PTS Feedback Thread for Nightblade Balance Improvements

Nutshotz

I don't do much trials since I've returned cuz I'm still getting back in my rotation on doing pve and pvp. Yes stam/mag blades are at the bottom of trials for dps. We all know that. Stam has high burst usually 1-3 hits and out for pvp as well as magica. From playing both stam and magic.

I think what everyone that play this class is stating that we are under par for pve. Whether zos needs to rework our passives or something to atleast bring us on par with everyone else.

Now pvp.

Stam is over powered. Not just stamblade.

Memnock wrote: »

As far as i can see after reading the feedback thread , all the stuff that i wanted to say has already been addressed in the several pages that came before , but i would like to add my 2 cents as well regarding the NB changes , more specifically related to the Magicka side of things :

1). Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38% - This change is a bit confusing to me , since this skill has a low cost but lower damage as well compared to other spamable skills , so if the cost increase is here to stay , i would suggest to having its damage and healing output adjusted as well ( to be perfectly clear , i mean increased ) , in order to reflect the new cost and to be used as a viable alternative to Force Pulse

2). As it stands now , Path of Darkness is rarely used ( PvE wise at least ), if at all, due to its lack of synergy with other NB skills , so my suggestion for this skill would be to reduce this skill's duration to 8 seconds and have its damage increased to similar ground based dots or at least close to them.

3)Concealed Weapon - As it stands , this skill is not really used by mage NBs , but instead it is used by stamina NBs to help with movement in stealth , so my suggestion for this skill is to replace the speed bonus with the Empower buff , or to provide magicka penetration like its stamina counterpart , but i thought we should have a bit of diversity in play style so i prefer the empower.

4)Merciless Resolve - This has been discussed already in the last couple of pages with its pros and cons thrown around , so there is no need for me to add more to that discussion other than the fact that i am in the "allow the duration of the buff to be refreshed by shooting the arrow" camp

As a last note , i really hope that now cloak is fixed and is acting as it should , so fingers crossed on that one

They're some great points in here except the empower point on concealed weapons. We are already gimped in speed the way it is and you want that taken away. Ok yes the empower would be nice, but than perhaps give magblades the speed buff back on dbl take and bump it to 50% to compensate the loss of the speed from Conceal. Stamblades and stam sorcs are already fast AF! Why take away our speed..... that's what baffles me.....

I'd be down under certain conditions.

Conceal - empower buff

Double take - 50% movement speed. Magicka class's only. So it compensates for the loss of concealed weapons extra speed loss and that magblades are the only one able to use it.

Now I can see someone say well you can use a bow or manuevers. Well yes we can but the point is that we have what 9-14k stam. So I pop retreating maneuvers I lose half or 75% my stam for 30 seconds @ 30% speed while concealed now has empowered. I'll pass.

Well you can use a bow and roll dodge. Yup and the cost increase for each roll dodge will deplete my stam in what 3-4 roll dodge for the speed for 5 seconds. [Don't quote me on the speed timer cuz I forgot] I'll pass on that too!

So if they ever did give us empower on concealed weapons and took our speed, they would have to compensate the loss of speed elsewhere. Hensel the extra % in dbl take and make it so that magblades can be on par still. Cuz if we lost that extra % speed. We slow AF like mag templar. [No offense]

But be my guest and state your argument on this one.

mr_wazzabi

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

I don't do much trials since I've returned cuz I'm still getting back in my rotation on doing pve and pvp. Yes stam/mag blades are at the bottom of trials for dps. We all know that. Stam has high burst usually 1-3 hits and out for pvp as well as magica. From playing both stam and magic.

I think what everyone that play this class is stating that we are under par for pve. Whether zos needs to rework our passives or something to atleast bring us on par with everyone else.

Now pvp.

Stam is over powered. Not just stamblade.

Memnock wrote: »

As far as i can see after reading the feedback thread , all the stuff that i wanted to say has already been addressed in the several pages that came before , but i would like to add my 2 cents as well regarding the NB changes , more specifically related to the Magicka side of things :

1). Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38% - This change is a bit confusing to me , since this skill has a low cost but lower damage as well compared to other spamable skills , so if the cost increase is here to stay , i would suggest to having its damage and healing output adjusted as well ( to be perfectly clear , i mean increased ) , in order to reflect the new cost and to be used as a viable alternative to Force Pulse

2). As it stands now , Path of Darkness is rarely used ( PvE wise at least ), if at all, due to its lack of synergy with other NB skills , so my suggestion for this skill would be to reduce this skill's duration to 8 seconds and have its damage increased to similar ground based dots or at least close to them.

3)Concealed Weapon - As it stands , this skill is not really used by mage NBs , but instead it is used by stamina NBs to help with movement in stealth , so my suggestion for this skill is to replace the speed bonus with the Empower buff , or to provide magicka penetration like its stamina counterpart , but i thought we should have a bit of diversity in play style so i prefer the empower.

4)Merciless Resolve - This has been discussed already in the last couple of pages with its pros and cons thrown around , so there is no need for me to add more to that discussion other than the fact that i am in the "allow the duration of the buff to be refreshed by shooting the arrow" camp

As a last note , i really hope that now cloak is fixed and is acting as it should , so fingers crossed on that one

They're some great points in here except the empower point on concealed weapons. We are already gimped in speed the way it is and you want that taken away. Ok yes the empower would be nice, but than perhaps give magblades the speed buff back on dbl take and bump it to 50% to compensate the loss of the speed from Conceal. Stamblades and stam sorcs are already fast AF! Why take away our speed..... that's what baffles me.....

I'd be down under certain conditions.

Conceal - empower buff

Double take - 50% movement speed. Magicka class's only. So it compensates for the loss of concealed weapons extra speed loss and that magblades are the only one able to use it.

Now I can see someone say well you can use a bow or manuevers. Well yes we can but the point is that we have what 9-14k stam. So I pop retreating maneuvers I lose half or 75% my stam for 30 seconds @ 30% speed while concealed now has empowered. I'll pass.

Well you can use a bow and roll dodge. Yup and the cost increase for each roll dodge will deplete my stam in what 3-4 roll dodge for the speed for 5 seconds. [Don't quote me on the speed timer cuz I forgot] I'll pass on that too!

So if they ever did give us empower on concealed weapons and took our speed, they would have to compensate the loss of speed elsewhere. Hensel the extra % in dbl take and make it so that magblades can be on par still. Cuz if we lost that extra % speed. We slow AF like mag templar. [No offense]

But be my guest and state your argument on this one.

I posted earlier about concealed weapon. Maybe they should just rework cloak altogether and put concealed weapon's speed buff into cloak itself.

Then they can add another buff to conceal like empower or what about having it apply a shield on hit? It would make melee magicka nb more viable. They also need to lower the cost.

thankyourat

They should just make cloak remove snares and other harmful effects again. That would fix all of magblades mobility problems for the most part and it would fix cloak. Make cloak a class purge again like it use to be

Jaronking

thankyourat wrote: »

They should just make cloak remove snares and other harmful effects again. That would fix all of magblades mobility problems for the most part and it would fix cloak. Make cloak a class purge again like it use to be

If they did that you still be snared in cloak because of gap closers snares.

Nutshotz

I'm still going to stand my ground. I'm ok with the Empower on concealed. Only if they put it on double take and make double take for magblades only. Sorry stamblades. You get no love from me on this skill... Now if they went back to the old cloak. I'd be in heaven. Cloak was fun and useful back than.

I have 3 builds. 2 with cloak and 1 without. I don't run the build without cloak very often unless I'm bored and tired of cloak not working. As for now it's done it's job for the most part...... sarcasm

Xvorg

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

I'm still going to stand my ground. I'm ok with the Empower on concealed. Only if they put it on double take and make double take for magblades only. Sorry stamblades. You get no love from me on this skill... Now if they went back to the old cloak. I'd be in heaven. Cloak was fun and useful back than.

I have 3 builds. 2 with cloak and 1 without. I don't run the build without cloak very often unless I'm bored and tired of cloak not working. As for now it's done it's job for the most part...... sarcasm

PeaNutShotz wrote: »

I'm still going to stand my ground. I'm ok with the Empower on concealed. Only if they put it on double take and make double take for magblades only. Sorry stamblades. You get no love from me on this skill... Now if they went back to the old cloak. I'd be in heaven. Cloak was fun and useful back than.

I have 3 builds. 2 with cloak and 1 without. I don't run the build without cloak very often unless I'm bored and tired of cloak not working. As for now it's done it's job for the most part...... sarcasm

Replace cloak with Dampen and you will see it's almost the same.

Nutshotz

@Xvorg thats the thing. I run dampen on all my builds. I find it amazing to run with 7 light. Yes 7 light. Not 5 H, 1M, 1L.

Mojmir

I'm still waiting on an improvement to give feedback on

thankyourat

Jaronking wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

They should just make cloak remove snares and other harmful effects again. That would fix all of magblades mobility problems for the most part and it would fix cloak. Make cloak a class purge again like it use to be

If they did that you still be snared in cloak because of gap closers snares.

Lol that's a good point I wonder how ZoS would do that because you aren't supposed to be targeted by single target abilities while cloaked

Jaronking

thankyourat wrote: »

Jaronking wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

They should just make cloak remove snares and other harmful effects again. That would fix all of magblades mobility problems for the most part and it would fix cloak. Make cloak a class purge again like it use to be

If they did that you still be snared in cloak because of gap closers snares.

Lol that's a good point I wonder how ZoS would do that because you aren't supposed to be targeted by single target abilities while cloaked

Ohh tell that to the 15 gap closers that all hit me this morning.

altemriel

really, proc sets should be crit nerfed only for PVP. Why for PVE??

Lucky28

altemriel wrote: »

really, proc sets should be crit nerfed only for PVP. Why for PVE??

they shouldn't be crit nerfed for either. crit is not the issue in any way.

Jaronking

Lucky28 wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

really, proc sets should be crit nerfed only for PVP. Why for PVE??

they shouldn't be crit nerfed for either. crit is not the issue in any way.

Just add a GCD to all proc sets and they fix the issue in pvp without hurting pve.

HuawaSepp

It would be helpful if siphoning attacks last longer and give the major weapon/spell dmg buff.
Like surge from sorcs.
Take it away from sap essence instead.

#Make NB a great Sorc again

aeowulf

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

Many of the below skills I don't use, but as requested, i am sharing thoughts.

Nightblade

Assassination
Grim Focus: This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me
Manifestation of Terror (Aspect of Terror morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me. Outside PVP does anyone actualy use this skill?
Relentless Focus (Grim Focus morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me massively
Shadow
Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order: At cap, no effect
Shadow Cloak: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Summon Shade: visual change only (i am not kajiit or argonian so will be no change)
Siphoning
Soul Shred: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38%.

This is a big change to me. I play a NB as a tank and this skill is currently in the class of spamable, and by that it means I can cast it over and over again for minimal cost. I can cast this whilst blocking, and it does not allow perma blocking in it's current form, but it's big enough that it makes my life not too busy. On a boss fight i actually run low on stamina and can resort to this skill. On trash it's the other way round. This change will affect my rotation, and possibly my survivability. My survivability is currently good to great, but i have gold equipment in all non jewellery slots, so it should be. I also have a DK tank alt with purple gear. With him I can cast igneous shield, giving myself a 26,000+ damage shield, and every member of my group a shield for 13,000+, and i do that every 3-4 seconds. That is properly survivable and my NB comes no where near that, let alone the affect that shield has on a group. So comparing my two main (non taunt) tanking skills, all of a sudden strife looks hilariously bad already. I can't understand the reasoning why you would make it less attractive.

HuawaSepp

aeowulf wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

Many of the below skills I don't use, but as requested, i am sharing thoughts.

Nightblade

Assassination
Grim Focus: This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me
Manifestation of Terror (Aspect of Terror morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me. Outside PVP does anyone actualy use this skill?
Relentless Focus (Grim Focus morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me massively
Shadow
Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order: At cap, no effect
Shadow Cloak: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Summon Shade: visual change only (i am not kajiit or argonian so will be no change)
Siphoning
Soul Shred: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38%.

This is a big change to me. I play a NB as a tank and this skill is currently in the class of spamable, and by that it means I can cast it over and over again for minimal cost. I can cast this whilst blocking, and it does not allow perma blocking in it's current form, but it's big enough that it makes my life not too busy. On a boss fight i actually run low on stamina and can resort to this skill. On trash it's the other way round. This change will affect my rotation, and possibly my survivability. My survivability is currently good to great, but i have gold equipment in all non jewellery slots, so it should be. I also have a DK tank alt with purple gear. With him I can cast igneous shield, giving myself a 26,000+ damage shield, and every member of my group a shield for 13,000+, and i do that every 3-4 seconds. That is properly survivable and my NB comes no where near that, let alone the affect that shield has on a group. So comparing my two main (non taunt) tanking skills, all of a sudden strife looks hilariously bad already. I can't understand the reasoning why you would make it less attractive.

The NB dies with the ongoing nerfes to strife. Buffing another ability won't stop this.
There are not any competetive NB Tanks or Heals and even DDs around atm.
Even stam NB gankers get further, hard hitting nerfes like monster sets don't crit anymore...

Switch to DK for tanking.

mr_wazzabi

aeowulf wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

Many of the below skills I don't use, but as requested, i am sharing thoughts.

Nightblade

Assassination
Grim Focus: This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me
Manifestation of Terror (Aspect of Terror morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me. Outside PVP does anyone actualy use this skill?
Relentless Focus (Grim Focus morph):This is not a skill I use regularly, changes will not affect me massively
Shadow
Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order: At cap, no effect
Shadow Cloak: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Summon Shade: visual change only (i am not kajiit or argonian so will be no change)
Siphoning
Soul Shred: Fixed an issue. fixing is good
Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38%.

This is a big change to me. I play a NB as a tank and this skill is currently in the class of spamable, and by that it means I can cast it over and over again for minimal cost. I can cast this whilst blocking, and it does not allow perma blocking in it's current form, but it's big enough that it makes my life not too busy. On a boss fight i actually run low on stamina and can resort to this skill. On trash it's the other way round. This change will affect my rotation, and possibly my survivability. My survivability is currently good to great, but i have gold equipment in all non jewellery slots, so it should be. I also have a DK tank alt with purple gear. With him I can cast igneous shield, giving myself a 26,000+ damage shield, and every member of my group a shield for 13,000+, and i do that every 3-4 seconds. That is properly survivable and my NB comes no where near that, let alone the affect that shield has on a group. So comparing my two main (non taunt) tanking skills, all of a sudden strife looks hilariously bad already. I can't understand the reasoning why you would make it less attractive.

Which is what i'm saying. Nerf kills nb tanks

Witar

Why the hell would you nerf strife? Was it way too op? It doesn't hit that hard to get that much cost increase.

aeowulf

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Which is what i'm saying. Nerf kills nb tanks

There are two big types of nerfs i can see.
Type 1: They target all classes (for example monster set item crits) These are not so bad. This hits players that have min/maxed crits the most but all classes are affected roughly the same amount (i know some classes get a crit boost and thus affected more).
Type 2 affect a class or a race or a proportion of the player base. These can be really rough. Class/race gets nerfed - it annoys some people more than others. Can be offset with a boost to something that's under performing elsewhere in the class/race. These people have three options 1) forget it 2) switch class/race 3) switch game.

The biggest problem for Zenimax will be option 3 even existing. A nerf *may* cause people to stop playing, but it never attracts players back to the game. It happened in lotro, and thats why i play ESO now

In lotro they 'improved wardens & runekeepers' at the same time. The massive nerf they got stopped people enjoying the two classes classes. They either re-rolled or quit playing, we lost 4 players from our raid force of 12 overnight, which meant no raiding without taking randoms, which meant more left the guild, which meant less played and our community died. Which is why i ended up in ESO. It was a big nerf.

HuawaSepp wrote: »

Switch to DK for tanking.

I did when trying out the effectiveness of my alt (the igneous shield guy above). My partner plays a healer and she got bored when i played him. Group rarely took any damage so she had no one to heal.

Xvorg

HuawaSepp wrote: »

It would be helpful if siphoning attacks last longer and give the major weapon/spell dmg buff.
Like surge from sorcs.
Take it away from sap essence instead.

#Make NB a great Sorc again

The same 2 buffs in the same skill line? No way.

I'm OK with drain power giving those buffs

HEBREWHAMMERRR

I've never actually leveled another class. Always liked the play style of a magblade. That being said, this "balancing" patch is strongly making me reconsider. You managed to nerf one of the worst dps classes in the game with absolutely no justification. I had recently made a sap tank build for fun to try out..near unusable now with strife changes.

It's been stated over and over again in this thread, merciless resolve needs to be a toggled ability. I'd also like to see some form of damage increase to strife to balance the cost increase or a buff to concealed weapon due to the high cost.

My class already hits like a wet noodle with heavy armor everywhere, this is just a nail in the coffin really. I truly hope you actually got cloak fixed this time around but I've been holding on to that idea since launch..

xblackroxe

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

I've never actually leveled another class. Always liked the play style of a magblade. That being said, this "balancing" patch is strongly making me reconsider. You managed to nerf one of the worst dps classes in the game with absolutely no justification. I had recently made a sap tank build for fun to try out..near unusable now with strife changes.

It's been stated over and over again in this thread, merciless resolve needs to be a toggled ability. I'd also like to see some form of damage increase to strife to balance the cost increase or a buff to concealed weapon due to the high cost.

My class already hits like a wet noodle with heavy armor everywhere, this is just a nail in the coffin really. I truly hope you actually got cloak fixed this time around but I've been holding on to that idea since launch..

Please stop talking about making merciless a toggle. We already have to make enough compromises to fit all we need on our bars. Really dont need a new doublebared ability.

mr_wazzabi

xblackroxe wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

I've never actually leveled another class. Always liked the play style of a magblade. That being said, this "balancing" patch is strongly making me reconsider. You managed to nerf one of the worst dps classes in the game with absolutely no justification. I had recently made a sap tank build for fun to try out..near unusable now with strife changes.

It's been stated over and over again in this thread, merciless resolve needs to be a toggled ability. I'd also like to see some form of damage increase to strife to balance the cost increase or a buff to concealed weapon due to the high cost.

My class already hits like a wet noodle with heavy armor everywhere, this is just a nail in the coffin really. I truly hope you actually got cloak fixed this time around but I've been holding on to that idea since launch..

Please stop talking about making merciless a toggle. We already have to make enough compromises to fit all we need on our bars. Really dont need a new doublebared ability.

We just need it to work like crystal frags. Just detect 4 light/heavy attacks, glow on proc, then you shoot it. Other have suggested an automatic re-apply of the buff on arrow shoot, which would also work, but i think the crystal frag treatment would be easier.

VelociousLegend

I also hate being pigeon holed into using a destro staff. Can magic builds finally get a dual wield magical weapon options!??!?

mr_wazzabi

VelociousLegend wrote: »

I also hate being pigeon holed into using a destro staff. Can magic builds finally get a dual wield magical weapon options!??!?

This 1000%. Nb is an assassin. Assassins don't look very badass running around holding a long stick. They look badass with 2 swords.

f047ys3v3n

My first round of hard test data ranged magic toons:

The first thing to say is that when I said this:

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

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 (strife cost increase).

I was mostly wrong. My testing in vMA and in vMoL basically concludes that the change is totally irrelevant for a NB DPS build in PVE. In 12 man raids sustain on the mNB using funnel is still 100% and in vMA the new staff passives more than compensate for the fact that you have to be more serious about hitting siphoning between pulls. You should actually expect your vMA runs to be a bit easier not harder. You will feel the dps gain from the staff passive a lot more than the having to cast siphoning between pulls more. In general, in fact, magica dps is higher than before though, as many have said, a dps increase for all is a dps increase for none and, relative to other magica classes, this is the case for NB.

Dummy testing conditions:
This brings us to round 1 of the dps dummy testing on the new skeleton dummies. For this testing the goal is to approach as closely as possible full raid buffs. As such, a buff toon was created on a friends account for which a macro was written to maintain 100% uptime on the following buffs and debuffs ( engulfing, eled, combat prayer, igneous weapons, infallible, spell power cure.) 100% spell power potion up-time was also used. No alkosh or warhorn was used since alkosh did not fit and warhorn would not be reliable. Rather than writing macros for the dps rotations of the test, which cannot be done for sorc anyway, experts were found for the different classes and the best dps's achieved are the ones here used. The gear used was llambris, BSW, infal, and vMA for this first round which features only ranged magica toons. These sets were previously tested to still be BIS for all 3 ranged builds despite the crit nerf.

Dummy results for round 1, ranged magic single target:
mSorc:
39.81k single target
This build features a 2 bar deep rotation with an infal lightning stave front bar with curse, bound, and inner light and a vMA flame back bar with blockade, liquid, wrath, bound, and inner. It is a light weave build.

mTemplar
32.9k (+3k from raid purifying) = ~35.9k expected single target
So mTemplar cannot really be fully raid buffed in testing because it's best dot, purifying light, stores up damage from all group mates. As such, we have simply added the expected amount here. Obviously mTemplar is usually run melee with sweeps instead of ranged with force pulse but here we illustrate that it can be done ranged with limited efficacy. This build was a medium weave build with 6, 6, 12 rotation featuring unstable wall, purifying, force pulse, and vamp bane on front and radiant oppression on back. Both bars were vMA inferno.

mNB
33.4k dps
First, it should be mentioned that because of the unreliability of mNB funnel builds in procing BSW and llambris dps ranges widely from around 31k to this high of 33.4k. Despite this low proc rate, BSW and llambris are still OP enough to easily be BIS. Proc sets are just much stronger than straight stat sets such as the crafted Julianos or probably even TBS after the warhorn change. This NB was a medium weave 8, 8, 8 rotation with cripple, elemental blockade, funnel, relentless, inner light front bar and sap, imple, blockade, inner light, siphoning on back. A vMA inferno was used both bars. As for using force pulse, to do this gives up the off-heals that are really the only reason for mNB existence now. Testing has also shown a negligible improvement in dps for the switch. You really just become a very bad sorc as a NB running force pulse.

Our next round of testing will feature some 2 dummy AOE testing which is of the greatest interest to raiders because most boss fights are now arranged so that the boss gets single targeted the whole time which the high cleave dps of the melee mdk's, mtemplars, and msorcs, bakes the minibosses that have replaced more traditional adds. There will also be some stam builds.

What we can see so far is that even with testing restricted to the pure single target variety and ranged, such that mNB is favored in both cases, mNB still greatly under-performs doing 16% less dps than the leading sorc and almost 10% less than a mTemp build nobody even uses. We tried a variety of different other options for the mNB including a 2 bar light weave scathing build with twisting path but the simpler BSW medium weave build was the most we could get out of it. I expect it will only get much worse for the mNB in the next round of testing because cleave damage is the heart of raids right now and almost all sorc damage skills do this whereas little of what the mNB does.

The Why of it all:
There are several reasons why mNB is in the toilet that need to be addressed and that many of us were expecting to be and were very surprised to see no attention paid and instead a very rude funnel nerf.

1) The 2x nerf to funnel heals (double crit removal and removal of the second aly heal) reduced by around 60% (yes, well over half) the utility value of mNB as a supporting passive healer. This was a major reason for their existence and and for toleration of lower than typical dps output. It was mostly ended.

2) The new proc sets BSW and llambris are very strong relative the previously most used stat boost of crafted sets of Julianos and TBS and drop sets 5x infal and 1x kenna. These sets proc on flame damage and also shock for llambris but not on magic damage. The average downtime between cooldown expiration and procing on a mNB is substantially more than double that of a mSorc or mDK. Either meaningful magic damage proc sets need to exist,it must proc the fire ones, or proc sets should not be BIS.

3) mNB does more magic damage than any other build and not a single magic damage raid buff, proc set, or status exists for magic damage. Between the engulfing buff (+10% whole raid fire damage when active) and the proc sets, and the status effect, base fire damage is worth at least 15% more than magic damage. It is really just a very poor damage type. ZOS should consider just removing magic damage from the game and replacing it with more fire if they have no intention of treating it fairly relative to other damage types. This patch makes a go at creating meaning for shock and frost with the whole shock AOE thing and frost tanking thing but magic damage is left with no real meaning at all.

4) mNB has only 1 good DOT in cripple and it's proc ability / self buff in relentless is redundant with the ubiquitous raid buff of combat prayer. mNB has another DOT in twisting but it has a very odd duration of more than 12 seconds relative to the 8 seconds already used by the mNB in cripple and elemental blockade. Twisting also has shockingly low DPS and is, of course, magica lousy damage anyway. Basically, every test I run shows is a dps loss to use at all. mNB needs that DOT to be good as the minimum number of solid DOT's any other magica class has is 3 and mNB has 2. Relentless does not help this as it gives a redundant raid buff, it's spectral arrow basically does 2x the damage of a funnel yet requires 2x casts to use leaving you dead even. mNB just simply lacks good damage sources.

5) mNB does little cleave damage and cleave damage has become the heart of raid dps. In the past, when adds were not mini bosses, you just pure aoed them down with something like elemental ring or spinning blades and pure single target on the boss was king. Now, the adds are buffed to mini boss standards and even trash pulls are basically mini boss fights with main enemies that are targeted with cleave attacks like wall, engulfing, sweeps, or liquid lightning. The cleave gets the smaller adds and so no dps on the mini boss is sacrificed in the killing of the smaller adds. This change is why mNB, and stam builds for that matter, have issues. They just don't do this cleave single target type damage that the developers seem to want. This is particularly pronounced on the key dps check boss fights of Rakkat in vMoL and the Mage in AA. Both of these are very dps intense fights where dps cannot be sacrificed to adds but adds must be killed quickly as well. Even in the less pattern specific fights of vSO and vHR, this cleave strategy is the best one. Basically, ZOS, in their Trials refurbishment, has adjusted all trials to demand a very specific dps profile that only mDK's mTeplars, and mSorc's have with only mSorc's able to fill the ranged slots for this.

So, basically what we see is that, from a dps standpoint (and due to scoring and death limit changes dps is the only thing that matters) there are many small reasons that combine to make mNB substandard even on the one thing, ranged single target, that the mNB does best. I have here documented the test results to that end. Next up will be some broader dps testing of AOE, melee, and stam dps. I expect that we will there see that stam single target dps is significantly higher than mag but that mag in the form of ranged sorcs or melee dk or templar will be higher in the crucial cleave AOE that now defines all of the trials. Hope this helps Dev's and sorry for my error in judgement regarding the funnel resource nerf which I mouthed off a lot about. Thanks to all the testers who have helped me so far.

-47

Xvorg

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

3) mNB does more magic damage than any other build and not a single magic damage raid buff, proc set, or status exists for magic damage. Between the engulfing buff (+10% whole raid fire damage when active) and the proc sets, and the status effect, base fire damage is worth at least 15% more than magic damage. It is really just a very poor damage type. ZOS should consider just removing magic damage from the game and replacing it with more fire if they have no intention of treating it fairly relative to other damage types. This patch makes a go at creating meaning for shock and frost with the whole shock AOE thing and frost tanking thing but magic damage is left with no real meaning at all.

I want CW, Strife, impale and one of the morfs from cripple to be frost dmg. That's all. That will help a lot with DPS

VelociousLegend

Xvorg wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

3) mNB does more magic damage than any other build and not a single magic damage raid buff, proc set, or status exists for magic damage. Between the engulfing buff (+10% whole raid fire damage when active) and the proc sets, and the status effect, base fire damage is worth at least 15% more than magic damage. It is really just a very poor damage type. ZOS should consider just removing magic damage from the game and replacing it with more fire if they have no intention of treating it fairly relative to other damage types. This patch makes a go at creating meaning for shock and frost with the whole shock AOE thing and frost tanking thing but magic damage is left with no real meaning at all.

I want CW, Strife, impale and one of the morfs from cripple to be frost dmg. That's all. That will help a lot with DPS

^ This. And frost makes a lot of since for magblade. It is the least represented magical damage type. Only thing is now frost passives look it's going toward tanking instead of dps...

hedna123b14_ESO

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

My first round of hard test data ranged magic toons:

The first thing to say is that when I said this:

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

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 (strife cost increase).

I was mostly wrong. My testing in vMA and in vMoL basically concludes that the change is totally irrelevant for a NB DPS build in PVE. In 12 man raids sustain on the mNB using funnel is still 100% and in vMA the new staff passives more than compensate for the fact that you have to be more serious about hitting siphoning between pulls. You should actually expect your vMA runs to be a bit easier not harder. You will feel the dps gain from the staff passive a lot more than the having to cast siphoning between pulls more. In general, in fact, magica dps is higher than before though, as many have said, a dps increase for all is a dps increase for none and, relative to other magica classes, this is the case for NB.

Dummy testing conditions:
This brings us to round 1 of the dps dummy testing on the new skeleton dummies. For this testing the goal is to approach as closely as possible full raid buffs. As such, a buff toon was created on a friends account for which a macro was written to maintain 100% uptime on the following buffs and debuffs ( engulfing, eled, combat prayer, igneous weapons, infallible, spell power cure.) 100% spell power potion up-time was also used. No alkosh or warhorn was used since alkosh did not fit and warhorn would not be reliable. Rather than writing macros for the dps rotations of the test, which cannot be done for sorc anyway, experts were found for the different classes and the best dps's achieved are the ones here used. The gear used was llambris, BSW, infal, and vMA for this first round which features only ranged magica toons. These sets were previously tested to still be BIS for all 3 ranged builds despite the crit nerf.

Dummy results for round 1, ranged magic single target:
mSorc:
39.81k single target
This build features a 2 bar deep rotation with an infal lightning stave front bar with curse, bound, and inner light and a vMA flame back bar with blockade, liquid, wrath, bound, and inner. It is a light weave build.

mTemplar
32.9k (+3k from raid purifying) = ~35.9k expected single target
So mTemplar cannot really be fully raid buffed in testing because it's best dot, purifying light, stores up damage from all group mates. As such, we have simply added the expected amount here. Obviously mTemplar is usually run melee with sweeps instead of ranged with force pulse but here we illustrate that it can be done ranged with limited efficacy. This build was a medium weave build with 6, 6, 12 rotation featuring unstable wall, purifying, force pulse, and vamp bane on front and radiant oppression on back. Both bars were vMA inferno.

mNB
33.4k dps
First, it should be mentioned that because of the unreliability of mNB funnel builds in procing BSW and llambris dps ranges widely from around 31k to this high of 33.4k. Despite this low proc rate, BSW and llambris are still OP enough to easily be BIS. Proc sets are just much stronger than straight stat sets such as the crafted Julianos or probably even TBS after the warhorn change. This NB was a medium weave 8, 8, 8 rotation with cripple, elemental blockade, funnel, relentless, inner light front bar and sap, imple, blockade, inner light, siphoning on back. A vMA inferno was used both bars. As for using force pulse, to do this gives up the off-heals that are really the only reason for mNB existence now. Testing has also shown a negligible improvement in dps for the switch. You really just become a very bad sorc as a NB running force pulse.

Our next round of testing will feature some 2 dummy AOE testing which is of the greatest interest to raiders because most boss fights are now arranged so that the boss gets single targeted the whole time which the high cleave dps of the melee mdk's, mtemplars, and msorcs, bakes the minibosses that have replaced more traditional adds. There will also be some stam builds.

What we can see so far is that even with testing restricted to the pure single target variety and ranged, such that mNB is favored in both cases, mNB still greatly under-performs doing 16% less dps than the leading sorc and almost 10% less than a mTemp build nobody even uses. We tried a variety of different other options for the mNB including a 2 bar light weave scathing build with twisting path but the simpler BSW medium weave build was the most we could get out of it. I expect it will only get much worse for the mNB in the next round of testing because cleave damage is the heart of raids right now and almost all sorc damage skills do this whereas little of what the mNB does.

The Why of it all:
There are several reasons why mNB is in the toilet that need to be addressed and that many of us were expecting to be and were very surprised to see no attention paid and instead a very rude funnel nerf.

1) The 2x nerf to funnel heals (double crit removal and removal of the second aly heal) reduced by around 60% (yes, well over half) the utility value of mNB as a supporting passive healer. This was a major reason for their existence and and for toleration of lower than typical dps output. It was mostly ended.

2) The new proc sets BSW and llambris are very strong relative the previously most used stat boost of crafted sets of Julianos and TBS and drop sets 5x infal and 1x kenna. These sets proc on flame damage and also shock for llambris but not on magic damage. The average downtime between cooldown expiration and procing on a mNB is substantially more than double that of a mSorc or mDK. Either meaningful magic damage proc sets need to exist,it must proc the fire ones, or proc sets should not be BIS.

3) mNB does more magic damage than any other build and not a single magic damage raid buff, proc set, or status exists for magic damage. Between the engulfing buff (+10% whole raid fire damage when active) and the proc sets, and the status effect, base fire damage is worth at least 15% more than magic damage. It is really just a very poor damage type. ZOS should consider just removing magic damage from the game and replacing it with more fire if they have no intention of treating it fairly relative to other damage types. This patch makes a go at creating meaning for shock and frost with the whole shock AOE thing and frost tanking thing but magic damage is left with no real meaning at all.

4) mNB has only 1 good DOT in cripple and it's proc ability / self buff in relentless is redundant with the ubiquitous raid buff of combat prayer. mNB has another DOT in twisting but it has a very odd duration of more than 12 seconds relative to the 8 seconds already used by the mNB in cripple and elemental blockade. Twisting also has shockingly low DPS and is, of course, magica lousy damage anyway. Basically, every test I run shows is a dps loss to use at all. mNB needs that DOT to be good as the minimum number of solid DOT's any other magica class has is 3 and mNB has 2. Relentless does not help this as it gives a redundant raid buff, it's spectral arrow basically does 2x the damage of a funnel yet requires 2x casts to use leaving you dead even. mNB just simply lacks good damage sources.

5) mNB does little cleave damage and cleave damage has become the heart of raid dps. In the past, when adds were not mini bosses, you just pure aoed them down with something like elemental ring or spinning blades and pure single target on the boss was king. Now, the adds are buffed to mini boss standards and even trash pulls are basically mini boss fights with main enemies that are targeted with cleave attacks like wall, engulfing, sweeps, or liquid lightning. The cleave gets the smaller adds and so no dps on the mini boss is sacrificed in the killing of the smaller adds. This change is why mNB, and stam builds for that matter, have issues. They just don't do this cleave single target type damage that the developers seem to want. This is particularly pronounced on the key dps check boss fights of Rakkat in vMoL and the Mage in AA. Both of these are very dps intense fights where dps cannot be sacrificed to adds but adds must be killed quickly as well. Even in the less pattern specific fights of vSO and vHR, this cleave strategy is the best one. Basically, ZOS, in their Trials refurbishment, has adjusted all trials to demand a very specific dps profile that only mDK's mTeplars, and mSorc's have with only mSorc's able to fill the ranged slots for this.

So, basically what we see is that, from a dps standpoint (and due to scoring and death limit changes dps is the only thing that matters) there are many small reasons that combine to make mNB substandard even on the one thing, ranged single target, that the mNB does best. I have here documented the test results to that end. Next up will be some broader dps testing of AOE, melee, and stam dps. I expect that we will there see that stam single target dps is significantly higher than mag but that mag in the form of ranged sorcs or melee dk or templar will be higher in the crucial cleave AOE that now defines all of the trials. Hope this helps Dev's and sorry for my error in judgement regarding the funnel resource nerf which I mouthed off a lot about. Thanks to all the testers who have helped me so far.

-47

Why is your damage so low? Unbuffed im getting 35k on sorc and NB...wih buffs both should be well over 40k sorc closer to 50k

Silver_Strider

So, uhh, those improvements...
...where are they exactly?

Increased cost of Strife isn't an improvement
Shades looking like your race is an improvement but combat wise they're still lack luster and now that they pull you from stealth, they're even worse than before.
Manifestation of Terror is the only real improvement but the skill is still utterly useless outside of maybe protecting keep breaches, in which case, I prefer Volcanic Rune as it at least grants me Empower, gives me more Magic + Regen and doesn't have the 4 target cap of MoT.

Overall, we got a cost increase with no real compensation
An appearance improvement at the cost of stealth play
and a mediocre skill became SLIGHTLY less mediocre.

I'm not seeing the improvements