Ramping Cost for Nightblade Cloak

NuarBlack · January 15

@Vaqual

I don't want cloak to go away, and most serious suggestions haven't said that either. Because the strike from the shadows and fade away fantasy is what sells the most(You play dk or warden if your power fantasy is brute warrior). What I want is it limited to the assassin playstyle rather than just being abused by all playstyles. Part of AW hard hitting nature comes directly from cloak and all the synergies it activates. It doesnt hit at the extreme ranges without cloak and the build options it allows. Which is perfectly fine. You take cloak and play high risk, high reward. I catch you out of cloak it should be an "oh sh!t" moment for a NB like it is when streak gets stopped by terrain. I'd be fine with NBs blowing people up from stealth if they folded like paper when caught.

What people are not fine with is when a NB strikes from the shadows destroying someone and then can stand toe to toe with a DK and Warden or constantly rinse and repeat because of the cloak and offering combo.

I did read your suggestions and they won't work. Everyone will just switch to your second morph suggestion because it offers even more burst. It literally eliminates a global for NBs. You do realize NBs have on demand crit? Having that be the condition is a terrible idea. It would only work if the on demand crit was removed and it forced NBs to run mechanical Acuity, which then makes it not that great for pve.

I'll agree that AW is a pivotal NB skill. But so is cloak. Which means changes should pivot around the morphs for said skills. One morph of AW should be a very strong pressure skill to help that playstyle and pve dps while one is burst. One version of cloak needs to be evasion and the other staying power. AW burst damage isn't mega high without cloak. It hits similar to other class skills when used in a vacuum. It may need sone Minor tweaking maybe. It inflates dramatically because of what cloak activates. So that should come at a cost. It's that simple, NB tool kit needs trade offs. It's like NBs are playing with CP 1.0 and everyone else is playing with CP 2.0

If you don't reign in cloak something else will become the next FoM to abuse with it. As that is literally the history of the skill. Most remember Snipe desync and cloak. It will just be whatever they decide to buff next in an attempt help NBs in pve. It will be Templar all over again. I'm not a big fan of force shifting the meta by making skills useless.

I get that siphoning has sort of been the defacto "healing" line but literally swapping offering and dark cloak would do that and each line would still have identity. Just turn dark cloak into a burst heal that heals the NB or lowest health alley and offering turns to a HoT, maybe even a siphon dot and hot so strife can become a real spammable for NBs

Vaqual · January 15

NuarBlack wrote: »

@Vaqual

I don't want cloak to go away, and most serious suggestions haven't said that either. Because the strike from the shadows and fade away fantasy is what sells the most(You play dk or warden if your power fantasy is brute warrior). What I want is it limited to the assassin playstyle rather than just being abused by all playstyles. Part of AW hard hitting nature comes directly from cloak and all the synergies it activates. It doesnt hit at the extreme ranges without cloak and the build options it allows. Which is perfectly fine. You take cloak and play high risk, high reward. I catch you out of cloak it should be an "oh sh!t" moment for a NB like it is when streak gets stopped by terrain. I'd be fine with NBs blowing people up from stealth if they folded like paper when caught.

What people are not fine with is when a NB strikes from the shadows destroying someone and then can stand toe to toe with a DK and Warden or constantly rinse and repeat because of the cloak and offering combo.

I did read your suggestions and they won't work. Everyone will just switch to your second morph suggestion because it offers even more burst. It literally eliminates a global for NBs. You do realize NBs have on demand crit? Having that be the condition is a terrible idea. It would only work if the on demand crit was removed and it forced NBs to run mechanical Acuity, which then makes it not that great for pve.

I'll agree that AW is a pivotal NB skill. But so is cloak. Which means changes should pivot around the morphs for said skills. One morph of AW should be a very strong pressure skill to help that playstyle and pve dps while one is burst. One version of cloak needs to be evasion and the other staying power. AW burst damage isn't mega high without cloak. It hits similar to other class skills when used in a vacuum. It may need sone Minor tweaking maybe. It inflates dramatically because of what cloak activates. So that should come at a cost. It's that simple, NB tool kit needs trade offs. It's like NBs are playing with CP 1.0 and everyone else is playing with CP 2.0

If you don't reign in cloak something else will become the next FoM to abuse with it. As that is literally the history of the skill. Most remember Snipe desync and cloak. It will just be whatever they decide to buff next in an attempt help NBs in pve. It will be Templar all over again. I'm not a big fan of force shifting the meta by making skills useless.

I get that siphoning has sort of been the defacto "healing" line but literally swapping offering and dark cloak would do that and each line would still have identity. Just turn dark cloak into a burst heal that heals the NB or lowest health alley and offering turns to a HoT, maybe even a siphon dot and hot so strife can become a real spammable for NBs

Most of this is sensible, but I guess our priorities are different. I just don't think making the current dark heal hot available together with invis, which is the consequence of swapping offering and dark cloak, would have the effect that people are asking for. Double hot stealthing with vigor and dark cloak may be just as problematic because it quite a bit more ressource efficient, given sufficient base HP.
Anyway, I am not fully opposed to your suggestions, they sound intriguing enough to play.

Regarding that second AW morph that I suggested: I chose the tooltip value low so that spammable + proc would ideally not exceed the strength of the current bow proc, so it would at best break even with the current iteration if played diligently, while being a reasonable dps boost outside of coordinated burst.

NuarBlack · January 16

@Vaqual

HoT stacking at least requires bar slot allocation. Plus slotting a detect pot or skill would feel better as hots are not instant like offering is. You could keep pressure up better. It's not disappear and get off an offering or two before you pull them out.

Dots counter hots. Nothing counters a cloak and offering. It gives a global advantage regardless of if you counter cloak in most cases.

I really am just skeptical of changes that don't then let NBs get buffed significantly elsewhere as they do need it and NBs will flood forums. I've seen it before when they were not completely top tier.

StaticWave · January 18

olsborg wrote: »

Cloak doesnt work.

If Cloak doesn’t work, then we will see a reduction in stealth NB. There is no reduction in stealth NB, because Cloak does work.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 18

StaticWave wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Cloak doesnt work.

If Cloak doesn’t work, then we will see a reduction in stealth NB. There is no reduction in stealth NB, because Cloak does work.

Isn't it wild how 50% of Cyrodiil's population are nightblades struggling through a cloak that doesn't work? What brave souls 😭

StaticWave · January 19

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Cloak doesnt work.

If Cloak doesn’t work, then we will see a reduction in stealth NB. There is no reduction in stealth NB, because Cloak does work.

Isn't it wild how 50% of Cyrodiil's population are nightblades struggling through a cloak that doesn't work? What brave souls 😭

Right? You would think they'd hop off the class by now with how much they claim the skill doesn't work.

Seriously speaking though, Cloak does work 99% of the time and they are only speaking of the 1% when hard counters do work lol.

SaffronCitrusflower · January 19

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

olsborg wrote: »

Cloak doesnt work.

If Cloak doesn’t work, then we will see a reduction in stealth NB. There is no reduction in stealth NB, because Cloak does work.

Isn't it wild how 50% of Cyrodiil's population are nightblades struggling through a cloak that doesn't work? What brave souls 😭

Exactly.

Sahidom · January 20

Cloak use to shed DOT damage like a purge.
Cloak use to auto-break channeling attacks against the caster.
Cloak use to be the one cast "evade damage" skill.

The difference between the skill now from game launch is night and day on what the skill was designed to do. Players today do not realize how much better they have it combating against Cloaking NB than from game launch. Players are STILL having angst over Cloak. This ramping up cost should get a hard 'No" when the Cloak skill has always been the focal point "skill" that nearly all Nightblades built characters around: The Cloak skill has been well *** by the nerf bat.

Cloak should not have a ramping up cost and developers should attempt to restore some of the former glory of the skill.

NuarBlack · January 21

Sahidom wrote: »

Cloak use to shed DOT damage like a purge.
Cloak use to auto-break channeling attacks against the caster.
Cloak use to be the one cast "evade damage" skill.

The difference between the skill now from game launch is night and day on what the skill was designed to do. Players today do not realize how much better they have it combating against Cloaking NB than from game launch. Players are STILL having angst over Cloak. This ramping up cost should get a hard 'No" when the Cloak skill has always been the focal point "skill" that nearly all Nightblades built characters around: The Cloak skill has been well *** by the nerf bat.

Cloak should not have a ramping up cost and developers should attempt to restore some of the former glory of the skill.

This isn't the defense you think it is. "Cloak used to he super busted OP, so its okay that it is only OP now." Also cloak actually used to be buggy, a lot of those changes were made as cloak became more reliable. Hurricane and a lot more skills used to disrupt cloak too. You are only telling half the story.

Galeriano · January 21

Sahidom wrote: »

Cloak use to shed DOT damage like a purge.
Cloak use to auto-break channeling attacks against the caster.
Cloak use to be the one cast "evade damage" skill.

The difference between the skill now from game launch is night and day on what the skill was designed to do. Players today do not realize how much better they have it combating against Cloaking NB than from game launch. Players are STILL having angst over Cloak. This ramping up cost should get a hard 'No" when the Cloak skill has always been the focal point "skill" that nearly all Nightblades built characters around: The Cloak skill has been well *** by the nerf bat.

Cloak should not have a ramping up cost and developers should attempt to restore some of the former glory of the skill.

Two can play this game.

Cloak used to be broken by any AoE including DoT AoE like blockade, caltroops or hurricane
Detection pots used to last around 2x longer than right now and worked for all group members if 1 person in group used them
Radiant magelight used to reduce dmg and prevent stun from stealth attacks for user and allies nearby.

Cloak is still breaking chanelled attacks it was breaking in the past

Cloak today is equally effective at evading damage as it used to be in the past. Yes it was better at preventing sticky DoT dmg but at the same time there was more skills that could break it.

Nightblade also recived massive improvements to help stealth playstyle like addition of burst heal and changes to shadow image. Average nightblade player today is way more dangerous than he was years ago because of how overbuffed class became.

nejcn001 · January 21

If cloak gets a ramping cost, then it cost must be lowered.
It easly countered by aoe direct damage.

You cannot counter streak.

Then you also want Race againts time have a ramping cost?

NuarBlack · January 21

nejcn001 wrote: »

If cloak gets a ramping cost, then it cost must be lowered.
It easly countered by aoe direct damage.

You cannot counter streak.

Then you also want Race againts time have a ramping cost?

Have you tried a gap closer, major/minor Expedition, Swift jewelry?

All useful for other things. Direct AOE skills were completely neutered with the abundance of major and minor evasion making them a sub optimal use of a bar slot.

FoJul · January 21

Sahidom wrote: »

Cloak use to shed DOT damage like a purge.
Cloak use to auto-break channeling attacks against the caster.
Cloak use to be the one cast "evade damage" skill.

The difference between the skill now from game launch is night and day on what the skill was designed to do. Players today do not realize how much better they have it combating against Cloaking NB than from game launch. Players are STILL having angst over Cloak. This ramping up cost should get a hard 'No" when the Cloak skill has always been the focal point "skill" that nearly all Nightblades built characters around: The Cloak skill has been well *** by the nerf bat.

Cloak should not have a ramping up cost and developers should attempt to restore some of the former glory of the skill.

Or the times where you can put Mirage (20% dodge chance) and Cloak on, and brawl and never take damage. The good ole days.

Galeriano · January 22

nejcn001 wrote: »

If cloak gets a ramping cost, then it cost must be lowered.
It easly countered by aoe direct damage.

You cannot counter streak.

Then you also want Race againts time have a ramping cost?

The big difference between nb and sorc is that nb have literally zero downsides in his class kit that would impact stealth playstyle negatively and he only have thimgs that increase effectiveness of cloaking without. Zos forces counters to cloak on other players not on the cloak user. And if Your cloak fails You are equipped with plethora of abilities to solve that issue.

Streak have a one massive counter. His whole class kit is designed to be a counter to streak existance. You have a ramping cost in ability itself. You have 1 sec cast time mediocre heal that have no offensive scaling with good resource restore so You are forced to build Your sustain around that ability but You're denied good reliable healing at the same time so You can't recover too fast after streaking away and always watch out for interrupts. Your only burst heal is unreliable pet that takes 2 slots and can die. Your major and minor expedition buffs are located on two morphs of the same ability so You can't have too much base mobility from class kit which makes chasing You for classes like nb easier. Your shield have magicka scaling (or lately optionall health scaling) so You need to always decide between defensive shield value and offensive stats. Your main source of passive healing requires critical hits but Your class kit don't have major savagery/prophecy buffs and any sticky DoTs that would make it more reliable inside class kit. You are severly lacking minor/major buffs and debuffs in Your class abilities so You are unable to create a coherent setup and You are forced to looks for somewhat decent replacements outside of class kit when majoprity of other classes is filling the kits with class abilities. You are literally paying for having streak with having rest of the class kit inferior to others.

i11ionward · May 11

I still don't understand why shadow disguise doesn't have a ramping cost. This is the most annoying skill, which is currently terribly overloaded.

Tommy_The_Gun · May 11

i11ionward wrote: »

I still don't understand why shadow disguise doesn't have a ramping cost. This is the most annoying skill, which is currently terribly overloaded.

- Streak does not have hard counters, that prevent the use of the skill or cancel its effects, there are only soft counters (like gap closers) that allow to minimize the effect of streak.
- Roll Dodge does not have hard counters that specifically prohibit the use of roll dodge or cancel its effects, there are only soft counters (like AOE skills) that can not be dodged, so they minimize the effect that roll dodge has.
- Cloak, Invisibility & crouch stealth HAS hard counters that specifically prohibit the use of the skill or cancel its effects. On top of that there are soft counters that can minimize the effectives of cloak/invisibility.

Hence, why invisibility does not have ramping cost. If detection skills or potions did not existed or were significantly less effective, then yes we can talk about ramping cost having tiny bit of sense, but only then.

xDeusEJRx · May 11

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise seems fine to me as a Nightblade main. I primarily use dark cloak anyways.

i11ionward · May 11

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

I still don't understand why shadow disguise doesn't have a ramping cost. This is the most annoying skill, which is currently terribly overloaded.

- Streak does not have hard counters, that prevent the use of the skill or cancel its effects, there are only soft counters (like gap closers) that allow to minimize the effect of streak.
- Roll Dodge does not have hard counters that specifically prohibit the use of roll dodge or cancel its effects, there are only soft counters (like AOE skills) that can not be dodged, so they minimize the effect that roll dodge has.
- Cloak, Invisibility & crouch stealth HAS hard counters that specifically prohibit the use of the skill or cancel its effects. On top of that there are soft counters that can minimize the effectives of cloak/invisibility.

Hence, why invisibility does not have ramping cost. If detection skills or potions did not existed or were significantly less effective, then yes we can talk about ramping cost having tiny bit of sense, but only then.

I still don't understand why shadow disguise doesn't have a ramping cost.

i11ionward · May 11

Why should I use some potions, poisons, sets, special skills to counter NB? Why should I use special tools limited by time and cooldown, which do not even give a 100% guarantee to counter one skill that can be literally spammed?

Even with a ramping cost of 33%, NB will be able to easily use 3-4 Shadowy Disguise in a row, which is more than enough for offensive actions, and NB should not rely only on invisibility for defense, because his class skill set has powerful bursts heal and excellent passive heal.

I think it’s okay to use potions, poisons, sets, special skills when I’m fighting 1v1 in a duel with NB, but in other types of pvp I want to have fun from the game, and not try with all my might to counter one skill of one class.

necro_the_crafter · May 13

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

relog wrote: »

Shadowy Disguise is not any close to mechanic of streak and mist form. Besides game give you many ways to counter it. Its like adding ramping cost to any other skill, that you dont like such as Elemental Susceptibility (still 0 cost lol), Vigor etc.

There are countless ways to counter Streak and Mist Form, every stamina weapon skill line has a gap closer, most classes have a magicka gap closer, there are several abilities that give Expedition, and you can build into movement speed on your jewelry or on your sets. You could always completely counter Streak or Mist Form by using any ranged weapon, speaking of which, Bow just got a crazy buff.

There are more counters to Streak and Mist Form than Shadowy Disguise, especially after they changed it so you can cloak through ground based AoE, after allowing you to cloak through DoTs.

Once we start seeing more readily available cases of “Increase Detection Radius by X” then the argument can be made, because right now it’s not good faith.

Every stamina weapon... did you mean only two-handed? Have you ever see instant 180 streaks? you cant counter them with movement speed, becase you getting stunned, and after you break free and turn around to cast *every stamina weapon gap closer* sorc is 3 streaks away. And oh, mm, sorc can also build movement speed to counter your movement speed. They even have minor expedition on their armor buff.

Dracane · May 14

Sahidom wrote: »

Cloak use to shed DOT damage like a purge.
Cloak use to auto-break channeling attacks against the caster.
Cloak use to be the one cast "evade damage" skill.

The difference between the skill now from game launch is night and day on what the skill was designed to do. Players today do not realize how much better they have it combating against Cloaking NB than from game launch. Players are STILL having angst over Cloak. This ramping up cost should get a hard 'No" when the Cloak skill has always been the focal point "skill" that nearly all Nightblades built characters around: The Cloak skill has been well *** by the nerf bat.

Cloak should not have a ramping up cost and developers should attempt to restore some of the former glory of the skill.

I disagree that players nowadays have it better against Cloak. When detection potions lasted 45 seconds instead of 15; that was the time.

Still, I think Cloak is a difficult thing to touch. While it is insanely crazy when you have no hard counters like detection potions, the skill is also rendered useless when you do. Most Nightblades are instantly done for as soon as I pop a potion or use Magelight. Good Nightblades don't care at all; they just shade out or change up their playtsyle, but those are rare.

Years ago, I used to advocate in favor of a stacking cost for cloak. Today, I would take back those wishes. It's not the solution.

ZhuJiuyin · May 14

How about increasing the damage taken by the NB after it escapes from stealth?
For example, for the duration of the cloak, if you lose invisibility due to being detected or taking damage. The damage taken by the player is increased by X% for 3 seconds.
This forces NB to choose the timing of his stealth more carefully, and also gives counterattackers a better chance of killing NB.