Continuing Feedback.....(PTS and NB centric)

PlagueMonk

This is an extension of my previous feedback found here

About the PTS using templates......Please unlock all achievements, crafting and maps. Would also be nice if you provided us with a crafting materials pack.

I found it extremely limiting that I could not craft any gear and had to rely on basically what was provided me. I am usually a DW dagger melee/melee build and since I was not provided with daggers (let alone 2 sets) I could not test out a familiar build.

I could also not even check out crafted sets (how they changed and interactions with abilities) because I had no traits unlocked. /sigh

General:

- The Light and medium armor set passives for full sets do not state they need to be 5 pieces and list the full bonus as if active. It needs to read similar to the heavy bonus and that bonus NEEDS to be grayed out until I have 5 pieces on. The only way I knew for sure was to take pieces on/off and look at my stats.

- There are currently WAY too many abilities imho that give the Major Expedition bonus. I was actually shocked at the sheer amount between Alliance skills, Dual Wield and NB. If they stacked it would be one thing but all they do is overwrite one another. This really makes skill choice difficult because of redundancy.

I would suggest the amount be lessened to make the skill a bit more unique or at the very least allow them to stack (even if that means they need to be downgraded in some fashion)

- Invisibility Potions continue to be a vastly superior choice over the NB cloak which is frankly crap. Beyond the fact they can last upwards of 20 secs, the NB ability should function exactly like the invisibility potion (i.e. either both or neither should break on steal) It's a double standard as it currently stands.

- Why do you continue to introduce abilities that further marginalize the NB cloak? "Revealing Flare" once more hurts a NBs ability to be, well STEALTHY. What the heck do you have against cloak, why can't you properly fix it and WHY are there so many damn counters to it? You make one of the NBs primary abilities more difficult to use all the time. I have to ask, where is my ability to cancel things like Bolt Escape or Reflective Scales? Seems only fair.

At the very least, Revealing Flare should ONLY work against crouching opponents.

- Death of the Hybrid.

With the removal of the soft caps, you have effectively killed off the hybrid build. When I can continue to invest in one side or the other, trying to invest in both simply gimps your DPS. What the solution to this is I do not know but the current 1.6 system makes me sad because I will now have to give up many of my magicka skills and switch to Stamina (like many NBs)

NightBlade:

- Death Stroke Ult was nerfed. It used to decrease healing by 50% and it's only 32%? Also there has never been a listing on how long the 20% bonus damage works........it should be at least 20 secs to take advantage of it.
- Incapacitate Strike continues to be an underwhelming morph. The stun does not work on bosses (which is where you use it) rendering this morph worthless.
Either allow it to actually STUN bosses (which would make it a highly sought after ability) or CHANGE IT to something useful.

- Grim Focus. As it currently stands it is not a good skill. The payoff is good but the DPS you lose performing all those basic attack far out weights the payoff shot. Lower the number of attacks to 5 light OR 3 heavy in a 20 sec period.

Either that or bring back haste. it was a decent skill so I don't even know why it was replaced with such a lackluster ability.

- The Siphoning Strikes, Sap Essence morph......I used to be a fan of this ability but even with the recent buff, 17% is WAY too costly given there are no soft caps. With the death of hybrid builds, there is now little reason to invest in magicka and stamina since you will only be hurting your damage and there are better ways to regenerate a single stat than crippling your DPS.

As I have said previously, this ability already takes up a slot (2 for me because I ran it on both bars) which is enough of a penalty alone. This ability should have no DPS hit to make it worth slotting.

- Shadow barrier passive. Why does this synergize with HEAVY armor? The NB class is supposedly based around medium armor so why is the ONE NB passive with armor attached directed at heavy? It makes no sense.

Either switch it to medium OR give it a variable effect depending on the armor you wear. (So medium would increase duration, light would increase spell and heavy would increase armor)

- Catalyst passive. Removing our 30% potion synergy with a simple ultimate gain is........sad. You even nerfed this ability again by raising the pot CD to 45 secs! Give us a replacement passive that is actually USEFUL please if you are unwilling to give use the original ability back.

- Cloak transparency continues to be removed on successive castings of the spell. I shouldn't have to rely on the eye to tell me if I'm invisible or not.

- Master Assassin passive "claims" to make stuns 100% longer. This ability has N E V E R worked (and still doesn't on the PTS) My Surprise Attack stuns for 4.6 secs and when I stun them the trash mob recovers in 4.6 secs, NOT 9.2 secs. I have tested this over and over on the PTS and on live (because I use the skill all the time) and never worked. Maybe this is an Argonian thing and other races don't have this problem?

I have also tested this with Ambush and the mobs on both live and the PTS only stay stunned for 1.5 secs NOT 3.

- Why does Ambush, now a Stamina based skill, now return magicka via the Executioner passive? Seems strange that I get back the opposite of what I am expending.

- Why does invisibility not count as a bonus attack when attacking from behind but yet being crouched does? Would seem to me that being invisible is BETTER. I shouldn't have to be crouched AND invisible. Again another senseless double standard levied against the NB cloak/invisibility.

Dual Wield:

- Whirling Blades. The stamina return is way too small to be considered equal to the radius/damage that Steel Tornado does. Lets do the math shall we? Presuming that you hit 6 targets (which will be rare) that would return to me 3840 stamina over 10 secs. Barely over the cost of using the ability once! Doesn't even come close to equaling the 11 meter AoE of ST (WB is a mere 5 meters)

Whirling Blades needs to be given a boost in some manner. Either more than double the stamina returns from 128 to about 300 or it should have a larger AoE at 8 meters. Considering the current stamina returns, I consider WBs current worth to be about 3 meters less than ST.

Bows:

- Bow passive, hasty Retreat - 2 secs is hardly enough time to even react let alone take advantage of the passive (and why most don't invest in it). This passive needs to have it's time increased to 5 secs.


that's all I have tested atm and may add more later


Please feel free to add/discuss

Cody

At one point, reflective scale WAS interrupt-able; I know this because I remember hitting a DK with a venom arrow; right when he started using it, and seeing him stunned.

Domander

PlagueMonk wrote: »

- There are currently WAY too many abilities imho that give the Major Expedition bonus. I was actually shocked at the sheer amount between Alliance skills, Dual Wield and NB. If they stacked it would be one thing but all they do is overwrite one another. This really makes skill choice difficult because of redundancy."

There's like 5, 3 of which are class specific (NB and sorc) and one of those 5 ends on attack.

so... no, not too many.

Nihil

I will only comment on a couple as I am not as versed in NB.

PlagueMonk wrote: »

- There are currently WAY too many abilities imho that give the Major Expedition bonus. I was actually shocked at the sheer amount between Alliance skills, Dual Wield and NB. If they stacked it would be one thing but all they do is overwrite one another. This really makes skill choice difficult because of redundancy.

I would suggest the amount be lessened to make the skill a bit more unique or at the very least allow them to stack (even if that means they need to be downgraded in some fashion)

In a post I made about buffs (died fast) I pointed out that the NB had to many Major expedition buffs (3 total), which really limits the synergy that can be had with their own abilities. My suggestion was take double take and make it a minor expedition buff, but increase the duration. That way you have a major expedition buff you can cast in combat (cripple) and out (path of darkness) and a minor that can be casted out of combat.

- Invisibility Potions continue to be a vastly superior choice over the NB cloak which is frankly crap. Beyond the fact they can last upwards of 20 secs, the NB ability should function exactly like the invisibility potion (i.e. either both or neither should break on steal) It's a double standard as it currently stands.

in general the potions aren't going to devalue the NB's cloak (for combat purposes and for cost) but I do agree with that if one isn't allowed to use it during stealing neither should the other.

- Why do you continue to introduce abilities that further marginalize the NB cloak? "Revealing Flare" once more hurts a NBs ability to be, well STEALTHY. What the heck do you have against cloak, why can't you properly fix it and WHY are there so many damn counters to it? You make one of the NBs primary abilities more difficult to use all the time. I have to ask, where is my ability to cancel things like Bolt Escape or Reflective Scales? Seems only fair.

At the very least, Revealing Flare should ONLY work against crouching opponents.

Why do we have so many abilities that can close gaps? or that get around BoL (only absorb spell damage)? Why do we have increase damage for melee range skills in 1.6 vs range skills (reference to Reflect)? Each class needs counter to it, cloak needs the bugs worked out, but to take away counters to invisibility would make it (debatable) the strongest of the classes negation skills (BoL, reflect scales, templars CC breakable reflect orb) as it can stop all non aoe incoming damage. Yes it breaks on attack, but allows for repositioning if all the bugs are worked out. Invisibilities (and blink abilities) are some of the hardest skills to balance imo, as they rather become to strong or useless.

- Death of the Hybrid.

With the removal of the soft caps, you have effectively killed off the hybrid build. When I can continue to invest in one side or the other, trying to invest in both simply gimps your DPS. What the solution to this is I do not know but the current 1.6 system makes me sad because I will now have to give up many of my magicka skills and switch to Stamina (like many NBs)

With the removal to soft caps it would be nice to get some better hybrid armor, sets that give magicka / stamina type abilities in one set bonus, but at a weaker number. Hybrids are suppose to have more options and flexibility while dealing slightly less damage, but shouldn't be considerably less, and something to help out hybrids a bit.

- Shadow barrier passive. Why does this synergize with HEAVY armor? The NB class is supposedly based around medium armor so why is the ONE NB passive with armor attached directed at heavy? It makes no sense.

Either switch it to medium OR give it a variable effect depending on the armor you wear. (So medium would increase duration, light would increase spell and heavy would increase armor)

I think it is designed the way it is to give the class the buff for tanking purposes. Each class has the major buffs implemented in one way or another, the NB is the only one that doesn't require a specific skill (can slot 1 of 5/4 in essence) giving you more flexibility for how you will gain your major buff. The heavy armor aspect I believe is probably their to promote tanking with it, because otherwise the magicka cost for the abilities would be to hefty to keep up non stop.

Solanum

A few things in the original post I'd like to respond to:

-Shadow barrier passive
The complaint about an ability specifically having synergy with heavy armor. I for one think this should stay, it's a brilliant addition for us Nightblade tanks. Just because you only want to see Nightblade as a leatherclad assassin does not mean the class has to be reduced to just that. There are amazing healer/mage/tank builds available to the class.

-Grim focus
I wholeheartedly agree on your opinion here. No-one is going to land this many attacks in such a short period, whether it's pvp or pve. Perhaps they could make it like deathly cloak (new dual wield skill). Keep the effect, but upon pressing the ability a second time the bow is cast.

-Shadowcloak
Agreed, this ability works so very very seldom it's sad.

ArconSeptim

Nigthblades need nerf on PTS what are you talking about? lol just run a Nightblade Nord with damage reduction plus armor sets etc, plus two shadows morph plus 1h and shield and some spells and there you go invincible plus some fear will work also.
i hope zenimax looked into the problem with fear cc and two shadows morph

Soulac

ArconSeptim wrote: »

Nigthblades need nerf on PTS what are you talking about? lol just run a Nightblade Nord with damage reduction plus armor sets etc, plus two shadows morph plus 1h and shield and some spells and there you go invincible plus some fear will work also.
i hope zenimax looked into the problem with fear cc and two shadows morph

Dude pls.
The double shadows don't stack and neither does the fear debuff.
The debuff is available for everyone, just look at the second skill in S&B, it's the same.
Basically every class as Nord with S&B and the second skill should be able to do what you said, but blame the Nb, right?

Fear stacked with Shadow to a total of 30% Reduction, but this got fixed in 1.6.4.

Everyone is able to go full turtle, but you won't kill anything, just saying.

pmn100b16_ESO

Death Stroke bonus damage lasts about 4-6 secs from my testing. Haven't timed it exact, but its short.

trimsic_ESO

I would agree with the OP if it mentioned that there is also a big issue with surprize attack, which is completely over powered in 1.6. In Cyrodiil the death recap is full of surprize attacks...

Samadhi

PlagueMonk wrote: »

...
- Master Assassin passive "claims" to make stuns 100% longer. This ability has N E V E R worked (and still doesn't on the PTS) My Surprise Attack stuns for 4.6 secs and when I stun them the trash mob recovers in 4.6 secs, NOT 9.2 secs. I have tested this over and over on the PTS and on live (because I use the skill all the time) and never worked. Maybe this is an Argonian thing and other races don't have this problem?
...

Master Assassin passive Stun duration refers exclusively to the duration of the free Stun that applies on any attack that is performed as a successful Sneak Attack from Crouch.

My Bosmer Nightblade using a Heavy Attack on a Bow while Sneaking lands a Stun that is double the duration of the Stun that my Bosmer Sorcerer lands by doing the same thing.
It does not refer to Stun skills used while using Cloak; nor does it double the duration of a skill's programmed Stun effect. It is solely the free bonus Stun that is impacted.

This is among the reasons that previous nerfs to Sneak Attacks have disproportionately impacted Nightblades over other Classes -- having passives programmed exclusively to work with Sneak Attacks.

PlagueMonk

Domander wrote: »

PlagueMonk wrote: »

- There are currently WAY too many abilities imho that give the Major Expedition bonus. I was actually shocked at the sheer amount between Alliance skills, Dual Wield and NB. If they stacked it would be one thing but all they do is overwrite one another. This really makes skill choice difficult because of redundancy."

There's like 5, 3 of which are class specific (NB and sorc) and one of those 5 ends on attack.
so... no, not too many.

You mean 3 alone in the NB trees, then there are I believe 2 in the PvP skills, 1 in bow and I didn't even bother looking anywhere else. It's quite limiting when all I get is redundant abilities that don't stack.

Nihil wrote: »

I will only comment on a couple as I am not as versed in NB.

PlagueMonk wrote: »

- There are currently WAY too many abilities imho that give the Major Expedition bonus. I was actually shocked at the sheer amount between Alliance skills, Dual Wield and NB. If they stacked it would be one thing but all they do is overwrite one another. This really makes skill choice difficult because of redundancy.

I would suggest the amount be lessened to make the skill a bit more unique or at the very least allow them to stack (even if that means they need to be downgraded in some fashion)

In a post I made about buffs (died fast) I pointed out that the NB had to many Major expedition buffs (3 total), which really limits the synergy that can be had with their own abilities. My suggestion was take double take and make it a minor expedition buff, but increase the duration. That way you have a major expedition buff you can cast in combat (cripple) and out (path of darkness) and a minor that can be casted out of combat.

At least someone else sees this as a problem

I guess they really REALLY want NBs moving about on +40% move.

Nihil wrote: »

- Why do you continue to introduce abilities that further marginalize the NB cloak? "Revealing Flare" once more hurts a NBs ability to be, well STEALTHY. What the heck do you have against cloak, why can't you properly fix it and WHY are there so many damn counters to it? You make one of the NBs primary abilities more difficult to use all the time. I have to ask, where is my ability to cancel things like Bolt Escape or Reflective Scales? Seems only fair.

At the very least, Revealing Flare should ONLY work against crouching opponents.

Why do we have so many abilities that can close gaps? or that get around BoL (only absorb spell damage)? Why do we have increase damage for melee range skills in 1.6 vs range skills (reference to Reflect)?

Each class needs counter to it, cloak needs the bugs worked out, but to take away counters to invisibility would make it (debatable) the strongest of the classes negation skills (BoL, reflect scales, templars CC breakable reflect orb) as it can stop all non aoe incoming damage. Yes it breaks on attack, but allows for repositioning if all the bugs are worked out. Invisibilities (and blink abilities) are some of the hardest skills to balance imo, as they rather become to strong or useless.

I'm not suggesting remove ALL counters but all they do is continue to add ways to remove the NBs one real iconic ability. And all of them are general skills that everyone has access to; magelight, detect potions, revealing flare. Not to mention many have very little trouble pulling NBs out of stealth with a plethora of abilities.

So I have to ask, where is the potion that drops Reflective Scales? Or the Undaunted ability that roots a Sorc preventing them from using BE? Or the ability to melt Blazing Shield? Because I'm not seeing any similar counters to those unique class skills but yet they keep ADDING ways to make invisibility worthless (and without fixing it to boot)

All I am asking for is for this new ability to not further add to this........It's a freakin' flare, not some mystical reveal so why should it effect truly invisible targets?

- Death of the Hybrid

With the removal of the soft caps, you have effectively killed off the hybrid build. When I can continue to invest in one side or the other, trying to invest in both simply gimps your DPS. What the solution to this is I do not know but the current 1.6 system makes me sad because I will now have to give up many of my magicka skills and switch to Stamina (like many NBs)

With the removal to soft caps it would be nice to get some better hybrid armor, sets that give magicka / stamina type abilities in one set bonus, but at a weaker number. Hybrids are suppose to have more options and flexibility while dealing slightly less damage, but shouldn't be considerably less, and something to help out hybrids a bit.

This has always been the problem of Hybrids, how to make them "balanced" against pure builds. Zenimax unfortunately has not provided us with the tools to make a Hybrid viable.

The main issue I see is the dedication to either spell or weapon damage. If I could get the same DPS output, regardless of what damage I used, I would be fine with the slight gimp of having to support 2 resource pools (since the larger pool adds to ones damage)

- Shadow barrier passive. Why does this synergize with HEAVY armor? The NB class is supposedly based around medium armor so why is the ONE NB passive with armor attached directed at heavy? It makes no sense.

Either switch it to medium OR give it a variable effect depending on the armor you wear. (So medium would increase duration, light would increase spell and heavy would increase armor)

I think it is designed the way it is to give the class the buff for tanking purposes. Each class has the major buffs implemented in one way or another, the NB is the only one that doesn't require a specific skill (can slot 1 of 5/4 in essence) giving you more flexibility for how you will gain your major buff. The heavy armor aspect I believe is probably their to promote tanking with it, because otherwise the magicka cost for the abilities would be to hefty to keep up non stop.

I am not without a soul and DID provide an option that I thought would make everyone happy. (please refer to the bold portion above)...........I would think Tanks would LIKE having more armor.

Samadhi wrote: »

PlagueMonk wrote: »

...
- Master Assassin passive "claims" to make stuns 100% longer. This ability has N E V E R worked (and still doesn't on the PTS) My Surprise Attack stuns for 4.6 secs and when I stun them the trash mob recovers in 4.6 secs, NOT 9.2 secs. I have tested this over and over on the PTS and on live (because I use the skill all the time) and never worked. Maybe this is an Argonian thing and other races don't have this problem?
...

Master Assassin passive Stun duration refers exclusively to the duration of the free Stun that applies on any attack that is performed as a successful Sneak Attack from Crouch.

My Bosmer Nightblade using a Heavy Attack on a Bow while Sneaking lands a Stun that is double the duration of the Stun that my Bosmer Sorcerer lands by doing the same thing.
It does not refer to Stun skills used while using Cloak; nor does it double the duration of a skill's programmed Stun effect. It is solely the free bonus Stun that is impacted.

This is among the reasons that previous nerfs to Sneak Attacks have disproportionately impacted Nightblades over other Classes -- having passives programmed exclusively to work with Sneak Attacks.

I have to ask, where in the description does it state that? I see no exceptions under the description.......it says stuns last 100% longer. PERIOD (not "only applies to sneak attack stuns") I have multiple stuns and fully expect them to get a buff from this passive. I should not have to read somewhere else or guess its "true" meaning. So they either need to make it work as described or list its exact meaning in the description.

I also have a real problem with something only working with crouch but NOT our invisibility since one would think invisibility would make for a better sneak attack.

Scotia

Flares were put in to counter the excessive amount of ganking to less than Vr 14 players, it takes a skill slot, slots are valuable. It does not work that great IMO. Has a small radius as opposed to caltrops. Invis works for everyone, so everyone that uses stealth has the same issue. Mage light was changed in how it detects as well.

There is a CS passive for pots now, its not a class skill anymore and you can still get it later on.

PlagueMonk

Scotia wrote: »

Flares were put in to counter the excessive amount of ganking to less than Vr 14 players, it takes a skill slot, slots are valuable. It does not work that great IMO. Has a small radius as opposed to caltrops. Invis works for everyone, so everyone that uses stealth has the same issue. Mage light was changed in how it detects as well.

There is a CS passive for pots now, its not a class skill anymore and you can still get it later on.

lol, you have any proof this was the supposed " reason"?

Seems to me it's main use would be to expose a pile of skulking enemy. This could be to expose a full ganking squad (they do NOT care what lvl you are, a 3 vs 1 surprise attack ain't gonna end well for the unlucky target) or to reveal a group trying to sneak up on an objective.

Regardless truly invisible opponents should be immune to this ability.

kaithuzar

I feel thereI are 2 ways ZOS can go about hybrid builds. The easiest is to create passives that exist around using both Stam & magic skills; similar to undaunted passives for mixing armor. The next is to make hybrids op then make "standard builds" more op; otherwise hybrids won't be clearing sanctum Ophidia time trial b/c lack of dps. This means content will have to be changed, BUT it doesn't have to be harder "battle/dps wise". They should make it using their famous RNG system for generating puzzles to solve that are difficult, yet change often so the content is reusable, long lasting, not easy to cheat, & still fun.
-kai