Give Nightblades 2 things...

rekina

So far what I've noticed about Nightblade are simply lacking both tank and damage while Dragonknights tend to have both of them. DKs are just way out of line class, no argue needed. Sorcerers have nice damage and ridiculous escape ability but they tend to have less tank, while Templars have ridiculous self healings that makes them to have insane tank while putting fine damage.

Nightblades don't have much distinct advantage over the other classes. Burst damage, which is core elemental of typical rogue classes, is clearly lacking and it only works under specific circumstances. However, I'm not even going to ask to boost burst damages. It's fine as it is in my opinion.

What lacking severely is sustained damage. None of Nightblade's class ability offers decent sustained damage, so we have to rely on weapon abilities, but those popular weapon abilities(mostly dual wield I assume) have terrible sustained damage output that are not really reliable against Dragonknights and Templars. They just won't do any real damage to them. Meanwhile, Nightblades' tank is so terrible that I can't really put up with any incoming dps. So in the middle of not enough sustain damage or tank to kill enemy, that's where the current Nightblade is.

Now, I believe giving 2 simple things to Nightblades can make them more viable.

First, make Evade skill(active, medium armor) passive. The current Evade doesn't give really significant dodge bonus, but it takes one slot on the skill bar and it even soaks up some stamina before engaging. It's not too terrible to use Evade before engaging that is on the sub-skill bar, but in the middle of the fight... it's just tricky to swap between main and sub skill bar to just use evade. This game doesn't offer GW2's smooth swap. With occasional chance of passive dodging, Nightblade can solve a bit of its survivability issue.

Second, give Nightblades a passive that boosts Poison glyphs effectiveness, and make poison glyphs a bit more accessible so that every nightblades can buy white glyphs from vendors. I'm not going to specify how much should it be strong, but it would be nice if the DoT is stronger than most of the DoT abilities, which are kinda useless in general. This change will give Nightblades a bit more sustained damage.

Most of all, I believe these 2 things do not violate Nightblade's conventional class concept, so I came up with these. I'd love to hear your opinion. Can these changes be justified considering the current state of Nightblade? Or these changes are too much buff for Nightblade?

forthewinn2

Nightblades have great burst, the skill veiled strike does good damage and gains the stealth attack bonus when used from hidden state, this is particularly unusual for something that is technically a spell.
The Nightblade execute assassins blade also works incredible well for bursting an enemy down.

Now if you are after sustainable damage try something like siphoning strikes,cripple and strife.

If Nightblades need anything it's fixing/adjusting of some of our practically useless skills Path of Darkness, Summon Shade and Haste to name a few.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

I was hoping this thread was about Nightingale Armor.

Darthryan

I want better invisibility. I don't want to cloak myself before every fight just so I'm not seen on approach from a mile away. And when I cloak myself I don't want mobs chasing after me like they can hear where I'm heading but they just can't target me. And overall just better at surviving.

Hilgara

forthewinn2 wrote: »

Nightblades have great burst, the skill veiled strike does good damage and gains the stealth attack bonus when used from hidden state, this is particularly unusual for something that is technically a spell.
The Nightblade execute assassins blade also works incredible well for bursting an enemy down.

Now if you are after sustainable damage try something like siphoning strikes,cripple and strife.

If Nightblades need anything it's fixing/adjusting of some of our practically useless skills Path of Darkness, Summon Shade and Haste to name a few.

half of the NB abilities you cant slot on your bar. Out best damage mitigation is the cloak but you cant use dots with it. I'd be happy if they just fix what's broken

Aeratus

rekina wrote: »

So far what I've noticed about Nightblade are simply lacking both tank and damage while Dragonknights tend to have both of them. DKs are just way out of line class, no argue needed. Sorcerers have nice damage and ridiculous escape ability but they tend to have less tank, while Templars have ridiculous self healings that makes them to have insane tank while putting fine damage.

Not an accurate description of the classes at all.

First, NB does have tank skills, such as Veil of Blades which reduces all damage by 60% for 20 seconds, much longer than DK's magma armor.

Secondly, class "tank skills" that add armor are mostly irrelevant at the endgame because you can reach soft cap easily with light armor without using any skills (if you just wear +armor jewelry) and close to hard cap easily if you choose heavy armor. Also, all classes have immovable and bone armor as universal skills.

Templar is not an insane tank. The Templar heals take too much resources.

The advantage of NB at the moment in PVE is sustain using siphoning attacks.

zhevon

mriguy1981 wrote: »

I want better invisibility. I don't want to cloak myself before every fight just so I'm not seen on approach from a mile away. And when I cloak myself I don't want mobs chasing after me like they can hear where I'm heading but they just can't target me. And overall just better at surviving.

This ...

And better stealth generally - even if I up all my stealth passives, stealth is pretty useless much of the time.

[Edit : And survivability - it <angers me greatly> that I wander into a public dungeon 2-3 levels over the mobs nearly die and then see almost every other class saunter through 2-3 levels over the mobs barely getting scratched.

This all refers to PVE]

kitsinni

forthewinn2 wrote: »

Nightblades have great burst, the skill veiled strike does good damage and gains the stealth attack bonus when used from hidden state, this is particularly unusual for something that is technically a spell.
The Nightblade execute assassins blade also works incredible well for bursting an enemy down.

Now if you are after sustainable damage try something like siphoning strikes,cripple and strife.

If Nightblades need anything it's fixing/adjusting of some of our practically useless skills Path of Darkness, Summon Shade and Haste to name a few.

Yeah they have great burst damage for one shot on one regular mob. Any boss or in PvP you barely ding them. You also can only do it once so unless you are just trying to take out a single low health guy it really isn't anything all that special. The attack is mitigated by armor so in PvP you barley ding people half the time.

I don't think NB is as bad as a lot of people say but I think they could use some buffs to sustained DPS for long fights in raid type situations.

As far as tanking or healing they basically have nothing special to offer. They have a couple morhps that heal but in most situations they are not worth putting on the bar. For tanking they would be good with the passives using Cloak buffing armor and spell resist but as soon as you do whatever you are fighting runs right at the rest of the group so you can't really use that either.

Melufey

Two things?
Give them a staff and a dress.

forthewinn2

The no.1 Nightblade Dream is to activate Dark cloak and not have the skill bug out resulting in death.
Reach for the stars people, reach for the stars.

Hilgara

zhevon wrote: »

[Edit : And survivability - it <angers me greatly> that I wander into a public dungeon 2-3 levels over the mobs nearly die and then see almost every other class saunter through 2-3 levels over the mobs barely getting scratched.

This all refers to PVE]

Pre or post nerf? NB can solo all public dungeons now and even dolmens. Light armor and plenty of magicka is the key. You don't need staffs just a large magicka pool and good regen. Medium armor you can forget it but that's true of all classes.

Aeratus

kitsinni wrote: »

As far as tanking or healing

Just to add, NB tanking and healing have actually been nerfed recently, so won't be expecting buffs to these areas soon.

NBs were recently the best tanks in the game in terms of pure tanking, simply because of shadow cloak. Shadow cloak gave you invincibility for 2.8 seconds, and if using light armor and magicka reducing gear, you could sustain it for a long time. However, shadow tanking was nerfed recently in that you no longer hold aggro.

As to healing, the core mechanic in NB healing is magicka regeneration through siphoning strikes. With siphoning, NBs regenerated magicka faster than any other class, and this made NB the best sustained healer (along with sorc). However, siphoning was nerfed in a recent patch.

forthewinn2

[sarcasm]
@Hilgara you know perfectly well that wearing armor in solo veteran content is considered an exploit, he is obviously running around naked just like everyone else, personally after the veteran nerf I now die multiple times before I manage to beat a world boss without armor on. It is quite clear Nightblade survivability needs a buff.
[/sarcasm]

D2player87

With swallow soul, cripple, quick siphon, siphoning strikes and the killer blade(?) the finishing move, and veil of blades slotted as an ulti, i can solo most world bosses and dolmens in vet zones. All tje while maintaining 600-700 dps over a period of 2-3 mins fight. Insane sustainability, damage mitigation and damage, i do not know what you are talking about OP. Of course your points about fixing the bugs we have holds true, DOT breaking stealth, swallow soul healing bug and many others, but as a class I feel we are doing well. Many of my friends who have witness me in a fight will vouch for that. There are youtube videos out there of nbs soloing impossible bosses I could only dream of surviving, but its proven to be possible. You can contact me in game and i can give you pointers.

kitsinni

D2player87 wrote: »

With swallow soul, cripple, quick siphon, siphoning strikes and the killer blade(?) the finishing move, and veil of blades slotted as an ulti, i can solo most world bosses and dolmens in vet zones. All tje while maintaining 600-700 dps over a period of 2-3 mins fight. Insane sustainability, damage mitigation and damage, i do not know what you are talking about OP. Of course your points about fixing the bugs we have holds true, DOT breaking stealth, swallow soul healing bug and many others, but as a class I feel we are doing well. Many of my friends who have witness me in a fight will vouch for that. There are youtube videos out there of nbs soloing impossible bosses I could on dream of surviving, but its proven to be possible. You can contact me in game and i can give you pointers.

The highest end of that is basically the minimum sustained DPS you can have to even be considered for a trial.

tino.antoninieb17_ESO

Siphoning strikes is good but have downside - reducing damage output by too much and recent change to resource gain is making it even more lackluster. If u include that in equation then u will find out that siphoning strikes make NB's not competitive regarding output. Most magica NB's who are having better performance then stamina ones are not using syphoning strikes but use equilibrium for regaining magic resource.
Fact is that recent medium armor change makes a lot for resource sustain ( stamina builds ) which makes siphoning strikes even more debatable. In other words if those resources u gain will save your neck u should use it - and if it is just for enhancing output - doesn't make much sense for competitive players.

Aett_Thorn

rekina wrote: »

First, make Evade skill(active, medium armor) passive.

The problem with this is that it would be a buff to everyone ELSE as well, not just Nightblades. That Dragonknight that you have trouble killing? Now imagine 15% or your attacks against him missed because he also has that passive.

Second, give Nightblades a passive that boosts Poison glyphs effectiveness, and make poison glyphs a bit more accessible so that every nightblades can buy white glyphs from vendors. I'm not going to specify how much should it be strong, but it would be nice if the DoT is stronger than most of the DoT abilities, which are kinda useless in general. This change will give Nightblades a bit more sustained damage.

Probably not nearly enough to help the class out. Now, a passive that increased all weapon enchantments would be nice, but still wouldn't really be enough. And until the DoT-breaking-Invisibility thing gets fixed, this suggestion wouldn't even be used by many Nightblades even if it was put in.


Not going to say that Nightblades couldn't use a little love, but a lot of it comes down more to the Stamina/Magika imbalance and some of the weapon skill lines.

Hilgara

D2player87 wrote: »

With swallow soul, cripple, quick siphon, siphoning strikes and the killer blade(?) the finishing move, and veil of blades slotted as an ulti, i can solo most world bosses and dolmens in vet zones. All tje while maintaining 600-700 dps over a period of 2-3 mins fight. Insane sustainability, damage mitigation and damage, i do not know what you are talking about OP. Of course your points about fixing the bugs we have holds true, DOT breaking stealth, swallow soul healing bug and many others, but as a class I feel we are doing well. Many of my friends who have witness me in a fight will vouch for that. There are youtube videos out there of nbs soloing impossible bosses I could only dream of surviving, but its proven to be possible. You can contact me in game and i can give you pointers.

But some of us don't want to use staffs. That's not why we rolled a NB. Not that I'm criticising your method. I have swapped to staffs myself when things got difficult (or used too) but I try to stay with duel wield as a point of pride.

Aeratus

Stamina builds are universally underpowered at the moment, but thats not fairly a NB issue per se. Plenty of DKs and Temps want to play 2h, but cant do so effectively.

kitsinni

tino.antoninieb17_ESO wrote: »

Siphoning strikes is good but have downside - reducing damage output by too much and recent change to resource gain is making it even more lackluster. If u include that in equation then u will find out that siphoning strikes make NB's not competitive regarding output. Most magica NB's who are having better performance then stamina ones are not using syphoning strikes but use equilibrium for regaining magic resource.
Fact is that recent medium armor change makes a lot for resource sustain ( stamina builds ) which makes siphoning strikes even more debatable. In other words if those resources u gain will save your neck u should use it - and if it is just for enhancing output - doesn't make much sense for competitive players.

I agree after the nerf Siphoning Attacks is basically there for soloing when you don't really care about your optimal damage output. I will sometimes use it when I'm in a 4 man vet dungeon just to take some load off the healer especially if you don't have to do all out DPS to win the encounter.

Now everyone is using Spell Symmetry for Magicka (equillibrium morph). With passives it gives magicka, reduces next spell cost by 25%, Increases spell damage of next attack by 20% and gives you 2% more Magicka and Magicka recovery just for having it on the bar. Yes you trade health for the Magicka but even that can be lowered with passives and most group content is overhealed anyway. With a ~10% damage reduction for using siphoning attacks and the reduced resource gain it is pretty easy to see why people are dumping the skill in group situations.

Beldorr

zhevon wrote: »

mriguy1981 wrote: »

I want better invisibility. I don't want to cloak myself before every fight just so I'm not seen on approach from a mile away. And when I cloak myself I don't want mobs chasing after me like they can hear where I'm heading but they just can't target me. And overall just better at surviving.

This ...

And better stealth generally - even if I up all my stealth passives, stealth is pretty useless much of the time.

[Edit : And survivability - it <angers me greatly> that I wander into a public dungeon 2-3 levels over the mobs nearly die and then see almost every other class saunter through 2-3 levels over the mobs barely getting scratched.

This all refers to PVE]

When I was leveling my NB I recorded most of my VR public dungeons. Here is a list of the recordings if you need help stealthing dungeons. Killing mobs is pointless in VR due to the petty xp gains from it.

nerevarine1138

To respond to a number of general statements on the thread:

1. You are clearly talking about dual-wield/medium armor Nightblades. So be specific, because changing medium armor skills has nothing to do with the class.
2. Stamina skills are still being tweaked, but sustained dual-wield DPS is absolutely possible. My stamina regen is already through the roof, and activating Invigorating Attacks just increases it. In any boss fight, I can pretty much spam flurry without having to break for much downtime, and once you get the boss below 25%, Assassin's Blade does some serious damage.
3. If you need to go invisible before coming up behind an enemy, you're doing something wrong. Stealth works just fine. Even before becoming a Vampire, I was perfectly capable of getting a Surprise Attack hit on an enemy from behind without going invisible. If you're coming from the front of the enemy: what do you expect?

tino.antoninieb17_ESO

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

To respond to a number of general statements on the thread:

1. You are clearly talking about dual-wield/medium armor Nightblades. So be specific, because changing medium armor skills has nothing to do with the class.
2. Stamina skills are still being tweaked, but sustained dual-wield DPS is absolutely possible. My stamina regen is already through the roof, and activating Invigorating Attacks just increases it. In any boss fight, I can pretty much spam flurry without having to break for much downtime, and once you get the boss below 25%, Assassin's Blade does some serious damage.
3. If you need to go invisible before coming up behind an enemy, you're doing something wrong. Stealth works just fine. Even before becoming a Vampire, I was perfectly capable of getting a Surprise Attack hit on an enemy from behind without going invisible. If you're coming from the front of the enemy: what do you expect?

Regarding point 1: Medium armor change will have more impact on stamina driven builds for some classes than for others. For example if NB had to toggle
syphoning attacks to get sustained damage and now it hasnt - than obvious benefit would be 2 slots and 10% damage "increase" . Some classes with this armor change didnt benefit that much so we can say that medium armor is NB thing. All that said is worth only If u want to be precise and go in details like it sounds.
Regarding point 2. DW sustained damage was always possible just wasn't good enough if u compare it to magica driven damage. Dw damage is now in better shape than before.
Regarding point 3 - do u speak about solo or group encounters - your statement is valid only for solo encounters where u are putting up the pace.

Hilgara

tino.antoninieb17_ESO wrote: »

Regarding point 3 - do u speak about solo or group encounters - your statement is valid only for solo encounters where u are putting up the pace.

No he's right. Even in a group of 2 or 3 with one facing you and one with their back to you I can still get surprise attack in from stealth.

frwinters_ESO

What the nightblade needs is the shadow cloak and morphs to be completely fixed, and provide an equal damage bonus as if you were coming out of stealth. This allows the NB to continue doing that burst damage in PvE which will boost the overall DPS. It will still take a lot to manage resources as cloak eats up magicka, but there would be an overall boost.

NB against a boss is only good at the end. With DW passive and Impale, we can only start doing decent DPS when the boss is low on health. Between the initial attack and when they are low on health there is a massive struggle.

rekina

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

To respond to a number of general statements on the thread:

1. You are clearly talking about dual-wield/medium armor Nightblades. So be specific, because changing medium armor skills has nothing to do with the class.
2. Stamina skills are still being tweaked, but sustained dual-wield DPS is absolutely possible. My stamina regen is already through the roof, and activating Invigorating Attacks just increases it. In any boss fight, I can pretty much spam flurry without having to break for much downtime, and once you get the boss below 25%, Assassin's Blade does some serious damage.
3. If you need to go invisible before coming up behind an enemy, you're doing something wrong. Stealth works just fine. Even before becoming a Vampire, I was perfectly capable of getting a Surprise Attack hit on an enemy from behind without going invisible. If you're coming from the front of the enemy: what do you expect?

Everything you mentioned are something I already aware of/I'm already doing, and I still find the problems in Cyrodiil.

Vuron

There is another option.

Go DW, medium armor and spec everything to magicka instead of stamina.

It's one my pet peeves, but I hate the fact that people think that melee=stamina, and DW=stamina. I'm using DW, but don't use any of the DW abilities because, quite frankly, they're crap. This doesn't make me a mage or a caster.

As long as I have to stand within melee range to beat on a mob, than I'm melee. A bar of Ambush, Surprise Attack, Dark Cloak, Impale, Swallow Soul, and Veil of Blades is just about as melee as you can get. Everything but Swallow Soul uses weapon crit instead of spell crit.

Although this build is mostly a burst build, it can work as a sustain build with right armor, jewelry, and potions. I ran Magnus and Warlock sets and had magicka and magicka recovery both capped.

I used this build to level from 1-VR12 and had no issues, at all, in Vet content. This build doesn't work for most VR dungeons and trials, so I run my restro staff build.

kitsinni

Vuron wrote: »

There is another option.

Go DW, medium armor and spec everything to magicka instead of stamina.

It's one my pet peeves, but I hate the fact that people think that melee=stamina, and DW=stamina. I'm using DW, but don't use any of the DW abilities because, quite frankly, they're crap. This doesn't make me a mage or a caster.

As long as I have to stand within melee range to beat on a mob, than I'm melee. A bar of Ambush, Surprise Attack, Dark Cloak, Impale, Swallow Soul, and Veil of Blades is just about as melee as you can get. Everything but Swallow Soul uses weapon crit instead of spell crit.

Although this build is mostly a burst build, it can work as a sustain build with right armor, jewelry, and potions. I ran Magnus and Warlock sets and had magicka and magicka recovery both capped.

I used this build to level from 1-VR12 and had no issues, at all, in Vet content. This build doesn't work for most VR dungeons and trials, so I run my restro staff build.

Out of curiousity why are you using DW then? You could do everything you are currently doing but with a Resto staff and the passives and do 10% more damage. Not only that but you would have the ability to heal, and get Magicka on heavy attacks.

I think most people assume DW = Stamina because there is no advantage to using DW if you are not going to use any DW skills.

Vuron

kitsinni wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

There is another option.

Go DW, medium armor and spec everything to magicka instead of stamina.

It's one my pet peeves, but I hate the fact that people think that melee=stamina, and DW=stamina. I'm using DW, but don't use any of the DW abilities because, quite frankly, they're crap. This doesn't make me a mage or a caster.

As long as I have to stand within melee range to beat on a mob, than I'm melee. A bar of Ambush, Surprise Attack, Dark Cloak, Impale, Swallow Soul, and Veil of Blades is just about as melee as you can get. Everything but Swallow Soul uses weapon crit instead of spell crit.

Although this build is mostly a burst build, it can work as a sustain build with right armor, jewelry, and potions. I ran Magnus and Warlock sets and had magicka and magicka recovery both capped.

I used this build to level from 1-VR12 and had no issues, at all, in Vet content. This build doesn't work for most VR dungeons and trials, so I run my restro staff build.

Out of curiousity why are you using DW then? You could do everything you are currently doing but with a Resto staff and the passives and do 10% more damage. Not only that but you would have the ability to heal, and get Magicka on heavy attacks.

I think most people assume DW = Stamina because there is no advantage to using DW if you are not going to use any DW skills.

For soloing, the DW passives are better than the 10% damage buff from resto. People tend to forget that the 10% buff is not actually 10%, but 1% for every 10% of health. If you're fighting at half health most of the time than you're only getting a 5% damage increase.

The DW passives are much better for damage than the single passive from resto. Bonus vs low health targets, bonus vs disabled targets, and extra crit chance more than make up for losing the resto. The best benefit that I've found to using the resto is that its ranged and works better for dungeons and trials.

To address your specific questions.. I get enough healing from Swallow Soul and potions and I rarely use heavy attacks during trash fights, so I'm not really losing anything.

Edit.. forgot to add that if you are weaving attacks, DW has a shorter cooldown than restro and you can actually do more attacks.

Redlag

I'm having problems with my health sustain. Siphoning is balls. I started out 2h/bow medium at release and changed to DW/Bow medium soon after. This past month after my NB sat I changed to Destro resto light just so I could have sustain. Don't care as much if my dps is off the hook. The last few days I was so desperate for a away to recoup health mid fight that Im using 3 piece of shadow for a 480 heal at VR1 spamming soul harvest because it charges fast. I can't get veiled strikes to charge fast.

I would basically two shot any mob with Suprise/killing blade for 2.1k dps and watch my dps drop to balls after that on packs of 3. Using swallow soul for heals etc.. but magicka gone after that.. So now Im at DW/resto with a mix of light/med until I get the rest of medium that I deconstructed after going light. Hearing that equilibrium is the new thing to recoup mana just pisses me off. Siphoning is balls now but hey, equilibrium is good? Why nerf siphoning strikes?

I guess I have an over all problem with this game. VR12 videos show the builds and the sustain for all classes, but as you grind you deplete magicka insanely fast making it so frustrating on every class. Maybe the sustain comes in higher VRs.

I've spent way to much respec'ing this class. I'm sitting here in the middle of DW/Resto light/med scared of going either way because I feel like Im gonna end up either without sustained dps or without sustained health return. Which is worse? I can kill slow, and enjoy living, but when I try that Im dying. I logged in to check a couple tooltips on skills and seen that my game time is up. I don't think Im gonna renew, because I don't want to pay to research what sustain works after the last patch. To me it seems like ZOS is trying to kill sustain on all classes to force grouping (for stupid delve content?).

LunaRae

I want
1. Self dots and dots don't remove shadowy disguise / dark cloak invisibility prematurely

... that's the only thing that really irritates me from NB class abilities right now.