Good day! My name is N.Art. I want to create a post about discussing the balance in the game Tes Online.

I will try to present information without the emotions that have accumulated over 5 years of playing. I will try to construct simple sentences and write in simple language, since, unfortunately, I do not speak English and will translate everything through Google Translate. The translation of some abilities may not match the English original, but from their description you will understand what I am writing about.

I have been playing since about 2019, I have 7600 hours of play, if I roughly estimate, then it turns out 4 hours of play per day, every day for 5 years.
I play exclusively on the Night Blade class, and most of the game (90%) I play in PvP.

It was not for nothing that I named the topic. According to the story, Balaam beat his donkey so often and so much that it began to speak like a person. In 5 years of playing, this is my first post related to the announcement of innovations in the capabilities of the Night Blade, which forced me to write such a long article and go through a very difficult registration process on the forum (through technical support).

I have been playing for 5 years, and for 4 years of the game I firmly believed that I just play badly and still have not learned, and am about to learn. But, it turned out that this is not the case. It took me a long time to realize this.

The Night Blade is the weakest class in the game, which is constantly weakened from patch to patch.

For all 5 years, there were only 2.5 (two and a half) improvements:
1) Added healing that penalizes you for 1000 lives
2) Made the blade arrow work without pressing. But this is more likely a bug fix, because very often in battle 5 stacks simply disappeared
2.5) The ability with finishing was raised to 50%.

No more improvements.

In 5 years of playing, I've seen patches where certain classes were strong. Very strong, but there's never been a patch where Nightblade was strong.


* Here you can insert a meme with Rutger Hauer from the movie "Blade Runner". His character also lived for 5 years *




I've seen Dragon Knights with a 30,000 damage hit per button.
I've seen ganker-tanks of sorcerers with 43,000 health and dealing 25,000 damage per second
I've seen Necromancers who were impossible to kill and they dealt a lot of damage.
I've seen Guardians with huge damage and impenetrable shields (like now, the ultimate ability of winter deals 5500 damage per second in pvp for 8 seconds, not counting the damage that the Guardian deals in addition to the ability, up to 9000 damage in total, on an enemy with 30,000 armor)
I've seen Arcanists with 30,000+ shields that are impossible to kill in a group of 4 people.
I've seen Paladins who, standing in one place in a circle of +200% healing, with the help of one Cry skill, healed completely, negating all attacks on themselves and dealing very large damage.

But I've never seen an unkillable Nightblade.
On the entire PC Europe Server there are 10-15 maximum Nightblades who are the same as me or stronger than me. My fight with such lasts 5-10-15 minutes, most often 15. And I lose when I just get tired of playing. At the same time, their main characters in the game are also professional Night Blades. But as soon as they choose to play a Dragon Knight or a Guardian, a Sorcerer or any other class, they kill me in 1-2 minutes without a chance to win.

I believed that I was playing badly, but it turned out to be wrong. Having pumped up the Dragon Knight and the Sorcerer and playing for them for 50 hours, I was able to kill many times those players who I could not kill playing on the Night Blade. Let me remind you, I play 7500 hours of PvP on the Night Blade. On other classes, 100 hours in total. But I want to play for the Night Blade.

There is not a single role in the game in which the Night Blade would be better than other classes. Not a single one. Neither in PvP, nor in PVE.

The Night Blade is a completely dead class with no unique abilities. He has an arrow, a normal damage ability, but other classes have other abilities that do a lot of damage and are better (like the Guardian's bugs, the Sorcerer's haunting curse that can't be dodged). The finishing ability is not much better than the finishing ability from the Greatsword tree. Paladins have a 530% finishing ability that works at a distance of 28 meters and is impossible to dodge. How is it that the assassin in his profession is so much weaker than another class in the same profession?
Shadow Leap is a very complex ability that is poorly implemented and the 28 meter radius is very small. Apart from this ability, there is nothing unique or not duplicated by abilities from the regular weapon and guild branches.

Night Blade does not have:
1) Good mass damage

2) Control. Fear is a bad control, which is worse than Charm from the Vampire branch. Other classes, except for the Necromancer, have this.

3) "damage overhead". Damage that can be inflicted ignoring the enemy's block and evasion.

4) Class shields

And now they want to take away Invisibility. I don't understand why???
Literally everything is torn out of the player's invisibility. A lot of damage that takes the enemy out of invisibility. Ability from the Mages Guild branch
Ability from the Fighters Guild branch
Ability from the military Support branch
A poison on a weapon that prevents invisibility for a few seconds
A potion that allows you to see the enemy for 15 seconds.

And this is only against one ability of the Night Blade!!!

I have a question. Please tell me:
What poison prevents the sorcerer from teleporting?
What potion blocks all healing for the Paladin for 15 seconds?
What Ability prevents the Arcanist from using shields? Not counting the sorcerer's antimagic?

Why is there so much counteraction to one ability of one class? And now they want to take this ability away completely.

You will say that I am lying. Fine. People lie. But you know who does not lie? Numbers!

I suggest comparing several abilities of the Night Blade with other abilities.

The ultimate ability "Crippling Strike" costs 120 points, the casting time is 0.4 seconds

1) Deals damage
2) Gives control
3) Increases damage to the enemy for 20% seconds.

Now let's calculate the effects of the ultimate ability "flight" of the Dragon Knight. It costs 120 points.

1) Instant cast
2) Damage
3) Mass damage to all nearby enemies
4) Control
5) Mass control to all nearby enemies
6) Cannot be dodged
7) Shield of 20,000
8) Instant rapprochement with the enemy, at any distance
9) Cannot prevent the use of the ultimate ability after pressing. Nightblade 0.4 seconds is an eternity when your casting is interrupted.
10) Throwing the enemy into the air. Which gives a big advantage during the next attack.
11) Almost complete restoration of resources (lives, energy, mana) due to synergy with the passive ability.

3 vs. 11. This is the math with equal cost of the ability (120 points).

The Dawnbreaker ability is the best analogue of the Nightblade's ultimate ability. It affects multiple targets, cannot be dodged, and the damage exceeds the damage of the blade's ability.

The Nightblade's passive ability "Executioner" +1000 energy and 1000 mana when killing an enemy. You kill the enemy first!!! Duels last 5-30 minutes!!! The Dragon Knight's passive ability "Ignition" gives 1000 energy and 1000 mana every 3 seconds of combat. It's funny

The "Invisibility" ability.

1) Makes you invisible for 3 seconds
2) Gives you a 100% critical strike chance for these 3 seconds. The first strike.
3) + the general critical strike chance. It appeared recently.

The Sorcerer's "Teleportation" ability
1) Teleports 15 meters. Gives the ability to be unkillable in battle, simply by flying away from the battle, pressing teleportation twice
2) Damage
3) Mass damage to all
4) Control
5) Mass control to all
6) It is impossible to block control
7) It is impossible to dodge control

3 effects against 7 effects.
If you use teleportation while standing close to the wall, then the mana resource will not be spent. And if you pressed invisibility and after 0.03 seconds you were torn out of invisibility, then all resources simply disappear.

For some reason, no one wants to reduce the effectiveness of teleportation? Make its cost 10,000 mana, and reuse +100%. (up to 20,000 mana). Introduce 3 abilities from common branches that would not allow you to use this ability. Create a poison and a potion that would not allow you to use the ability. But they want to destroy invisibility. Why?

I can write many examples of the effectiveness of other classes and argue them. But my article is already very long.

Nightblade was made so weak, and everyone got used to it, that any small change (for example, improving the situation with obtaining resources "absorbing attacks") is perceived as something divine.

I have 90% of the sets of things in the game in my collection. For 5 years and 7500 hours, I tried all possible options for sets and their combinations. And it all comes down to 1 option:
1) All sets for damage
2) Play through the Ultimate ability for 120 points and arrows
3) Play through close combat. Daggers / swords / clubs / axes. Two-handed swords

Everything else is ineffective. Any combinations are very much inferior to other opponents. You can't make a wizard with a staff and good damage. You can't make a Tank with a sword and shield and good damage. All of this will lose to a strong opponent.

The entire game of Nightblade comes down to enduring blows for several minutes, accumulating points of the ultimate ability (120) and arrow stacks (5) and trying to use it in battle. Despite the fact that any good opponent understands that if you stop defending, then now he will make a combo and is ready for it. This is provided that you survive. Blocking an attack or a somersault completely destroys your efforts. You endure again for several minutes to make a new attempt.
Even if you hit the enemy with the ultimate ability and he falls, then in 1000 cases out of 1000 a good enemy will manage to get up and do a somersault or block. And your arrow does not cause damage. Even if you are fully equipped in sets that only give strength and damage, and you were able (miraculously) to hit with the ultimate ability and arrow and hit, you will not kill the enemy with 30,000+, and he will have time to heal himself.

Other scenarios of playing the Night Blade are worse than what I described above, any combination of actions and play will be weaker.

In order for the Night Blade to get closer to the best classes in the game (closer, not become them!!!!) We need to make changes:

1) Incapacitating Strike. 120 points. Deals damage to the enemy. This attack cannot be dodged or blocked. The 0.4 second penalty is removed

2) Grim Focus. This attack cannot be dodged or blocked. It works instantly. Currently, this ability has 2 dodge windows. 1 The enemy dodged when you clicked on the arrow, 2 you clicked on the arrow and when it slowly flew towards the enemy, he dodged.

3) Assassin's Blade. This ability cannot be blocked.

4) Invisibility. Duration 5 seconds. When invisibility is applied, 3 negative effects are removed from you. After invisibility ends (or invisibility ends early), all your attacks for 5 seconds deal critical damage. All attacks. If invisibility is interrupted before its time expires (5 seconds), the mana resource for its cost is fully restored.
For the healing morph, the penalty for standing still is removed. Healing is done in full, regardless of movement. In addition to healing, you receive 2000 shield every second for 5 seconds.

5) Shadow Image. Duration 60 seconds. Range 60 meters. You can jump to the shadow while in a state of hard control. After using the jump, all ranged attacks miss for 1 second.

6) Consuming Darkness. Completely rework the ability. No one uses it. In 5 years of playing, I saw a player use it once in 1 battle.

7) Malevolent Offering. The penalty that takes away 1080 lives should be removed. Instead, when used for 6 seconds, 2000 shield is given

8) Cripple Skill. The damage from this ability is doubled. It is impossible to dodge or block

9) Aspect of Terror. Mass Hysteria. The radius is increased to 15 meters. If none of the enemies were scared, then the mana resource (cost) is fully restored

Passive abilities.

10) Master Assassin. Penetration is increased to 6000 and works regardless of the location of you and the enemy. The second (useless) effect can simply be removed
11) Executioner. When dealing damage with abilities from the Assassination branch, you receive 1000 mana and 1000 energy every 5 seconds

12) Pressure Points. Gives 5% crit chance for each ability from the Assassination branch.

I know what you are thinking after reading this. "HE has gone crazy, this will make the Nightblade the strongest in the game! If he thinks the Nightblade is so weak, then let him play other classes!" That's the thing, everyone plays other classes. Nightblade is played only out of boredom or to kill weak players. If they introduce MINIMUM ADEQUATE improvements for Nightblade described above, it will not become the strongest, it will approach such classes as Dragon Knight, Sorcerer, etc. and will retain its uniqueness.

Here's an example: I have 8000 weapon power, 25,000 penetration of enemy armor, 55% critical chance, 120% critical damage efficiency (Balorgh 500+ Order's Wrath+ Sea-Serpent's Coil + Stygian as an example, provided that everything worked out to the maximum). I hit the enemy with Incapacitating Strike + Grim Focus, and hit, dealing 9,000 +12,000 critical damage. This is provided that I miraculously hit him!!! He did not dodge or block. He just has a Rallying Cry set (-25% critical damage) which simply kills the Nightblade Class. The enemy has 30,000-35,000 health, gets up and heals. If they introduce the changes above, the Nightblade will simply have a chance to win, but will not become the strongest. I repeat, you are so used to the fact that the Nightblade is weak that any improvement to it is perceived as something inadequate.

Even if Incapacitating Strike + Grim Focus will deal 20,000 guaranteed damage in total, the enemy has 30-35K health, Armor, passive abilities +5% damage reduction and 10% damage reduction, shields remain, the ultimate ability of the Dragon Knight Magma Armor and other abilities.

I have not seen a single PvP tournament where the Night Blade won. A tournament among the best players on the server.

The problem is democracy. The developer does not love his product, he does not play his product for 4 hours a day (or plays as the Sorcerer )) to understand what is wrong. A player who has 25,000 lives and plays 200 hours in PVE enters a PvP location and dies from the Night Blade, who has been playing for 10,000 hours. Then the player goes to the forum and cries loudly, complaining about invisibility. At the same time, no one complains about the Sorcerer's teleportation, about the Paladin's Spear, which cannot be blocked, or the finishing beam, which works at 28 meters.

The Night Blade is the weakest class and if you are killed by the Blade, it means you play very badly.



The problem with "democracy" is that not everyone should have a voice, but only those people who understand the issue.

In order to make a balance in the game, it is necessary to select the best PvP players playing duels/Imperial City/Battlegrounds. Cyrodiil is not an indicator, there are 90% of PvE players and very weak ones. The criterion should be hours of play in the duels/Imperial City/Battlegrounds directions, at least 5,000, and preferably 10,000 for each class separately. It is necessary to take 10 professional players from each class, create systematized questionnaires with questions about the strengths of their class, the weaknesses of their class. What strengths of other classes do they see and, based on all this data, systematize the results and make changes by class. For motivation in the survey, players can be given a unique mount or 10,000 crowns. You cannot take into account the opinions of weak players.
Any player can become strong if he wants. But if you have a weak class, you will never defeat an equal opponent on a strong class.

If you want to dispute what I wrote, please write in numbers. Nightblade is strong because it has an ability that has 10 effects (here is the list), because it has an ability that deals 80,000 damage to pvp players with 33,000 armor, etc. If you have such information, you may be right. If this does not exist... then I am right.

I am not asking to make other classes in the game worse, on the contrary, if someone has become stronger, others should be strengthened. I ask to bring Nightblade to the level of other classes.

I understand that most likely the ironclad facts and figures presented above will have no effect. That no one is interested in logic and common sense. As the saying goes, "Who cares about facts?" And that I wasted both 5 years of the game and almost 5 hours writing this article, and now the PvE kittens will come running with screams and condemnation. Well, if this entire critical minimum is not introduced, then I will simply leave the project, but I will do it with a clear conscience, since I tried to convey something.