Shadow Image is a perfect example of what's wrong with Nightblades

CapuchinSeven

Sounds great on paper, borderline useless in practice because it's either underwhelming or utterly unreliable.

I consider myself to be a fairly successful Nightblade, but even when you make a decent success out of the class, these sorts of skills stick out like sore thumbs, which funnily enough is also what I get when trying to make Dark Cloak last.

And it's not like I can't make things like Shadow Image work, but when you hold them up to skills like Green Dragon Blood it's just not even funny.

I mean, even a hint from the icon that you're out of range or a big ring around the shade would help.

Erock25

Funny you mention this because all of the recent 1vX NB videos where the NB is really kicking butt and taking names uses shadow image. Seems like they get it to work pretty well.

michael_bimson

For clarity I am understanding that you mean the morph "Shadow Image" of "Summon Shade" where as most NB's in vids I've seen use the "Dark Shades" morph.

GDB is one hell of a power, but its a tank ability in the class that leans towards being a tank. They don't directly compare, but Shadow Image is good if you've got a syphon/kite set up going on, no question. However I did not realise that there was a maximum range on it (I confess I use Dark Shades), that's poor and should definitely have some visual indicator and the tooltip updated.

CapuchinSeven

Erock25 wrote: »

Funny you mention this because all of the recent 1vX NB videos where the NB is really kicking butt and taking names uses shadow image. Seems like they get it to work pretty well.

Ah the old, I saw a video or two so it must be perfect, come back.

The videos you're talking about uses it on a flat surface in a very small area, the same way I use it. Uneven surfaces cause it problems, random ranges seem to cause it problems, sometimes with no real reason at all, you can put it down, use it right away and you'll go no where but you'll get a nice animation anyway.

If I couldn't make it work for me, why would I have it on my bar? Like most Nightblade skills the question is not about if you can make it work it's about should it really be that temperamental and prone to issues.

This isn't the first Nightblade skill to suffer like this, Path was another that suffered with issues with uneven surfaces.

michael_bimson wrote: »

However I did not realise that there was a maximum range on it (I confess I use Dark Shades), that's poor and should definitely have some visual indicator and the tooltip updated.

A visual indicator of some sort would help although to be fair most of that is just getting used to the range and building up your gaming skill as you use it and getting better at judging the range.

The glitches with it though, really frustrating.

Saet

Agreed. This skill drives me nuts. Its so much fun when it works but it more often than not seems to fail me when I need it.

AlnilamE

I may try this out. I morphed to the shades, and they've been useful when soloing, but this sounds like fun when it works.

CapuchinSeven

AlnilamE wrote: »

I may try this out. I morphed to the shades, and they've been useful when soloing, but this sounds like fun when it works.

It's a lot of fun, to get the most from it, use it quick and fast. If you leave it for too long it can quickly turn into a "ffs" skill.

LunaRae

The skill is perfect on a flat stage with 0 obstacles blocking your path. I swear they coded this skill to behave like any "charge" type ability where if the game can't find a movable path to the Shadow's location it fails. And it fails so often for me, I was trying to run it because it sounded great, but in reality it's not reliable. It feels so awesome when you do pull it off though!!

CapuchinSeven

LunaRae wrote: »

It feels so awesome when you do pull it off though!!

Ha yes this, I had a DK running all over the place trying to get to me the other day.

GwaynLoki

The funny thing is that the skill allows you to teleport from the bottom to the top of a wall even with walls between you and your destination just fine. On other occasions, it fails to teleport you over a slight bump to a spot 5m away.

Darthryan

I don't like how I have to target someone first to place it. Kinda gives away that I'm there as it starts shooting at target. Maybe we should ask our addon guys to make an addon for this.

dodgehopper_ESO

I personally find that Nightblade and Templar have some of the more quirky abilities in their lineup. Blazing spear is fantastic, but difficult to fire on rolling hills, rocky terrain etc. (I wish it was a Targetted AoE, but I know a lot of people would hate this change... wish we could use spellcrafting to create a morph to what WE want). I find these two classes seem to be the ones that have the most broken passives, bad tooltips, and most need of repair from ZOS. Amazingly enough, these are my two favorites to play. I have nothing against Dragon Knight or Sorc, in fact I enjoy them too, but just not as much. DK for me feels too 'heavy handed' and Nordlike, and doesn't seem to show enough of its Akaviri roots. Where's the agility you'd expect from an akaviri style? Sorc is fantastic, and I find extremely powerful much like DK but just not the playstyle I want for my main.

I say all this to say, I really hope they do make it so you can see when your shade pet is too far to teleport to. My NB uses shades because I'm planning on him to be able to tank, so I have never personally experienced this. Wish I could have both morphs though, because for ganking/mass pvp the other morph would really be nice.

Grasshopper

So I would like to point out that shades including shadow image is insanely useful. It may not be apparent at first, but shadow image itself combos with some of nightblades other skills and also its mitigation is insane.

PVP:
Here is just one of the combos:
Shadow image up
Ambush target
press shadow image again
User another skill (this skill procs the extra damage from ambush since you did not use a damaging skill)

So basically what happens is in pvp you cc your target(loss of enemy dps), you deal damage, and you drop a debuff on them (loss of enemy dps).
I would like to also point out it is fun as heck to do.
There is many more setups you can do you just need to get creative.

PVE:
"The shade's cause the target to deal 15% less damage over 4 seconds."
Keep in mind this applies to bosses,,, this reads to me...
"Target enemy boss deals 15% less damage, because screw him/her/it. If you have multiple night-blades running this skill the effect is everlasting,"

I am just going to add this,,, ^-^

I will agree with you on the point though that it does need a range indicator. I have found many times that i am out of range, because it is tough to calculate its range.

Otherwise, there is no reason someone in a combo build should not be running this skill.

CapuchinSeven

GwaynLoki wrote: »

The funny thing is that the skill allows you to teleport from the bottom to the top of a wall even with walls between you and your destination just fine. On other occasions, it fails to teleport you over a slight bump to a spot 5m away.

THIS, you get it, this guy gets it. It's such a wtf skill sometimes.

Grasshopper wrote: »

Otherwise, there is no reason someone in a combo build should not be running this skill.

I agree, but as pointed out, it's a pain a lot of times.

Also your PVP combo ignores that at times, putting down the shade will totally rob you of your stealth attack, not always but enough for me to stop using it before I use Ambush sometimes.

Araxleon

Why shadow image kicks ass.

1. it reduces your enemies damage and it stacks with other reduce damage skills.
2. if your enemy is blocking it counts as a physical attack and they lose stamina.
3. the teleport is actually more life saving than dark cloak.
I use shadow image as a major part of my build and its amazing. People just dont know how to use it.
Shadow image isnt even the problem with NB, Nightblades not have decent misschance & dark cloak never wants to work are the issues.

CapuchinSeven

Araxleon wrote: »

Why shadow image kicks ass.

1. it reduces your enemies damage and it stacks with other reduce damage skills.
2. if your enemy is blocking it counts as a physical attack and they lose stamina.
3. the teleport is actually more life saving than dark cloak.
I use shadow image as a major part of my build and its amazing. People just dont know how to use it.
Shadow image isnt even the problem with NB, Nightblades not have decent misschance & dark cloak never wants to work are the issues.

I just used it in a one on one. Put it down, 4 seconds later I hit the teleport and it didn't work. Put another one down, 4 seconds later I hit the teleport and it didn't work.

I'm not talking about how to use it or if it's useful, I'm talking about the inconstancy of it not working. If it always works and never ever fails for you, good for you.

Cyhawk

Couldn't care less about the current convo, my response is directly to OP:

The only thing missing from Nightblades is a good heal/shield spell. Period, that is it. Every single spell in their arsenal serve a purpose, Hell I'll go through them for you.

Shadow:

* Soul Harvest: Ok the weakest of the ultimates and a bad an example to lead off with. It however serves an excellent purpose in PvE: Building ult SUPER fast. In PvP I've used this successfully in large zerg situations to pop veils 100% of the time (combined with Combat Frenzy) and to 'snipe' specific targets quickly. Occasionally I can chain them and kill 6-10 targets in a row. It DOES need a buff, which it's getting but its a great 'assassination' ability.

* Assassin's Blade: Execute move, great in Trials, General PvE and PvP. In PvP a great way to finish off a blazing shield spamming templar who's under 25% health since it casts ever so slightly faster than Blazing shield letting you eventually finish them.

* Teleport Strike: Closer, great ability to catch/destroy other nightblades trying to escape (if you cast it as they go invis/shadow cloak you'll still hit). Hits hard and Ambush morph lets you move into huge early hits or right into a insta kill Impale if they're low enough.

* Blur: Ok this one sucks, but not for the reason you think. It sucks because the duration is too damned low. Beautiful survival tool in the right, tight situations. Also used it to help tank DSA in combination with Evasion from the medium armor line.

* Marked Target: 75% reduction is huge. In trials it gets those mythical 1500dps numbers and in PvP it shreds people who don't know how to block. FYI: Never lead with this ability, lead with Ambush, THEN mark, THEN damage. What happens if you lead with it? They block/purge it.

* Haste: Oddly useful and will be more useful in the next patch. If you're heavy attack cancelling keeping Haste up adds plenty of DPS since it can bump you up to a full heavy attack, or if you're crazy and use double weighted gold weapons, always a full heavy attack now. Personally I'd like to see more attack speed to be able to spam it and make this more useful but as it stands, its required in the Dual Wield 1k DPS stamina build to hit those numbers.

Shadow:

Consuming Darkness: Veil. If you don't have/know what veil is, you aren't a nightblade.

Shadow Cloak: Escape ability that may or may not work depending on the patch. When not near a keep in PvP it still works as intended: Pop cloak, reapply sneak and change direction like a transport ship evading U-Boats in WW2. Still works. Also the removal of negative effects is stupid good, and in dueling if you have this slotted you can 'reset' the fight. I use it against templars due to their numerous channel abilities, lets this ability shine.

Path of Darkness: Want a perfect example of whats wrong with nightblades? This skill is 100% useless outside of tanking. Why tanking? Each tick triggers Elemental Drain and Force Siphon. If anything, in this situation it needs to be fixed. Has little to no use outside of 4man dungeons sadly.

Aspect of Terror: This is THE best CC in the game.

Summon Shade: Bitching about DKs that just block? Guess what, this is how you beat them. These little annoyances drain their stamina to no end. Both morphs are useful and is one of the few skills I wish I had access to both morphs. This is how you win duels.

Siphoning:

Soul Shred: Excellent low cost ultimate for damage. Since its not a static AoE it hurts bad. Great in PvP, not so much in PvE where you want veil 100% of the time. Players tend to move out of Static AoEs.

Strife: Your main attack spell. Wanna know something? Its also just as strong, if not more due to its range, powerful than lava whip. With the same stats you get about the same damage but an 4x the range. Oh and it ALWAYS heals you instead of requiring them to be in a CC.

Agony: Not always useful, but useful in duels and PvE when they're low on stamina and CAN'T break out. If you're able this will destroy stamina in combination with Shades.

Cripple: 'secondary' attack, use in combination with Strife to deal maximum damage while being able to keep kiting. They work together, though you can skip this one if you don't need the bonuses. Nothing wrong with this ability other than it's not spammable.

Siphoning Strikes: If you want to stack spell power and skip regen, this is required. If you can weave light attacks properly you'll almost NEVER run out of mana with this up. The damage reduction pales in comparison to a constant barrage of spells. Properly setup with spell damage (Hint: I can hit 140 spell damage with this up, Funnel Health hits for 600+ in PvP). Even in trials being able to drop Spell Sym and building ult faster (3-6 more ult per cycle due to lack of Spell Sym) makes up for, and on some bosses surpasses overall DPS than Spell Sym nbs. (this does require Siphoning Strikes morph over the heal. Sadly a choice between PvP and PvE on these morphs. I still like both) Either way this skill is an all star and stands for everything Nightblades are in combat: Drain your opponent and finish them off style of combat.

Drain Power: Ok, letting you in on a secret. Combine the Power Extraction Morph with Elemental Ring and you'll do more damage AoE than Sorcs with Crit Surge up. Oh and you'll hit 9 targets on the Power Extraction hit. Wanna go defensive? I've seen nightblades tank 10+ guys using Sap Power with Veils. Combined with the Transfer passive your ult builds stupid fast. The only thing wrong with this ability besides it's OPness is it takes for freaking ever to unlock.

The only thing missing from this suite of tools is a self-heal. That's it. Period. All in all the Nightblade class has more useful tools than any other class in more situations (Daedric Summoning line for Sorcs comes to mind, being useless for most things outside of the Shield and Mines in PvE. Pets are worthless.) Even the useless skills are invaluable for off type casting your NB (say as a tank, which is surprisingly good when setup right).

So please, quit your bitching. At least if you do, complain we have self defense skills outside of Veil and Aspect of Terror which don't work the way we need them to for most PvP encounters/PvE.

CapuchinSeven

Cyhawk wrote: »

Couldn't care less about the current convo, my response is directly to OP:

The only thing missing from Nightblades is a good heal/shield spell. Period, that is it. Every single spell in their arsenal serve a purpose, Hell I'll go through them for you.

I stopped reading after the first line, skipped to the last part with the insult and lol'd. You're so far off the topic I'm not even sure how to reply. I don't care about anything you've written, sorry it's mostly junk. It had nothing to do with my OP.

No one is saying it's bad, no one is saying it needs a buff, I didn't say NBs need a buff. I didn't say I can't use it. I didn't say I don't use it, I use it and I use it a lot and it's very very useful and powerful and one reason why I'm so deadly.

For anyone else reading the thread -

• Use it on your main bar, weapon swap breaks it and will bug it out so when you use it again it will animate but often fail. I've tested this over and over.
• Use it on even ground, although for some reason you can use it on a keep wall.
• Keep in range, if you get out of range, bam it will fail.

The ONLY point here is that NB skills have problems like this and it's a common problem for the class, Cloak has many problems, Path had issues with uneven ground (fixed hopefully), Impale gets stuck in an animation lock, Concealed Weapon wasn't buffing (just fixed).

None of these issues stop me or anyone else being effective, that isn't a reason for them to not get some rough edges fixed.

Saet

I'm not even sure he read the initial post with that response. Yes we do have some great skills. It would just be nice for this one to work more consistently and I definitely appreciate his testing to try and figure out what things set it off to misfire.

Cody

is that one of the shades morphs?

the ability itself is..... not good. never used it enough to try the morphs.

they sound cool, but also sound frustrating as heck to use

TheBull

It's buggy. It's one of those skills you have to come to an understanding with that it doesn't work like it's supposed to work. Then you have to ask "but how does it work?" After that play it accordingly.

The life of NBs...

CapuchinSeven

Cody wrote: »

is that one of the shades morphs?

the ability itself is..... not good. never used it enough to try the morphs.

they sound cool, but also sound frustrating as heck to use

It is yes, it's worth sticking with but can be very frustrating and I can understand why a lot of players would go for something else (I drop it sometimes because it's not worth the FFFFFUUUUUU moment you have when it fails).

The general rule is, keep it on your main bar, use it in short range and quickly, don't leave it standing for a while, even if the buff is still showing it can fail.

Drazhar14

Yeah... Use Dark Shades instead. Its awesome. Dot, damage debuff, drains enemy's stamina as they block, distraction if the enemy decides to attack them... enough said.

As for Shadow Image, it could be revised. The skill should be a ground target skill. Upon casting, you teleport to the location you targeted and a shade gets left behind in the spot where you were. That would change it from useless to amazing.

AssaultLemming

Cyhawk wrote: »

Couldn't care less about the current convo, my response is directly to OP:

Drain Power: Ok, letting you in on a secret. Combine the Power Extraction Morph with Elemental Ring and you'll do more damage AoE than Sorcs with Crit Surge up. Oh and you'll hit 9 targets on the Power Extraction hit. Wanna go defensive? I've seen nightblades tank 10+ guys using Sap Power with Veils. Combined with the Transfer passive your ult builds stupid fast. The only thing wrong with this ability besides it's OPness is it takes for freaking ever to unlock.

This skill is my favorite as a night blade currently. The ultimate building ability combined with the heals it gives me make an aoe machine. I can get overlapping veils easily. Can solo craglorn delves with no problem.

I see night blades complaining about no self heal and no shield but I am pretty sure zeni envisaged people using resto staff for exactly that purpose. I know that what I use and it works fantastically.

CapuchinSeven

OH and how could I forget, the best bug of all, sometimes for no reason at all your Shade will move so you teleport short of where you left it or if you're really really unlucky as I've had happen to me... you teleport 2 inches.

Aeratus

At the moment, the dual shades morph is superior, IMO. The single shade morph is only good if you plan on being a PVE tank.

One thing that's fun with the single shade morph in PVP is you teleport to the shade and then use shield charge when the enemy is confused as to your location. But in the end it's not much more than a gimmick.

CapuchinSeven

I've had a few tells about this post so I thought I'd put down what I said to them for anyone else wondering or needing help.

To make it work and effective it's fairly simple.

Use it fast - put down the Shade, Ambush in, deal your burst, then teleport to the Shade to get out, stealth away. Distance is more of an issue than time, but I have seen it fail when it's right next to me seemingly because I left it a while (the buff was still running).

If your foe doesn't die in your first run or you have to chase them around either accept the teleport won't work or teleport and try again.

Too much time and too much distance from the Shade and it'll fail.