Defending Against NBs (and rant)

Pink_Violinz

Was doing a little pvp the other day when my V15 friend starts yelling about a NB. I laugh when I see him getting slaughtered by a V1, go in to help him only to get ambushed to death. I'm a V16 templar. Minute later, said V15 Dk tank dies as well.

Fine, I think, just some guy out of his mind on CP.

We go into a few other battles where the same guy hunts us (me) down and does the exact. same. thing. Normally, I would just forget this but this instance got a little under my skin. My gap closer is bugged beyond belief and he gets to spam his until I die? A+.

I am not calling for nerfs.

Really, I just want to know how to defend against them. And maybe get my gap closer fixed, but that's a problem for another day. I know as a templar I'm probably not going to beat them, but I shouldn't die in a second either. I didn't really count on my friend straight from PvE to help too much, but when there are two other V16 players as well fighting this guy this is insane. I'm magicka build, and I've heard Blazing Shield may be some good but I haven't had luck with it in the past. Did too little for too much, but that was awhile ago so that has likely changed.

I use javelin often, but it doesn't really seem to do enough against NBs. Unless I have my meteor I mind as well be slashing at the air.

r.jan_emailb16_ESO

CC and then sweep your way to victory

No idea how your gear is though, you obviously need some damage for this.

Sunburnt_Penguin

I'm sorry but if you literally get spAmbushed to death then it really is a L2P issue as any build has the tools to overcome that. As the poster above said, you need to CC.

driosketch

Radiant Mage Light will put an end to that real quick. Even last night when one managed to burst me down, he was f'ed because he couldn't disappear after and my allies finished him off.

I've done the same for my guild in IC. An annoying NB went from repeated kills to repeated deaths because I kept that ball of light up.

Me and another player also took out a well known steamer who likes to hide in keeps partly because of this. The other part is knowing where they like to hide because of one of their videos.

Which reminds me, if you haven't watched it yet, look up the video " How a Nightblade thinks". It helps to be able to visualize where that player might go when you can't see them.

Last bit of advice, have some impenetrable armor.

Pink_Violinz

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

driosketch wrote: »

Radiant Mage Light will put an end to that real quick.

I've been using Scorching Flare since the update to mixed results. When it does get them, it hurts.

The problem is this guy wouldn't stealth. Literally spammed ambush until everything red was dead.

I do have a V15 stam NB, so I'm not entirely in the dark about how they work. Will check out the video when I have the chance, though.

Lexxypwns

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

If he's literally just spamming ambush on you, sweeps will put out more dps and heal you so use that.

Also, its probably worth running inner light, the crit chance bonus performs exceptionally well on a healer and the increased damage speaks for itself, add in that it also hard counters cloak and you're looking at a skill that belongs on at least 1 bar for most magika builds, especially with the current saturation of NBs in cyrodiil. Scorching flare is probably not worth running, I play NB a lot and I literally don't think I've ever been hit or revealed by this ability.

Now, for general advice against NB as a Templar: you can out heal their damage as long as you can manage to sustain yourself, they're only going to kill you if they heal debuff you or if you let your health get low enough to die during CC.

Templar isn't well suited to 1v1 an equally skilled NB, however, sweeps can't be "dodged" using cloak so you do have an opportunity to beat them. Typically you'll want to stay alive long enough to be able to set up your offense, something like: CC, activate det, dark flare(can't reliably be cloaked), another dark flare or quick heal, gap closer, dawnbreaker.

Edit: Its worth noting that your pve gear is typically not good for pvp, since you won't be running any impen. Impen is currently BiS for pvp builds and the incoming crit damage reduction is great. I spent about 6 hours pvp'in on my mDK yesterday and never had anything over 6k damage on a death recap, it turns out that when you start cutting into the ridiculously high crit damage modifiers damage is easily managable.

Xvorg

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

I assume it was a stamblade, right?

Stamblades are though. They can resist a lot and vanish before your eyes before starting a new attack. The trick is to use a skill like caltrops and try to focus all the fight within the calytrop's area. That's useful because:

1- Stamblade cannot cloak, and if he does, it is magicka lost.
2- Caltrops has a small but useful DoT that will drain his health slowly. It is ideal as help for:
3- ranged users such as archers and staff mages should using light and heavy attacks to dmg as much as possible before going for the kill. This is helpful because:
4- The NB has to choose between healing or blocking. If he heals through vigor then he's losing stam. If he choses to block, then he is not regen stam. Don't you ever try to CC a stambade BEFORE he has used vigor. You MUST do it immediately after he did it for obvious reasons. If you manage to put the StambladeNB with liitle stam, then
5- You pretty much won the fight. No cloak and no stam means a dead Stamblade.

Sunburnt_Penguin

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

There's no need to get snotty as I did give you advice - you already quoted that above.

Also, I didn't say you need to L2P a Templar but there's obviously PvP knowledge lacking if you don't know and can't overcome a NB spAmbushing you death.

My Templar is only L12 so I'm not in the position to give you specific class advice and just listing your gear tells me very little about your character.

However, if you were Javelining him and not closing the gap yourself to deal damage in his face then of course he's going to Ambush you, it's logical. If you did jump in and deal damage to him then you should be grateful that he's spAmbushing you as you would've died much quicker had he have been using other abilities.

driosketch

If they're only going to spam ambush, then they are not a skilled NB. These guys are annoying but beatable, you just need to swap to melee. I would replace javelin for blazing spear and use sweeps as mentiond above. Also try to time your ult to hit while stunned.

genjutsu_kami

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Was doing a little pvp the other day when my V15 friend starts yelling about a NB. I laugh when I see him getting slaughtered by a V1, go in to help him only to get ambushed to death. I'm a V16 templar. Minute later, said V15 Dk tank dies as well.

Fine, I think, just some guy out of his mind on CP.

We go into a few other battles where the same guy hunts us (me) down and does the exact. same. thing. Normally, I would just forget this but this instance got a little under my skin. My gap closer is bugged beyond belief and he gets to spam his until I die? A+.

I am not calling for nerfs.

Really, I just want to know how to defend against them. And maybe get my gap closer fixed, but that's a problem for another day. I know as a templar I'm probably not going to beat them, but I shouldn't die in a second either. I didn't really count on my friend straight from PvE to help too much, but when there are two other V16 players as well fighting this guy this is insane. I'm magicka build, and I've heard Blazing Shield may be some good but I haven't had luck with it in the past. Did too little for too much, but that was awhile ago so that has likely changed.

I use javelin often, but it doesn't really seem to do enough against NBs. Unless I have my meteor I mind as well be slashing at the air.

hahahaha this is so funny. i hate it when they spam that crap also, its probably the only reliable gap closer in the game, you shouldn't be able to spam in when you 2 inches away from players faces

Lexxypwns

Xvorg wrote: »

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

I assume it was a stamblade, right?

Stamblades are though. They can resist a lot and vanish before your eyes before starting a new attack. The trick is to use a skill like caltrops and try to focus all the fight within the calytrop's area. That's useful because:

1- Stamblade cannot cloak, and if he does, it is magicka lost.
2- Caltrops has a small but useful DoT that will drain his health slowly. It is ideal as help for:
3- ranged users such as archers and staff mages should using light and heavy attacks to dmg as much as possible before going for the kill. This is helpful because:
4- The NB has to choose between healing or blocking. If he heals through vigor then he's losing stam. If he choses to block, then he is not regen stam. Don't you ever try to CC a stambade BEFORE he has used vigor. You MUST do it immediately after he did it for obvious reasons. If you manage to put the StambladeNB with liitle stam, then
5- You pretty much won the fight. No cloak and no stam means a dead Stamblade.

The only good advice here is caltrops, but even that's bad advice for a magplar. Magelight is a much more suitable counter for magika builds and unlike caltrops it actually prevents cloak being used to dodge attacks (in caltrops you can cloak and it won't break until you take the next damage tick, sometimes as long as 1 second). Imo, its not about CC'ing him after he uses a particular skill, but its about keeping him out of cloak and CC'ed every 6 seconds, he'll have trouble executing enough burst to kill you that way and if you get him heal debuffed he's gonna melt the second he stops dodge rolling.

By keeping pressure up with sweeps (particularly if you can do it in a ritual), you'll likely be able to put him on the defensive first at which point its just a matter of eventually executing your own burst combo on him.

Waffennacht

@Lexxypwns what is your stompin groups in PvP? I wanna say I saw Champion Points somewhere out there...

Anyway:

To OP. There is also a big difference in combat if you know they are coming or not. Most NBs, with or without cloak, get the first attacks and typically you gotta buff up. Don't feel so bad by dying when being jumped (unless you're build is suppose to survive it well)

I like Radiant on my back bar, you mentioned they didn't cloak. But the added crit can help on heals.

Get offensive asap, (this is where being jumped vs not is really important), if jumped you usually gotta recover a bit before you can go offensive. Roots and knock downs etc, go a LONG way. You mentioned the CC break and the following immunity, well roots doesn't get prevented by the cc immunity (shuffle mayhaps), and is an effective method of maintaining the offensive.

I don't know enough about Templars to add specific advice, but I hope I helped.

Xvorg

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

I assume it was a stamblade, right?

Stamblades are though. They can resist a lot and vanish before your eyes before starting a new attack. The trick is to use a skill like caltrops and try to focus all the fight within the calytrop's area. That's useful because:

1- Stamblade cannot cloak, and if he does, it is magicka lost.
2- Caltrops has a small but useful DoT that will drain his health slowly. It is ideal as help for:
3- ranged users such as archers and staff mages should using light and heavy attacks to dmg as much as possible before going for the kill. This is helpful because:
4- The NB has to choose between healing or blocking. If he heals through vigor then he's losing stam. If he choses to block, then he is not regen stam. Don't you ever try to CC a stambade BEFORE he has used vigor. You MUST do it immediately after he did it for obvious reasons. If you manage to put the StambladeNB with liitle stam, then
5- You pretty much won the fight. No cloak and no stam means a dead Stamblade.

The only good advice here is caltrops, but even that's bad advice for a magplar. Magelight is a much more suitable counter for magika builds and unlike caltrops it actually prevents cloak being used to dodge attacks (in caltrops you can cloak and it won't break until you take the next damage tick, sometimes as long as 1 second). Imo, its not about CC'ing him after he uses a particular skill, but its about keeping him out of cloak and CC'ed every 6 seconds, he'll have trouble executing enough burst to kill you that way and if you get him heal debuffed he's gonna melt the second he stops dodge rolling.

By keeping pressure up with sweeps (particularly if you can do it in a ritual), you'll likely be able to put him on the defensive first at which point its just a matter of eventually executing your own burst combo on him.

It is from a group vs NB PoV In a 1v1 is quite different. In case of a Magplar I'd go with sweep too. But not all the classes have puct sweep to put pressure

Lexxypwns

Xvorg wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

you need to CC.

Okay, pretend I'm an idiot. How.

It wasn't just me getting taken out by this guy. Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again. Tank uses talons. He breaks free, again, starts ambushing again. Sorc uses frags, he goes after him. Sorc dies.

I run two Kena, full Kagrenac, full Willpower, two Torugs. 5 light 2 heavy. Dual swords. All V16 purple. I heal often for PvE, which is why I use Kag.

I've been in PvP with this char since she was in her mid 30s. Shes nearly a year old and my main. I encountered a player who fights differently than I'm used to, and am asking for advice. Telling me to go and learn how to play a templar gets me nowhere.

I assume it was a stamblade, right?

Stamblades are though. They can resist a lot and vanish before your eyes before starting a new attack. The trick is to use a skill like caltrops and try to focus all the fight within the calytrop's area. That's useful because:

1- Stamblade cannot cloak, and if he does, it is magicka lost.
2- Caltrops has a small but useful DoT that will drain his health slowly. It is ideal as help for:
3- ranged users such as archers and staff mages should using light and heavy attacks to dmg as much as possible before going for the kill. This is helpful because:
4- The NB has to choose between healing or blocking. If he heals through vigor then he's losing stam. If he choses to block, then he is not regen stam. Don't you ever try to CC a stambade BEFORE he has used vigor. You MUST do it immediately after he did it for obvious reasons. If you manage to put the StambladeNB with liitle stam, then
5- You pretty much won the fight. No cloak and no stam means a dead Stamblade.

The only good advice here is caltrops, but even that's bad advice for a magplar. Magelight is a much more suitable counter for magika builds and unlike caltrops it actually prevents cloak being used to dodge attacks (in caltrops you can cloak and it won't break until you take the next damage tick, sometimes as long as 1 second). Imo, its not about CC'ing him after he uses a particular skill, but its about keeping him out of cloak and CC'ed every 6 seconds, he'll have trouble executing enough burst to kill you that way and if you get him heal debuffed he's gonna melt the second he stops dodge rolling.

By keeping pressure up with sweeps (particularly if you can do it in a ritual), you'll likely be able to put him on the defensive first at which point its just a matter of eventually executing your own burst combo on him.

It is from a group vs NB PoV In a 1v1 is quite different. In case of a Magplar I'd go with sweep too. But not all the classes have puct sweep to put pressure

If its an Xv1 situation then you just designate 1 person to use magelight and gap close exclusively while the others dps

Pink_Violinz

driosketch wrote: »

I would replace javelin for blazing spear and use sweeps as mentiond above. /quote]

I'll play with sweeps more, as I haven't tried it too often in pvp. Forgot about blazing spear, I'll have to start using that again.

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

There's no need to get snotty as I did give you advice - you already quoted that above.

Love, you gave me vague advice I can't do anything with. If someone does not know how to do something, just saying "CC them" is wayyyy too broad of an answer. Don't call someone rude when you are the one lighting the kindling.




I think I'll just try Blazing Shield.

Dracan_Fontom

Get rid of there ability to cloak, force them to dodge roll or cc break, debuff them, aoe, snares, etc.

leepalmer95

Do you actually have any impen? I'm curious how a v1 nightblade can pull out enough dmg to kill a mag templar using ambush, he could spambush you 3-4 times and 1 breath of life would put you to full.

Basically, javlin, put proxy, put rune + ritual and just sweep him to death, you'll easily out heal his dmg if he's spam bush and you'll kill him quickly just by jabbing him. He dodges away, use your gap closer even if it misses spam sweeps to stop him cloaking.

Sunburnt_Penguin

Pink_Violinz wrote: »

Sunburnt_Penguin wrote: »

There's no need to get snotty as I did give you advice - you already quoted that above.

Love, you gave me vague advice I can't do anything with. If someone does not know how to do something, just saying "CC them" is wayyyy too broad of an answer. Don't call someone rude when you are the one lighting the kindling.




I think I'll just try Blazing Shield.

Corrected the quotes for you as until I saw "Love", I wasn't aware it was a reply to me.

You actually asked "how to defend against them [spAmbushing]" and a CC is the best way to defend - I mean, it does prevent them attacking whilst they're CCd.

You failed to include the following reply in your OP "Javelin hurled him back and gave him CC immunity. He breaks free immediately, starts up again" so that's your error, not mine for suggesting you need to CC. I wasn't to know you'd already tried CCing them?

Regardless of the above omission and the seemingly vague advice, anyone with any knowledge of PvP knows that the best process for killing someone is simply: CC -> burst damage, repeat. It's a basic mechanic and a logical action to follow a CC.

I now see my error in making that assumption seeing as "[you] can't do anything with [advice of simply being told you need to CC to prevent receiving damage]".

So now that I have some more information from you following your replies, what I'll say is this:

1. Get some Impen as the chances are if you're using PvE gear you don't have any
2. Consider changing your CPs around if they're primarily healing PvE orientated
3. Always stay buffed (and also with Magelight if available) to reduce ganker's initial burst
4. When you're fighting: use something to limit their ability to stealth -> activate proxi -> CC them -> close the gap -> burst damage, repeat.

Hope that helps.

Edit: ah, also for completeness as I'm not sure if you're aware of this mechanic, but try and get Kena to proc before proxi goes off and you burst. That way your burst will deal more damage. However, if you're not able to cope with the increased resource cost that comes from Kena, you could also swap this out for a Torug's piece to increase your health as that will actually increase your survivability.

Van_0S

OP are you magicka or stamina?
Have you consider using the alliance skill ultimate?

Lastly, have you taken points and watched @blabafat build

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/169683/updated-for-tg-templars-pvp-detailed-guide-suggestions-advice-etc/p1

https://youtu.be/Mt2cJGJ-Wns
https://youtu.be/5Hua1aaayuE

Volkodav

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

Get rid of there ability to cloak, force them to dodge roll or cc break, debuff them, aoe, snares, etc.

Why get rid of a classes skills just because someone isnt skilled enough to get around the NB's skills.Each class has something that will outdo another class.Unique to that class.Players just need to find out how to use it effectively.
Personally,I NEVER use cloak abilities,but the Devs put them there because they want the NBs to be able to use it.
That's like saying that I dont want someone who has better gear to have it because I havent found a way to beat him.I dont have the right to want that.
Each player can play as they like.
PvPers are always saying if your in the open zone,you have to take it.Learn to play.That's their motto.

Dracan_Fontom

Volkodav wrote: »

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

Get rid of there ability to cloak, force them to dodge roll or cc break, debuff them, aoe, snares, etc.

Why get rid of a classes skills just because someone isnt skilled enough to get around the NB's skills.Each class has something that will outdo another class.Unique to that class.Players just need to find out how to use it effectively.
Personally,I NEVER use cloak abilities,but the Devs put them there because they want the NBs to be able to use it.
That's like saying that I dont want someone who has better gear to have it because I havent found a way to beat him.I dont have the right to want that.
Each player can play as they like.
PvPers are always saying if your in the open zone,you have to take it.Learn to play.That's their motto.

I use cloak because it's a great ability. Imo cloak is the skill makes gives us who we are. I haven't came across one nightblade who didn't use either morph of cloak on PS4, yet. As I play both magic and stamina nb very aggressively so I feel experienced enough to give our weaknesses. MagBlades are squishy as hell, and without their escape they could fall easily. And with their small amount of stam, we can become CC'd for large periods of time if we are not careful. However, a stamblade relies on their burst to kill and sustain. If you can force a stamblade to waste all his stam and get his to use cloak 3 or so times and pull him out he or she will have a hard time recovering theu less they have insane regen.

Volkodav

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

Volkodav wrote: »

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

Get rid of there ability to cloak, force them to dodge roll or cc break, debuff them, aoe, snares, etc.

Why get rid of a classes skills just because someone isnt skilled enough to get around the NB's skills.Each class has something that will outdo another class.Unique to that class.Players just need to find out how to use it effectively.
Personally,I NEVER use cloak abilities,but the Devs put them there because they want the NBs to be able to use it.
That's like saying that I dont want someone who has better gear to have it because I havent found a way to beat him.I dont have the right to want that.
Each player can play as they like.
PvPers are always saying if your in the open zone,you have to take it.Learn to play.That's their motto.

I use cloak because it's a great ability. Imo cloak is the skill makes gives us who we are. I haven't came across one nightblade who didn't use either morph of cloak on PS4, yet. As I play both magic and stamina nb very aggressively so I feel experienced enough to give our weaknesses. MagBlades are squishy as hell, and without their escape they could fall easily. And with their small amount of stam, we can become CC'd for large periods of time if we are not careful. However, a stamblade relies on their burst to kill and sustain. If you can force a stamblade to waste all his stam and get his to use cloak 3 or so times and pull him out he or she will have a hard time recovering theu less they have insane regen.

I have been running full stamina NBs for so long I forgot that I started with a Nord DK,two years ago.lol.He has retired.
As I mentioned,I never use the cloaking skills at all,and I do fine.
I dont find the perk to using cloak.I tried it and all it did was hide me for about a second or two,and I kept having to hit the skill key to just get past three lions. I just go into hiding instead and keep out of my enemies way.Also,I explained that I dont PvP so there's another place I have no need for it. I use skills such as TP strike,the siphoning skills,and bow skills to work well.I group now sometimes,and havent been bi-tched out for not holding my end up yet.XD
I understand players use cloak a lot.I just dont.