Seriously, this ult might as well not even exist.

Major Protection is pretty easy to get these days - I have a feeling many coordinated groups will be getting it from the new Arcanist set (I'm seeing 70% Major Protection uptime in my small group from that set, could easily be higher if used on a PvE healer). Why would you ever run an ultimate with a small radius to get the buff if you can just get it from Hierophant or Sleet Storm? Or any of the other sources?

OK well maybe you want to run it for the aoe snare - 70% is quite a bit after all. Too bad the ultimate is what, 5m radius? And the snare doesn't even stick to people. Just run Ash Cloud, which is a 1m smaller radius, but is up 100% of the time, can be repositioned at will, and is completely free with a little investment into cost reduction.

OK OK OK, but maybe you want it for the damage? Lol. Good joke.

Well maybe you'd use it for the heal when your allies activate the synergy? Also a good joke, considering nightblade happens to have one of the best healing ultimates in the game in Soul Siphon.

The only remotely cool thing about the ultimate is that the synergy has an unnamed 70% movement speed buff, which is actually super fun. However, even if this speed buff was activated simply by touching the radius of the ult, I doubt it'd be enough to get people to use it.

It's not like nightblade needs more buffs, but cmon devs. How on earth are there still class ultimates that are completely worthless? Or even class skills at large? Class skills should always be appealing in at least 2 or 3 environments (trials, dungeons, arenas, small group PvP, large group PvP, overland). Bolstering Darkness isn't even good in one.

i remember when this was remotely useful, back before the major/minor buffs change (so major protection was 30%) and this ult granted the user an additional 30% dmg mitigation if they stayed in the circle

that actually was reasonably good for a NB tank, then the buff got nerfed, and the unique buff got removed, and its been left in its current state

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

This ulti lost a lot when they changed Major Protection to 10% (Previously it was something like 30%).

Some ideas:
1. Make AOE slightly bigger.
2. Convert Major Protection to a unique non-named buff.
3. Movement Speed of enemies reduced by 70% is kept as it is.
4. Whole AOE would move with the caster (just like Eye of the Storm destro ulti).
5. Allies in the area are granted with invisibility (no synergy required). Invisibility ends if they leave the AOE or attack or deal damage or receive damage with AOE or are revealed with a skill (same behaviour as with regular cloak/invisibility). Allies in the area are healed over time. The caster CAN NOT become invisible while ulti is up.

6. Veil of Blades morph - deals DOT damage to enemies.
7. Bolstering Darkness morph - increases the duration and heals for more.

The very first thing that needs to happen is that the AOE radius needs to be increased to 8 meters minimum. And 10 meters like Perma/Northern Storm would be ideal.

After that, I like the idea of the AOE moving with the caster. It would give NBs an in-class alternative to Eye of the Storm. And it would make the snare actually interesting since you could finally hit things with it.

The synergy needs some major love as well. It is currently just a grab-bag of random effects that don't really add up to a package of much value in either PvP or PvE. I would probably strip the heal (it is redundant with Soul Siphon) and the movement speed (when has this ever been useful?) and then add another big buff to it.