Nightblade balance - Move "Grim Focus" to Shadow; Move "Blur" to Assassination

Operativ · July 31

As per thread title, I'll keep it short. This simple change would resolve how overly useful, and meta, the Assassination skill line from Nightblade is.

Pure Nightblades wouldn't be really affected, and subclassing builds would have to carefully pick between Assassination's many useful skills & strong passives, or the infamous Grim Focus one-shot. Besides, "Blur" used to be part of the Assassination tree before Update 43, so it wouldn't be that out of theme; and the spectral bow could be argued to be made of shadows.

This would be an effective hit towards a few cheesy subclassing combinations such as Power Overload (Storm Calling) + Grim Focus (Assassination) combined with the very useful passives of both skill lines. I'd say that Shadow doesn't have nearly as strong passives as Assassination, thus it would slightly reel the power creep back in.

Nag1saKaw0ru · July 31

As long as it gets the wd/sd back, even the pre-U46 levels, yes.

preevious · July 31

That is a good idea to balance multi-classing, indeed.
However, it does not adress the elephant in the room, being fatecarver ..

However, yes, good idea ! That would allow pure NB to retain the bonus to WD without it being abused by the multiclass system.

pinkpom · July 31

The theme of the Shadow skill line is tank.

danko355 · July 31

No.

Alp · July 31

As a nightblade DD that swapped out shadow because it's the only line I don't use in PVE that would kinda suck.
Is the issue mainly in PVP? Maybe it should just go the way of the vengeance campaign and make the ability work differently in PVP?

YandereGirlfriend · August 1

Alp wrote: »

As a nightblade DD that swapped out shadow because it's the only line I don't use in PVE that would kinda suck.
Is the issue mainly in PVP? Maybe it should just go the way of the vengeance campaign and make the ability work differently in PVP?

It's because Assassination is too good for this world. It was randomly giga-buffed in U46 and exists in an unhealthy state.

Not saying that this is a good idea but it would achieve the goal of weakening Assassination without weakening pure class Nightblades.

Araneae6537 · August 1

I don’t think that makes sense thematically — mirage is a shadow/evasion/defense type ability.

Nag1saKaw0ru · August 1

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Alp wrote: »

As a nightblade DD that swapped out shadow because it's the only line I don't use in PVE that would kinda suck.
Is the issue mainly in PVP? Maybe it should just go the way of the vengeance campaign and make the ability work differently in PVP?

It's because Assassination is too good for this world. It was randomly giga-buffed in U46 and exists in an unhealthy state.

Not saying that this is a good idea but it would achieve the goal of weakening Assassination without weakening pure class Nightblades.

This again? No, it is not because "assassination is too good for this world". It is because subclassed Arcanists abuse Assassination to buff Fatecarver. And to mitigate Arcanists being OP, ZOS is destroying pure Nightblades.
Keep this up and I'll dig up all of the recent subclassed Necromancer builds and will make sure to shout at every corner how OP and "too good for this world" they are and have to be nerfed into Oblivion.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · August 1

The reason they moved Veiled Strike to Assassination was because the Assassination tree involves summoning spectral weapons, the Shadow skill tree does not so why do you want to put the skill that summons a spectral bow there?

Zodiarkslayer · August 1

While I understand the sentiment, the result is that neither Shadow, nor Assassination would end up being used.
There is no need to bugger Shadow users, because Assassination is way too powerful.

If you want to reign in Assassination's power you have to start with the passives. Three damage passives are just too many. I mean, shifting the skills doesn't really do anything. The power is still in the game.

Merciless Resolve is okayish right now. Relentless Focus isn't. IMO the weapon and spell damage should be removed from both and the max stacks reduced back to 5. The recent changes are just too powerful.

AtriaKhorist · August 1

Scattering DPS Skills across more skill lines akin to the Sorcerer is something nobody needs.

Renato90085 · August 1

as a nb main,I actually support all class adjusting their skill line power like this
if Herald of the Tome all 4 dmg passive swap to other 2 arc heal/tank skill line , it killed over power subclass and still not hunt pure arc
you still have best skill and some bad for dps passive in line
and this will nerf/buff some weakest subclass build too

ArctosCethlenn · August 1

Yeah, no. Bow proc is already losing its s/wd buff, just nerf the assassin passives by reverting the flanking crit chance to flanking penetration.

Shadow deserves buffs to make it a stronger defensive line, not some unholy change to make it only useful if you're playing default/no subclassing nb.

xylena_lazarow · August 1

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

Yeah, no. Bow proc is already losing its s/wd buff

From a PvP standpoint, Major Crit solves the only kit deficiency of the top meta setup, and then its bow nuke gets a TRIPLE cast? No thanks, I'll consider coming back when the whole Assassin line gets gutted to F Tier in PvP.

ArctosCethlenn · August 1

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

Yeah, no. Bow proc is already losing its s/wd buff

From a PvP standpoint, Major Crit solves the only kit deficiency of the top meta setup, and then its bow nuke gets a TRIPLE cast? No thanks, I'll consider coming back when the whole Assassin line gets gutted to F Tier in PvP.

Which is a separate issue and I've said before they should reduce the max stacks to 6 or 7, so the pvers still have wiggle room to not waste stacks while pvp doesn't have to deal with back to back (to back) spec bows to the face.

But moving the skills to different trees isn't the right way to deal with assassination being overtuned.

xylena_lazarow · August 1

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

But moving the skills to different trees isn't the right way to deal with assassination being overtuned.

I like the idea of breaking up the one-stop-shops. Assassin line is the absolute worst kind of one-stop-shop, both extremely powerful and extremely one-dimensional in its gameplay patterns and meta effects.

Vaqual · August 1

Shadow shouldn't be contaminated with the mess that is assassination.

ArctosCethlenn · August 1

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

But moving the skills to different trees isn't the right way to deal with assassination being overtuned.

I like the idea of breaking up the one-stop-shops. Assassin line is the absolute worst kind of one-stop-shop, both extremely powerful and extremely one-dimensional in its gameplay patterns and meta effects.

Literally every class has a heavily damage-focused line, so no. Even sorc and dk have storm and ardent, even though they're not at the level of assassination or herald.

You wanna weaken assassination for pvp, take the healing off of bow proc since it lets them stay more offensive.

Split bow proc's damage from 100 direct to 70 direct + 30 over 4 seconds so the damage per cast is the same, but if you're spamming it back to back for burst you're overwriting dot ticks and losing damage, while less bursty than live.

Swap the flanking crit passive back to flanking pen, because pen is significantly lower value and easier to cap on for pve.

Make the guaranteed sunder on surprise attack not work vs players, maybe even increase the cooldown on the guaranteed SA crits vs players.

Zos wouldn't need to do all of the above at once, but there're a lot of more methodical ways to weaken assassination than just moving grim focus into shadow jail.

Assassination is a problem in pvp but it isn't the only problem, zos had the right idea by moving major resolve out of storm calling so players couldn't source a core defensive buff with an exceptional generalist damage skill line, but pve sorcs whined about 'identity' and got it reverted.

Dalsinthus · August 1

Blur was recently moved out of Assassination in exchange for Veiled Strike. Grim Focus has been reworked more times that I can count in the 10 years I've played this game. At some point the devs need to settle down and allow there to be some stability in what skills do and what trees they are based in.

Eormenric · August 1

As others have said, this clashes with Shadow's tank-focused set. It also isn't truly the problem. The problem is really that no other skills compete with things like Grim Focus or Fatecarver. Different proposition:

Swallow Soul will also increase your SP/WD by 5% of the healing received for 10 seconds.
In an optimized group, let's your SS does 16k. Swallow Soul gives you 35% of that as healing.
16,000 x .35 = 5600. 5600 x .05 = 280. While this isn't great right now, why don't we make SS crit and add buffs like Minor+Major Vitality, Minor+Major Mending.
16,000 x 1.25 = 20000. 20000 x .35 = 7000 + (24% (Mendings) + 18% (Vitalitys)) x .05 = 497. (OR 441 if you understandably can't get Major Mending on a pure DPS build. I think Minor Mending and both Vitality are possible.)

I like this because Mending and Vitality are not really sought-after buffs. But if they can be equated to a damage increase, there may be an incentive to receive them somehow.

Could someone just go Assassination AND Siphoning? Sure. What would they give up? It's not just Siphoning that needs to be given an output boost component. Each non-Tank focused skill tree needs this conditional SP/WD increase. Grim Focus is honestly just too easy to get. Allow it to still provide up to 400, but if all we have to do is LA, that's BS. Require HA to build stacks (1 each, capping at 5--not 10) and now we have a balanced trade-off.

EDIT: Whoops, missed some equations. Hopefully fixed up.

LunaFlora · August 1

no thanks.

Blur fits Shadow as it's shadow magic.
Grim Focus fits Assassination as it uses spectral weapons which that skill is.

plus Shadow is not a damage skill line so putting one of the best damage skills in there instead is a bad idea.
Its passives are for defense and sustain.

edited to add:
with Subclassing i made a themed build that uses Assassination and Aedric Spear for its magic weapons. i love Grim Focus and the build would feel weird without it.

Dino-Jr · August 1

no thanks

xylena_lazarow · August 3

ArctosCethlenn wrote: »

Even sorc and dk have storm and ardent, even though they're not at the level of assassination or herald.

That's the whole point of all these balance threads.

Sorc lines are full of utility skills, DK would swap Chains and Talons if it followed the logic of Blade/Arc.

Zyaneth_Bal · August 4

AtriaKhorist wrote: »

Scattering DPS Skills across more skill lines akin to the Sorcerer is something nobody needs.

On the contrary, this would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exists as it always have, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

AtriaKhorist · August 4

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

AtriaKhorist wrote: »

Scattering DPS Skills across more skill lines akin to the Sorcerer is something nobody needs.

On the contrary, this would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exists as it always have, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

Then you are asking for a complete rework across all classes, and shouldn't single out nightblade to be brought down to the mess that is the sorcerer right now - without solving the sorcerer at first, ontop.

gc0018 · August 4

An interesting but maybe feasible idea, instead of having DPS HEALER and tank skilllines for everyone, maybe spread these skills among all different skillline allow more diversity. People don't have to choose a certain skillline because he is playing a certain role.

randconfig · August 10

I think it would be a good idea in the short term, but long term I hope all abilities for all class skill lines will be overhauled to have a dps, tank, and a healing option. So a 3rd morph. That way each class skill line has something to offer for everyone, so we see less of the same combinations.

Trueconch · August 10

Or just bump down the damage of specbow… its over used because its over powered. Make it more in line with scorch and keep the passive damage bonus as it used to be. No reason this skill needs to hit harder than incap or db make it in line with the second deep fissure hit.

Im coming from a mainly pvp perspective. Do people proc the bow in pve anymore?

tomofhyrule · August 10

Trueconch wrote: »

Or just bump down the damage of specbow… its over used because its over powered. Make it more in line with scorch and keep the passive damage bonus as it used to be. No reason this skill needs to hit harder than incap or db make it in line with the second deep fissure hit.

Im coming from a mainly pvp perspective. Do people proc the bow in pve anymore?

Honestly not really. But they were using the passive damage bonus to its full potential. A unique +400 WD/SD (so almost Major Courage) just for attacking like you would anyway and permanently on?

That's why it's getting nerfed. Every PvE DPS build used assassination for its passives and for free unique Courage for slotting one skill.

Mr_Jord_Joe · August 10

Well, I just think that certain damage bonuses tied to skills should only work effectively against monsters! After all, nowadays it is possible to separate this.