Stam NB next patch?

KingArturia

So with the new patch coming, Stam nb's are taking a pretty big hit, and magicka ones seem like they'll be better. But, I'm not much of a staff-fan, I wanna stick with my Bow / DW at higher levels, or something similar.

Will Stam NB's still be extremely viable, and able to complete with other builds, next patch?
Currently Imperial Stam NB.

Kerioko

The only big nerf to stam NB's next patch I believe is:
- no more exploiting mace+ sharpened which was a needed fix
- no more WW 15% regen without slotting the WW ulti (and our 30% stam regen passive is becoming 15% to all stats)
- no more using caltrops to get the ravager proc while running bow

Aside from that, surpise attack (and other class stam morphs) are having their costs lowered to be more in-line with weapon skills, so this will be a welcomed buff.

All in all, I think stam NB will still be powerful, just not as overwhelmingly powerful as it currently is on live.

Running what are considered mostly optimal gear sets:
- My stam NB dps went from 15-18K down to 14-16K with the same 5 hunding/5ravager (16-18K with molag kena, but not sustainable for extremely long fights (trial bosses))!
- My magicka NB dps stayed in the 12-15K with the same gear, however, adding the new molag kena set let me get 15-17K since the set is sustainable with funnel health's low cost!

So, all-in-all, both magicka and stamina NB's look to be in a similar spot, with stamina holding the edge on burst, while magicka holds a slight edge on sustain!

KingArturia

Kerioko wrote: »

The only big nerf to stam NB's next patch I believe is:
- no more exploiting mace+ sharpened which was a needed fix
- no more WW 15% regen without slotting the WW ulti (and our 30% stam regen passive is becoming 15% to all stats)
- no more using caltrops to get the ravager proc while running bow

Aside from that, surpise attack (and other class stam morphs) are having their costs lowered to be more in-line with weapon skills, so this will be a welcomed buff.

All in all, I think stam NB will still be powerful, just not as overwhelmingly powerful as it currently is on live.

Running what are considered mostly optimal gear sets:
- My stam NB dps went from 15-18K down to 14-16K with the same 5 hunding/5ravager (16-18K with molag kena, but not sustainable for extremely long fights (trial bosses))!
- My magicka NB dps stayed in the 12-15K with the same gear, however, adding the new molag kena set let me get 15-17K since the set is sustainable with funnel health's low cost!

So, all-in-all, both magicka and stamina NB's look to be in a similar spot, with stamina holding the edge on burst, while magicka holds a slight edge on sustain!

Thank you so much for the reply, I appreciate it. How do you think it'll do in PvP, aswell? All-in-All similar to Magicka?

Kerioko

Depends on what you want to do in PVP, NB's one good advantage (ganking) is pretty much wiped by the changes to battle spirit, meaning we will have to learn how to fight outside the shadows, given that:

- With vigor at alliance rank 5, stam NB is still where its at to stand toe-to-toe with your foe and wreck their butts. We can't dodge forever, but vigor combined with rally should give us OK staying power to hold our own! So I would stay stam if you want up-front burst dps!
- If you like playing in the shadows, and toying with your foe while waiting for the right time to kill, ie hit them with 4 light attacks to proc molag kena and merciless resolve, stealth and nuke for 15-20K (30-35K without battle spirit debuff), go magicka glass cannon and put everything into spell damage.
- Or for some neat PVP support, magicka sap tank, or stealth healer looks pretty nice!

So conclusion, if you are primary PVE and just want some stones, go magicka so you can perma-stealth and avoid combat. If you want high damage numbers and want to wreck people 1v1, go stam. If you want to play group support (tank or heals), go magicka!

KingArturia

Thank you very much.

GreenSoup2HoT

I'm going to go on a rant here.

You are just like me, i was an imperial dw/bow kind of guy too. You may or may not have realized this setup has no healing what so ever. You will be forced to go down the 2H route to use Rally for heal's or just be at a pure disadvantage to people who do.

However, Vigor is coming along next patch. This is great new's. Now we can heal and go back to our good old DW. Now us DW/Bow user's do not have a source of Major Brutality... soo Zos end's up giving the only skill not used for our particular setup Major Brutality.

So now, we are given 3 option's.

-Drop our Bow's to use 2 DW bar's and utilize Flying Blade with Major Brutality
-Go back to 2H rally for Major Brutality
-Spend a whole lot of gold/time farming for Major Brutality Potion's.

I dunno about you but i would rather not have to do any of these 3 option's. So i wont and i'll have to deal with using a weapon class i like and have 20% less damage with inferior weapon class passive's to boot.

Dual Wield and Two have Passive's.

DW passive's
-Increases damage with Dual Wield abilities by 20% against enemies under 25% Health.
-Increases Weapon Damage by 6% of off-hand weapon's Damage.
-Reduces the cost of Dual Wield abilities by 20%.
-15% damage bonus when attacking stunned, immobilized, disoriented, or silenced enemies.(DW skill's only +light/heavy attack''s)
-Each axe equipped gives your weapon attacks a 50% chance to bleed enemies for [x] Physical Damage over 6 seconds.
-Each mace equipped allows your weapon attacks to ignore 10% of an enemy's Physical Resistance.
-Each sword equipped increases the damage of your weapon attacks by 2.5%.
-Each dagger equipped increases your Weapon Critical rating. (by 5%)

Two Hand Passive's
-Allows your standard attacks to hit more than one target. Both Light and Heavy Attacks damage up to 2 nearby enemies for 25% of the damage inflicted to the primary target.
-Reduces the cost of Two-Handed abilities by 20%.
-Gives you a 10% damage bonus on the next attack after a fully charged heavy attack.
-Boosts your Stamina Recovery by 30% for 10 seconds after killing a target.
-Two handed swords deal 5% extra damage.
-Two handed axes deal 2[x] Physical Damage extra bleeding damage over 6 seconds.
-Two handed maces ignore 20% of your target's Armor.

Here are the passive's that work for each weapon class, without utilizing any weapon class abilities for damage. Since your bar as a nightblade usually use's Surprise attack and Ambush for damage.

DW Passive's
-Increases Weapon Damage by 6% of off-hand weapon's Damage.

-15% damage bonus when attacking stunned, immobilized, disoriented, or silenced enemies with your light/heavy attack's.

-Each axe equipped gives your weapon attacks a 50% chance to bleed enemies for [x] Physical Damage over 6 seconds.
-Each mace equipped allows your weapon attacks to ignore 10% of an enemy's Physical Resistance.
-Each sword equipped increases the damage of your weapon attacks by 2.5%.
-Each dagger equipped increases your Weapon Critical rating. (by 5%)

Two Hand Passive's
-Allows your standard attacks to hit more than one target. Both Light and Heavy Attacks damage up to 2 nearby enemies for 25% of the damage inflicted to the primary target.

-Gives you a 10% damage bonus on the next attack after a fully charged heavy attack.

-Boosts your Stamina Recovery by 30% for 10 seconds after killing a target.

-Two handed swords deal 5% extra damage.
-Two handed axes deal 2[x] Physical Damage extra bleeding damage over 6 seconds.
-Two handed maces ignore 20% of your target's Armor.

It's clear you are loosing on weapon class passive's as a nightblade if you use DW over 2H without using any weapon class ability's.

Even if you were to you DW abilities they are still very bad (except steel tornado).

-Twin slashes DoT can be removed by a simple block. (Not sure if intended)
-Flurry leave's you open, channel time is to long and doesn't do enough damage.
-Blade Cloak has to short of a duration and is beat out by Blur/Double Take
-Flying Blade Useless if you use a Bow.

-Steel Tornado. The only saving grace of the dual wield skill line. Great AoE but low damage after 1.7 update.
.
.
.
So i'm not sure if i have proven my point. Dual Wield right now is a complete disaster for nightblade's and is a shame the sneaky ninja gank class cannot use it without gimping our self's, we are forced to use some clunky 2H to max the potential of our class.

I'm not here to say anyone can't use DW, i'm just pointing out the disadvantage's. I would love dual wield to become more viable but sadly they just plain suck.

What i would do to fix Duel Wield?

Skill change's:

1: Make it so Twin Slashes does not have it's DoT removed unless it is purged by some DoT removing skill. If you are hit with Twin slashes and then block it remove's the DoT, not sure if this is intended.

2: Decrease the channel time of Flurry to 1 second and increase the damage do as much damage as Wrecking Blow. There is no point using Flurry over Surprise Attack at the moment and that should change.

(People may point out that class ability's should be better and i don't think that right. All player's would have access to this ability so any buff would not hurt anyone. This will just encourage different play style's instead of cookie cutter build's forced to use Surprise attack if you use Dual Wield.)

3: Blade Cloak - Personally the skill is fine, just the duration is very short. I don't want to have to manage 2+ buff's with tiny duration's. (Camo Hunter 15 second's, Grim Power 20 second's, Blur 30 second's). There are just to many buff's.

4: Hidden Blade: The skill was great before they nerfed the damage and put in Major Brutality. You are forcing player's to use this as an opener to get the most out of there increased damage. (Rally would still be the better opinion since you can use your biggest hiting skill or ultimate from stealth with increased damage)

Instead it would be great if this ability proc'd Mangle. Making this skill viable as an opener from stealth.

Passive Change's

Most of the duel wield passive's relie on dual wield abilities. Since a lot of these abilities remain ineffective, you will need to buff the skill's to be more useful or give more to the passive's.

Example 1: Hitting an enemy from stealth with a dual wield abilities grant's them Major Endurance/Heroism/Force, something!

You could possible include Snare's into the Ruffian passive instead of above. Hit them with Hidden Blade and now you will have more damage from your passive while using dual wield abilities.

Cyrediath

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

I'm going to go on a rant here.

You are just like me, i was an imperial dw/bow kind of guy too. You may or may not have realized this setup has no healing what so ever. You will be forced to go down the 2H route to use Rally for heal's or just be at a pure disadvantage to people who do.

However, Vigor is coming along next patch. This is great new's. Now we can heal and go back to our good old DW. Now us DW/Bow user's do not have a source of Major Brutality... soo Zos end's up giving the only skill not used for our particular setup Major Brutality.

So now, we are given 3 option's.

-Drop our Bow's to use 2 DW bar's and utilize Flying Blade with Major Brutality
-Go back to 2H rally for Major Brutality
-Spend a whole lot of gold/time farming for Major Brutality Potion's.

I dunno about you but i would rather not have to do any of these 3 option's. So i wont and i'll have to deal with using a weapon class i like and have 20% less damage with inferior weapon class passive's to boot.

Dual Wield and Two have Passive's.

DW passive's
-Increases damage with Dual Wield abilities by 20% against enemies under 25% Health.
-Increases Weapon Damage by 6% of off-hand weapon's Damage.
-Reduces the cost of Dual Wield abilities by 20%.
-15% damage bonus when attacking stunned, immobilized, disoriented, or silenced enemies.(DW skill's only +light/heavy attack''s)
-Each axe equipped gives your weapon attacks a 50% chance to bleed enemies for [x] Physical Damage over 6 seconds.
-Each mace equipped allows your weapon attacks to ignore 10% of an enemy's Physical Resistance.
-Each sword equipped increases the damage of your weapon attacks by 2.5%.
-Each dagger equipped increases your Weapon Critical rating. (by 5%)

Two Hand Passive's
-Allows your standard attacks to hit more than one target. Both Light and Heavy Attacks damage up to 2 nearby enemies for 25% of the damage inflicted to the primary target.
-Reduces the cost of Two-Handed abilities by 20%.
-Gives you a 10% damage bonus on the next attack after a fully charged heavy attack.
-Boosts your Stamina Recovery by 30% for 10 seconds after killing a target.
-Two handed swords deal 5% extra damage.
-Two handed axes deal 2[x] Physical Damage extra bleeding damage over 6 seconds.
-Two handed maces ignore 20% of your target's Armor.

Here are the passive's that work for each weapon class, without utilizing any weapon class abilities for damage. Since your bar as a nightblade usually use's Surprise attack and Ambush for damage.

DW Passive's
-Increases Weapon Damage by 6% of off-hand weapon's Damage.

-15% damage bonus when attacking stunned, immobilized, disoriented, or silenced enemies with your light/heavy attack's.

-Each axe equipped gives your weapon attacks a 50% chance to bleed enemies for [x] Physical Damage over 6 seconds.
-Each mace equipped allows your weapon attacks to ignore 10% of an enemy's Physical Resistance.
-Each sword equipped increases the damage of your weapon attacks by 2.5%.
-Each dagger equipped increases your Weapon Critical rating. (by 5%)

Two Hand Passive's
-Allows your standard attacks to hit more than one target. Both Light and Heavy Attacks damage up to 2 nearby enemies for 25% of the damage inflicted to the primary target.

-Gives you a 10% damage bonus on the next attack after a fully charged heavy attack.

-Boosts your Stamina Recovery by 30% for 10 seconds after killing a target.

-Two handed swords deal 5% extra damage.
-Two handed axes deal 2[x] Physical Damage extra bleeding damage over 6 seconds.
-Two handed maces ignore 20% of your target's Armor.

It's clear you are loosing on weapon class passive's as a nightblade if you use DW over 2H without using any weapon class ability's.

Even if you were to you DW abilities they are still very bad (except steel tornado).

-Twin slashes DoT can be removed by a simple block. (Not sure if intended)
-Flurry leave's you open, channel time is to long and doesn't do enough damage.
-Blade Cloak has to short of a duration and is beat out by Blur/Double Take
-Flying Blade Useless if you use a Bow.

-Steel Tornado. The only saving grace of the dual wield skill line. Great AoE but low damage after 1.7 update.
.
.
.
So i'm not sure if i have proven my point. Dual Wield right now is a complete disaster for nightblade's and is a shame the sneaky ninja gank class cannot use it without gimping our self's, we are forced to use some clunky 2H to max the potential of our class.

I'm not here to say anyone can't use DW, i'm just pointing out the disadvantage's. I would love dual wield to become more viable but sadly they just plain suck.

What i would do to fix Duel Wield?

Skill change's:

1: Make it so Twin Slashes does not have it's DoT removed unless it is purged by some DoT removing skill. If you are hit with Twin slashes and then block it remove's the DoT, not sure if this is intended.

2: Decrease the channel time of Flurry to 1 second and increase the damage do as much damage as Wrecking Blow. There is no point using Flurry over Surprise Attack at the moment and that should change.

(People may point out that class ability's should be better and i don't think that right. All player's would have access to this ability so any buff would not hurt anyone. This will just encourage different play style's instead of cookie cutter build's forced to use Surprise attack if you use Dual Wield.)

3: Blade Cloak - Personally the skill is fine, just the duration is very short. I don't want to have to manage 2+ buff's with tiny duration's. (Camo Hunter 15 second's, Grim Power 20 second's, Blur 30 second's). There are just to many buff's.

4: Hidden Blade: The skill was great before they nerfed the damage and put in Major Brutality. You are forcing player's to use this as an opener to get the most out of there increased damage. (Rally would still be the better opinion since you can use your biggest hiting skill or ultimate from stealth with increased damage)

Instead it would be great if this ability proc'd Mangle. Making this skill viable as an opener from stealth.

Passive Change's

Most of the duel wield passive's relie on dual wield abilities. Since a lot of these abilities remain ineffective, you will need to buff the skill's to be more useful or give more to the passive's.

Example 1: Hitting an enemy from stealth with a dual wield abilities grant's them Major Endurance/Heroism/Force, something!

You could possible include Snare's into the Ruffian passive instead of above. Hit them with Hidden Blade and now you will have more damage from your passive while using dual wield abilities.

I agree with you totally. I really like dw/bow style but you are pretty much have to use 2h for pvp I mean you cant block or dodge like you used to so you have to heal yourself and vigor is not enough. You need rally for major brutality and extra healing. That's sad. but I believe buffed sorcerer will still cry the nightblades are overpowered. We will see.

willymchilybily

KingArturia wrote: »

So with the new patch coming, Stam nb's are taking a pretty big hit, and magicka ones seem like they'll be better. But, I'm not much of a staff-fan, I wanna stick with my Bow / DW at higher levels, or something similar.

Will Stam NB's still be extremely viable, and able to complete with other builds, next patch?
Currently Imperial Stam NB.

didnt read the other comments thoroughly, sorry if its been said...

but didn't i read siphoning strikes no longer de-buffed your damage. THAT IS HUGGGEE!!! if you weave your attacks..Otherwise maybe not so much. and come on not like you arent going to be using merciless resolve for stamina regen +8% damage, even more likely to get that spectral bow without trying, and its still a 5k freebie even as stamina NB. i think the hit is mostly a pvp hit and the benefits out weigh the hit. its not like you cant dodge roll. you just cant do it endlessly. if its only every 6 second you will see no difference.

Jbugz97

yes your stam NB is still goin to be good

Kerioko

With some of the new poison sets, bow might actually be good if you combine those sets with added poison damage from the CP system!

QuebraRegra

Cool! I was intending to roll a new STAMINA NB, after I finish Vetting with my current MAGICKA NB. Looks like nothing being nerfed is anything I'd ever use anyway.