PTS Feedback Thread for Nightblade Balance Improvements

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the Nightblade for Update 13. Please let us know how you feel about the changes we made to this class, if you ran into any bugs, and any other feedback you'd like to give.

olsborg

Im fairly sure there should be a thread about the balancing of heavy armor. At this moment it easily outperforms light and heavy armor on account of defence and offence.
That being said.

I feel the 38% increase in cost of funnel health thingy was a bit too much. I have yet to try out cloak on pts, but I seriously doubt you managed to fix it...I mean...its been broken all this time.

Brrrofski

Not sure why one of the bottom two in PvP, fairly low down PvE DPS, almost non existent healers and tank, got nerfed. Like... Why? The lack of them everywhere should surely mean that something is up?

Jaronking

Can we discuss way to increase Nightblades magic and stam versions DPS.As it is right now its no point in taking Stamblades into endgame pve because magic is so much stronger with shields and can do just as much damage without ruining your group setup.Magblade DPS is way to low to be viable even with shields.

Brrrofski

See what I mean. Compare these repply amount to the other classes...

Lord_Eomer

Jaronking wrote: »

Can we discuss way to increase Nightblades magic and stam versions DPS.As it is right now its no point in taking Stamblades into endgame pve because magic is so much stronger with shields and can do just as much damage without ruining your group setup.Magblade DPS is way to low to be viable even with shields.

Who uses damage shields in pve except some Sorcerer, strife cost is increased then damage or healing should go up!

Artis

I haven't tried PTS, but just reading the notes made me confused.

Why would you nerf magicka NB? No one ever complained about them. In fact, they needed a buff. They are at the bottom in pve dps, they are pretty rare in pvp - you can only see them as bombers. Sure, they are exceptions, and there were like 2 youtube videos, but that's it.

What people complained about is gankers and stam NB who can oneshot before you even react, but there were no changes for them.

I just find it odd and don't understand what you're trying to do, ZOS. I suggest you explain every change in the patch notes or make a big post kinda like "Road ahead" that you used to write, but for balance/class changes.

Jaronking

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

Can we discuss way to increase Nightblades magic and stam versions DPS.As it is right now its no point in taking Stamblades into endgame pve because magic is so much stronger with shields and can do just as much damage without ruining your group setup.Magblade DPS is way to low to be viable even with shields.

Who uses damage shields in pve except some Sorcerer, strife cost is reduced then damage or healing should go up!

Every magic Build runs harness or Dampen Magic in Vet Trials. Sorcs runs Hardened but I agree that strife damage and healing should increase by the same amount if your going to increase its cost.

Dymence

That thread title though.

What balance improvements? The one where your summon shadow now shows your race?

Izaki

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

Can we discuss way to increase Nightblades magic and stam versions DPS.As it is right now its no point in taking Stamblades into endgame pve because magic is so much stronger with shields and can do just as much damage without ruining your group setup.Magblade DPS is way to low to be viable even with shields.

Who uses damage shields in pve except some Sorcerer, strife cost is reduced then damage or healing should go up!

Everyone who wants a no death hardmode run uses shields.

thankyourat

What is the plan for magblade? Judging by the classes ability it's suppose to be mobile, kiting type class, but in cyrodiil magblade mobility is limited. So I think they should get some mobility buffs. One is that blur should get some of snare removal and immunity. Also shade shouldn't require a target to use the ability, and lastly impale should start scaling at 50℅ with healing being so high alot of the times hots bring your opponent out of execute range before you can land impale even if you animation cancel it

Izaki

Imo the only change both magicka nightblades and stamina nightblades need is the automatic re application of grim focus. Once you fire the spectral bow the buff must be refreshed. Right now it basically does 50% of the DPS it should be doing. This alone would bring up nightblades in pve and pvp.

Izaki

Stamblades don't specifically need a nerf. But stealth damage does. The stun and damage bonus on stealth attacks must go.

kadar

Hey @ZOS_GinaBruno , could you share with us some of the though process behind nerfing Strife? Much of the community is scratching their heads on this one...

Shader_Shibes

The_Outsider wrote: »

Hey @ZOS_GinaBruno , could you share with us some of the though process behind nerfing Strife? Much of the community is scratching their heads on this one...

I would like some thought process on most of the nerfs and non existent help for stamplars/magnb.

arkansas_ESO

Hopefully ZOS checks out this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/311927/strife-increased-the-cost-of-this-ability-and-its-morphs-by-approximately-38/p1


Basically, Strife's main appeal is that it was dirt cheap. It didn't really have much else going for it, and even with it's dirt cheap cost it was still getting replaced by Force Pulse for most endgame PVE content. Next patch, Force Pulse/Crushing Shock will offer more damage (in addition to being a damage type that procs sets Strife can't like Ilambris, Burning Spellweave, and Winterborn) and more utility than Strife for a negligible cost increase. There's really not much reason to run Strife at this point. Hopefully the cost increase to Strife can be looked at again.


On the topic of spammables, can we talk about Concealed Weapon for a second? It's a very expensive skill with a very short range with less damage than it's stamina counterpart, Surprise Attack, and with similar magicka skills like Force Pulse. Can we see it's cost get a decrease, and/or it's secondary effect replaced with something more offensive? Seriously, the only players I know that use Concealed Weapon with good results in PVP are stamina NB gankers using the extra stealth speed to get into position more quickly. When the magicka morph of a skill is more popular with stamina builds than it is with magicka builds, something is wrong.


Also, can we talk about Grim Focus/Merciless Resolve? It's just so clunky to use. It procs on four light/heavy attacks, but if the light/heavy attack is dodged it doesn't count, everybody runs Major Evasion in PVP these days and it's VERY difficult to tell when one of your light attacks gets dodged in the middle of a fight, so you can often find yourself going to use your Assassin's Will only for it not to be procced. Can we make it proc off of something like 4 direct damage attacks, or on a timer (something like 4-6 seconds)? It would help proc Assassin's Will more reliably, and would make it easier for melee magic NBs to proc it. Also, why do we have to reapply Merciless Resolve to proc Assassin's Will again? Assassin's Will's damage is on par with Crystal Fragments, yet Crystal Fragments can be feasibly procced every few seconds (and has a huge visual cue with the glowing hands to let you know when it's procced, something that Assassin's Will really needs) while you might be able to get off two Assassin's Will procs every 10-15 seconds.


Finally, can we take a look at Impale? It doesn't have the range of Radiant Destruction (nor does it have the ability to go through dodge and reflect), it doesn't start scaling up in damage when the target is at 40-50% max health like the Reverse Slice, and it doesn't have an automatic execute proc like Endless Fury and it's Explosion proc. Can we give it one of these things? By the time I get a player down to 25% health, realize he's within execute range, and then hit my Impale button, that player has likely already blocked, dodged, and/or healed out of my execute range. Even when you cancel the Impale animation by immediately blocking after you cast it, it still doesn't land in time to do execute damage. It seems so weird that the assassin class has the worst execute in the game (and that the paladin class has the best execute, but that's a discussion for another day), can we get some love?

MythicEmperor

I think that the nerf to strife was unwarranted. It is already useless compared to Force Pulse, and, as the former heart of magblades (which no longer exist), it should be buffed to be at least on par with Force Pulse. I find it very odd that the class in one of the worst positions in the game was nerfed.

Koolio

My friend told me about a badass build since the cost nerf to strife. You wear hundings rage and put all 64 points into stamina. I think I might try this new OP MNB build. Lmao

Akimbro

As it stands now, magicka nightblades are the lowest performing magicka class in end-game content. Strife and it's morphs was a great single-target class skill. Most magicka nightblade DPS'ers have already switched over to using force pulse as a main spammable. What set strife apart and made it different was the low cost. Now that the cost has been increased 38%, more magicka nightblade DPS'ers will be switching over to force pulse. There's just no reason not to, and this is causing a lack of diversity.

I'm not saying that the cost of strife didn't need to be increased. It was incredibly cheap. But if you're going to increase the cost THAT much, there should be a damage buff to the skill to go along with it. Otherwise, it will just become another useless skill. There's really no need to nerf magicka nightblades any further when they're already at the bottom.

I would have really liked to see a change to grim focus and path of darkness. Instead of haunting curse for sorcs, the recast ability should be more the spectral arrow of grim focus. After the arrow is proc'd, the skill is essentially useless as it provides the same buff as combat prayer. It would be much better if grim focus and it's morphs were able to reproc the spectral arrows without having to recast the skill, as long as the grim focus ability is still active. This would give nightblades maybe one or two more spectral arrows (reproc'ed from another 4 light/heavy attacks) without having to recast the redundant ability again.

Now for path of darkness, the ability is just too weak. It's essentially on the fence of being a dps loss. This skill definitely needs a buff. It's just too weak compared to other ground dot's.

Lucky28

Koolio wrote: »

My friend told me about a badass build since the cost nerf to strife. You wear hundings rage and put all 64 points into stamina. I think I might try this new OP MNB build. Lmao

*sigh* i'm thinking about it. balance patch my ass.

Mojmir

Reverse strife nerf

Strider_Roshin

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

Imo the only change both magicka nightblades and stamina nightblades need is the automatic re application of grim focus. Once you fire the spectral bow the buff must be refreshed. Right now it basically does 50% of the DPS it should be doing. This alone would bring up nightblades in pve and pvp.

This all day.

FoolishHuman

Strife is a skill that is used by support NBs mostly. This will make playing a support Nightblade even more difficult. At least throw us a bone and give us some more utility on restoration staffs (stamina regen), some kind of shield and/or have a look at the underperforming shadow and siphoning skills. (Refreshing Path, Agony and all it's morphs, many of the passives)
Otherwise you will slowly make Templar and Dragonknight the only viable support classes. It might be that you want that, but then you should clearly mark those classes as such and convert the NB support skills to damage. Either way please decide what you want instead of giving a little of this and a little of that but no thought-out roles for this class.

GreenSoup2HoT

I wanna give you guys at ZOS my honest opinion on one of the changes.

Manifestation of Terror (Aspect of Terror morph):
The traps summoned by this morph are no longer visible to enemy player characters.
The traps summoned by this morph can now fear up to 2 enemies each, up from 1 enemy each.

I really USED to love this ability. I loved it before it became 2 traps. When it was a single trap you could fear a ton of people at keep breeches running through it. I tried to love it when it changed but i really couldn't. Compared to Mass Hysteria you would fear 2 less targets (now 1 after this new change) but you still don't get any debuffs compared to Mass Hysteria's 2 debuffs (snare/maim).

There's 2 issues i have with this ability in general. I love the changes but i do have some issues. 1: The ability does not feel like a trap against cc immune targets. 2: This ability does not CC enough targets in my opinion.

I want this ability to feel like a trap. Grant it some aspects that actually trap your target. Immobilize the target as well would be fun. Silence the player for hitting it instead of an immobilize. It needs something to make it not better then Mass Hysteria but be worth using instead of it but in a different way.

I really hope this feedback helps. I love this ability. Its very fun to use but i just don't feel like its worth it to "try and use" because of some of the issues i've listed.

To vastly improve its usability i suggest increasing the amount of targets feared to 4. Either Silence or Immobilize targets hit by this ability for the same duration as the stun. This then creates the trap effect even if they have cc immunity.

f047ys3v3n

So, strife is now as expensive as force pulse. Yes that makes sense but also know that the low cost of this was propping up a magica NB class that was otherwise very weak. So weak that neither the top PVE raid group on E.U. or U.S. has a single one in it. It was the lowest dps PVE build before the 38% cost change. It is important that you understand that fact, This is the lowest dps class / resource combination before the change. After, well I don't think we will allow any in even middle of the road raid groups. It will be a broken class probably worse than sorc in 1.5.

If you are going to make that change to strife to put it in line with other dps skill costs the following other changes should be made to bring dps in line with other classes or else it may not even have enough dps to smoothly get vMA done despite having skills that are basically perfect for the mechanics in there (you will note that even now the NB cut off on the weekly leaderboards is a full 100k less than sorc and this is a pure dps difference as NB completes are smooth just slow as there dps is not high enough to break the mechanics all other builds now do).

1) NB currently has only one class DOT that is worth it to run (twisting is a dps loss and a screwy timing making it doubly a loss.) The good DOT is crippling and it is a very good DOT and also the best source of major expedition. Sorc has 2 class dots in lightning and curse (provided curse is still good). Twisting must be made 8 seconds to correspond with the length of a NB rotation and must be buffed to around the dps of wall or lightning or slightly lower depending on the funnel and relentless changes.

2) Funnel must do the dps of force pulse at least on single target. If it is to be the NB alternative to force pulse, have the same cost, and give a NB a reason to live and be relevant it must do the damage or very near. It heals too you say? Well last time I checked sorc healed a similar amount to NB but off of every skill that crits. Also, these siphoning skills are the NB heals. That is what they have, not a big push button or an nice stand alone HOT. Just because they do two things doesn't mean they can half ass one of them that just leaves a toon that is broken and isn't useful for anything not balanced.

3) Relentless, or whatever the magic morph now is, must be changed. Right now it is just a skill that is redundant with combat prayer and that has a proc that only pays for the cast offering no dps increase. It is a proc skill similar to sorc frags and should yeild a similar dps increase (frags also has a nice knock down for utility). You can't make the proc bigger because that would be OP in PVP. My thoughts are: first make this your source of major spell power as it's utility, next, make spectral bow a multi proc just like frags. Make the multi proc passive (like shards) and the major spell power active so you have to cold cast every 8 seconds (nb rotation should be always 8 seconds) to keep up spell power.

4) I am not sure if all the proc sets will now be garbage with no crits or if the no crits on PVE sets will stay. Probably so. If not though NB does need to either proc llambris with magica damage in addition to the shock and fire that currently procs it or perhaps having another DOT will bring is Skoria. Either way, if these 2 pc sets remain relevant mNB must be able to proc them as others do. Similarly, burning spell weave should proc from all magic damage in addition to fire. Right now this puts mNB's and mTemplars at a disadvantage as well as mSorcs relative to all fire DK's. The proc set thing is really an issue as making these sets BIS and their proc rates very different from class to class is an important, though hidden, source of imbalance.

I'm telling you, I am one of only 2 endgame raiders in the groups I run with still using a magic NB and I have been practicing sorc since the monster proc sets came out because the NB wasn't cutting it and I wanted to stay ranged. You have broken this class with the current change. I know, you probably won't care for 6 months until lots of folks QQ that I won't even give them a dps test for a raid on a mNB but I am wondering if housing will offer tomb stones so that I can just bury my lovely lady with dignity when the update drops. NB dps will be dead though, strife was the underpriced life support barely propping it up.

Yours sincerely,

47's Object of Afliction (my mNB) please don't let that mean Old Sparky (my mSorc toon) kill me and bury me in the yard. I am too pretty and young to die.

Cronopoly

Tanking:
I took my Sap Tank into City of Ash 1 where i can slowly solo the place. Noticed the normal 850+ mana cost of strife going up to 1440.

My first pull on trash I ran it like I always do and SAP, Strife, LA, 2 loops before hitting Siphoning Attacks. My mana was low immediately. While I fought all the way up to the 1st boss, I saw it as very noticable. Burned 2 Mana pots, where I found it unnecessary before.

With the nerf, Siphoning Attacks seemed to be a must right off the bat to stay ahead of the mana curve. I'll have to run this in a group sometime to see real Vet content and Taunting all over to see if the exactness of having to refresh Siphoning attacks and the new cost of Strife is going to get me lean, and in trouble if I'm late or worse early burning mana.

Koolio

Lucky28 wrote: »

Koolio wrote: »

My friend told me about a badass build since the cost nerf to strife. You wear hundings rage and put all 64 points into stamina. I think I might try this new OP MNB build. Lmao

*sigh* i'm thinking about it. balance patch my ass.

Without a change to Incap for this patch there's no way they can think this as a "balance" patch

Rohamad_Ali

I'm still looking for the improvements to majikaNB . I see a fix with cloak but no improvements . Can someone point me to the improvement ?

Akimbro

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I'm still looking for the improvements to majikaNB . I see a fix with cloak but no improvements . Can someone point me to the improvement ?

Their magicka NB improvement is nerfing magicka NB so deep into the ground that you roll another class to play :P

Rohamad_Ali

Akimbro wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I'm still looking for the improvements to majikaNB . I see a fix with cloak but no improvements . Can someone point me to the improvement ?

Their magicka NB improvement is nerfing magicka NB so deep into the ground that you roll another class to play :P

But they did that last balance patch , surely this is all in jest an somewhere is a hidden improvement ?!

alephthiago

Not sure why you increased the cost on strife, but lets keep an open mind about it, now you should at least increase the damage a bit, the damage is pretty lacking and the fact that it heals too is directly related to how little damage it deals.

Now merciless resolve, like a few friends above already said, the skill should refresh upon firing, we already have to follow the mechanics of getting to the proc to happen, having to refresh it afterwards halves its effectiveness because its another step in the rotation that we need to delay just to keep the buff up.