It's not countering NBs. It's countering cloak specifically. NBs have more than one skill. Mayhaps it's time to learn how to use them, hmm?

stewart.leslie76b16_ESO · February 2016

Pomaikai wrote: »

Wait, you mean the NB ganking is now just a wee bit more difficult?

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

About freaking time.

We've still got Dark Brotherhood DLC to come

Tomato · February 2016

It's not like ambush and SA is gone.... You will still be getting hit for 10k + SA's and 8k Ambush out of stealth if you have a high damage build............Just going to stack camo hunter and mage light on the same bar as a stamina nightblade with steel tornado plus dawnbreaker and meteor on the back bar.

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

I just think that this ability is SO powerful now that it will eliminate stealth/invis/ganking from the game. Maybe that is their intention. But the ability will be run on 100% of Magicka Builds, and a good amount of Stamina builds. If the majority of players have 56% resistance to stealth attacks it won't take long until stealth is abandoned.

Yeah, camo hunter has been abused. But is an ability glitch that has been abused, and can be fixed by fixing the ability.

I have a stam NB, a magicka NB, a stam sorc, and a imperial DK that I have switched between Mag/stam. I'm not afraid to re-roll a character and start something new. And I have no problem starting a Mag Sorc which I will do if this goes through.

How will you fight a Mag Sorc after these changes?

You can't crit their shields, but they can crit/heal against you. You'll have 56% reduced damage from stealth against them. They'll have decent/high crit and empower on demand. You won't escape (as a NB) since you'll be exposed from stealth. Not sure how you'd escape as a DK or Templar either for that matter They will have their shields, plus CP to resist magicka and physical damage if you happen to get the shields down. They will have CP invested in one place to make their C-Frags/Mines/Curse/Mag Det as well as Overload/Streak/Mages Fury/Meteor be very strong.

I just see a very large imbalance coming our way, and I think this ability is going to be a big part of it.

Sureshawt · February 2016

Drakilian wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Well that is where you are misinformed. That one skill combined with any gap closer, both of which can be spammed, it will be easy to counter any NB (magic or stam). However, combined with the change to snares and DoTs well it becomes laughably easy for any competent player to kill any NB.

No.. It's not countering NBs. It's countering cloak specifically. NBs have more than one skill. Mayhaps it's time to learn how to use them, hmm?

LOL....it's not countering cloak. These changes effectively KILL cloak for any any practical purpose in PvP combat. It was a key class defining 'defensive' skill which for PvP is now a wasted slot. No buffs to any other defensive skills were provided. Without this defensive skill or buffs to other defensive skills NBs are going to be easy pickings.

However, perhaps you can enlighten me on other NB skills that can substitute for what cloak provided to NBs on the PvP battlefield.

Drakilian · February 2016

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Well that is where you are misinformed. That one skill combined with any gap closer, both of which can be spammed, it will be easy to counter any NB (magic or stam). However, combined with the change to snares and DoTs well it becomes laughably easy for any competent player to kill any NB.

No.. It's not countering NBs. It's countering cloak specifically. NBs have more than one skill. Mayhaps it's time to learn how to use them, hmm?

LOL....it's not countering cloak. These changes effectively KILL cloak for any any practical purpose in PvP combat. It was a key class defining 'defensive' skill which for PvP is now a wasted slot. No buffs to any other defensive skills were provided. Without this defensive skill or buffs to other defensive skills NBs are going to be easy pickings.

Of course it kills cloak, THAT'S THE POINT. One skill is being used as a comprehensive counter to another skill. They largely cancel out each other's benefits, but cloak is still and always will be an excellent escape (just get a tiny bit of distance on your opponent first instead of laughing and cloaking in their face like it is now), which is a good counter to DoTs on Magicka builds. It also has a small host of passive synergies like armour increases and max health for being slotted/used, much like radiant ward. There is now simply a skill that is cloak's equal in every way, and these two skills cancel each other out.

I mean, it's *** hilarious. You're bitching about radiant magelight now when radiant/inner magelight has basically become every class' version of cloak - a skill with good passive synergies that counters another skill (though cloak countered a lot more than just one skill).

Sureshawt · February 2016

Drakilian wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

Sureshawt wrote: »

Drakilian wrote: »

My main is a stam DK.

My second most played character is a stam nightblade.

I love this change because it's actually fair, haha. One skill to counter another skill, fair trade. If you start talking about passive synergy that comes with the mage guild passives, we can all just as easily (as has been done many a time before) point out the ridiculous passive synergy NB has going on with Dark cloak.

Well that is where you are misinformed. That one skill combined with any gap closer, both of which can be spammed, it will be easy to counter any NB (magic or stam). However, combined with the change to snares and DoTs well it becomes laughably easy for any competent player to kill any NB.

No.. It's not countering NBs. It's countering cloak specifically. NBs have more than one skill. Mayhaps it's time to learn how to use them, hmm?

LOL....it's not countering cloak. These changes effectively KILL cloak for any any practical purpose in PvP combat. It was a key class defining 'defensive' skill which for PvP is now a wasted slot. No buffs to any other defensive skills were provided. Without this defensive skill or buffs to other defensive skills NBs are going to be easy pickings.

Of course it kills cloak, THAT'S THE POINT. One skill is being used as a comprehensive counter to another skill. They largely cancel out each other's benefits, but cloak is still and always will be an excellent escape (just get a tiny bit of distance on your opponent first instead of laughing and cloaking in their face like it is now), which is a good counter to DoTs on Magicka builds. It also has a small host of passive synergies like armour increases and max health for being slotted/used, much like radiant ward. There is now simply a skill that is cloak's equal in every way, and these two skills cancel each other out.

I mean, it's *** hilarious. You're bitching about radiant magelight now when radiant/inner magelight has basically become every class' version of cloak - a skill with good passive synergies that counters another skill (though cloak countered a lot more than just one skill).

LOL...A skill that buffs damage and anyone can slot and cancel out a class defining defensive skill is a joke. How you can not see it is beyond me but then I saw your comment

"cloak is still and always will be an excellent escape (just get a tiny bit of distance on your opponent first instead of laughing and cloaking in their face like it is now)"

This is just hilarious. First, you cannot cloak for 5 seconds after being revealed assuming you can get that 'tiny distance' without being snared, rooted or stunned.

"Magelight can now be activated to summon a mote of magelight which exposes hidden or invisible enemies in an 8 meter radius for 5 seconds, and prevents revealed enemies from returning to stealth for 5 seconds."

Second, even assuming you do get that 'tiny distance' and are not snared/rooted/stunned there is nothing preventing a gap closer eliminating that distance immediately and then rinse/repeat spammable combo.

On the surface by itself Radiant appears reasonable until you combine with the other skills that will be used in conjunction with it and all of which are spammable and accessible to everyone. This makes cloak worthless from a practical combat standpoint against even halfway competent players on the PvP battlefield.

Also note. Cloak no longer cleanses DoTs. It merely suspends them as long you remain cloaked....LOL...Good luck with that given what we just discussed above.

"Dark Cloak (Shadow Cloak morph): This morph no longer removes damage over time effects due to the baseline changes for Shadow Cloak described below"

Shadow Cloak: This ability and its morphs will now suppress damage over time effects that are already applied to the caster while the invisibility is active.
The damage over time will remain, but will tick for 0 damage if you are invisible, and will tick for the normal damage if you come out of invisibility.

Tyrion87 · February 2016

No, when the changes are eventually applied, the balance will be finally restored.
For a long time we've been experiencing a huge advantage of NBs over any other class. The cloak + ambush are (soon: were) the pain in the arse of 30% of players playing classes other than the NB. Yeah, approx. 70% of chars I see in PvP (especially in Imperial City) are the NBs (check the polls on the forum). This fact just speaks for itself: this class is now the easiest-to-play and the most OP. It is obvious that it needs a nerf to restore the balance to the game (or rather to PvP). It's also understandable that people who play the NBs are opposing the changes but it's just inevitable. That issue has been talked about for a long time.
The changes made to magelight are really a clever way to do so. NBs will be still attractive though. The stealth detection from inner light will require its cast so basically the NBs can hide behind the cloak just before the first attack which is enough.

MrTarkanian48 · February 2016

The problem is it has so many upsides and no downsides to running it, so 50% or more of PVPers will slot it.

It used to provide 10% crit, reduce magic by 5%, and provide stealth detect and 56% resistance from stealth attacks. This made players choose between this morph which is more defensive and reduces your damage, and caused many to opt for Inner Light which gave crit and 5% more magicka, but did not have the stealth detect/56% reduced stealth damage. It was also a toggle, which meant you needed to double bar it in most situations, unless you were very good at reactivating when bar swapping which deterred alot of players from using it to preserve bar space.

Now you don't take reduced magic, they buffed the detect ability, it gives Empower, and you no longer have to toggle/double bar it. Its going to be too good in PVP to not put it on your bar.

This will effect way more than just NB's. Any attacks from stealth are reduced 56% for any class. No one will even want to attack from stealth anymore if there is a 50%+ chance the guy on the receiving end has 56% resistance to that attack. Why even go into stealth if chances are your attack will be gimped compared to being out of stealth?

Forestd16b14_ESO · February 2016

So ??? So what NB ganking is gonna be more difficult it's a long over do change.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2016

Tyrion87 wrote: »

No, when the changes are eventually applied, the balance will be finally restored.
For a long time we've been experiencing a huge advantage of NBs over any other class. The cloak + ambush are (soon: were) the pain in the arse of 30% of players playing classes other than the NB. Yeah, approx. 70% of chars I see in PvP (especially in Imperial City) are the NBs (check the polls on the forum). This fact just speaks for itself: this class is now the easiest-to-play and the most OP. It is obvious that it needs a nerf to restore the balance to the game (or rather to PvP). It's also understandable that people who play the NBs are opposing the changes but it's just inevitable. That issue has been talked about for a long time.
The changes made to magelight are really a clever way to do so. NBs will be still attractive though. The stealth detection from inner light will require its cast so basically the NBs can hide behind the cloak just before the first attack which is enough.

Tyrion87: Joined October 2015. Pretty much what I thought. Not that when you started playing invalidates your opinion, but it can help explain a lack of perspective.

Since launch NBs have always been a hugely popular class because that archetype is what a lot of people enjoy. They also make great tanks and healers (well less so after this update...), so it also brings flexibility across roles and builds. The class was comparatively underpowered (largely from broken abilities, including Cloak) up until last summer when game-wide buffs to stamina and key NB class bug fixes finally turned the class around.

Every class has a powerful playstyle not just NB (stamina DK, magicka sorc), and even then one's own skill and knowledge of your build will almost always trump a bad player trying to use a FOTM build. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of posts outlining why Cloak was central to NB PvP playstyle and has many counters and limitations, but as usual ZOS over reaches their balancing and sometimes doesn't see the relationships between many changes that are in fact related (e.g. Magelight and stealth for all classes and Cloak for NBs).