100% Nightblade (Patch Notes)

Chrysa1is

I have had this game since it's release on Xbox One. I have had only 1 character this whole time. A Stamina Nightblade. I have never made another character. When learning about poisons coming to ESO I felt like my character was going to be complete, and it was. All I wanted to do from the beginning, was have a Nightblade that excels in stealth, illusion and critical damage with poisons, and I had that. I refined and mastered my playstyle, in the sense that it was the perfect way I wanted it to be and I know how and when to use and utilise my skills, and I am pretty damn good with it. I may not have used sets that everyone else used because it was the most powerful, or win every duel or fight in Cyrodiil that wasn't important to me. What was important to me was that I got to be unique and figured out unusual ways to beat other players, and it worked and stealth criticals play a major part in my playstyle, but now it is being taken away from me. I've molded to the changes, but I think ZOS have gone a bit too far and have severely damaged what makes a Nightblade a Nightblade, removing it's key mechanic of stealth and sneak attack criticals, which is how a they survive and stand a chance in PvP. I can handle all the sustain nerfs, and I look forward to the challenge of working around it, that is not a problem at all, but you cannot take the very meaning and essence of a Nightblade away because you essentially make the class hollow and you weaken my build. A Nightblade deals damage from stealth and critical attacks are important and it gives it it's identity, period. Ultimately ZOS will be ruining my playstyle (our playstyle fellow Nightblades) because of whatever reason they see fit to justify it with. I would rather ZOS remove stun from sneak attacks and keep the critical bonus.

I really hope ZOS reconsider a lot of what they mean to do. The changes with Nightblades of course is my biggest concern as I only use the one character, and I understand the my problem is merely a shadow to the problems you Templars and Dragonknights face. I doubt anything will change, and we can only hope that it does. I don't feel like our voices are loud enough and I feel like our only hope at getting heard, is through Deltia and Feng etc, and posting on the forums as well.

Just wanted to get my view across and express my disappointment at the decisions made. Please keep the thread friendly if you do choose to reply. Thanks guys

-X-

geonsocal

can't you just hit shadowy disguise to still activate a critical hit?

and, concealed weapon to stun them...

Chrysa1is

geonsocal wrote: »

can't you just hit shadowy disguise to still activate a critical hit?

and, concealed weapon to stun them...

Yeah you will a critical but you won't get the additional damage bonus.

geonsocal

Chrysa1is wrote: »

geonsocal wrote: »

can't you just hit shadowy disguise to still activate a critical hit?

and, concealed weapon to stun them...

Yeah you will a critical but you won't get the additional damage bonus.

oh...not understanding "additional damage bonus"...let me go look it up...

Theoldsalem

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

IcyDeadPeople

Theoldsalem wrote: »

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

But is it all crit damage from stealth attacks or just the extra damage bonus from flanking attacks when you are directly behind the target?

olsborg

The extra critical dmg from sneak is only on the opening shot, aka the gankmove. While in open combat you really wont feel this "nerf". And I support this because getting ganked mid fight or while not suspecting it for 15k snipes etc just isnt fun.

Nightblades is more then just fighting from stealth imo, what we need more is ways to survive/sustain our health (stamblade) and getting better healing would help that issue, if we got minor mending

waitwhat

geonsocal wrote: »

can't you just hit shadowy disguise to still activate a critical hit?

and, concealed weapon to stun them...

@geonsocal
He's not talking about that.

He's talking about the bonus to critical damage being removed from stealth attacks, not the removal of a guaranteed crit from stealth (the former is happening, the latter is not).

waitwhat

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Theoldsalem wrote: »

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

But is it all crit damage from stealth attacks or just the extra damage bonus from flanking attacks when you are directly behind the target?

Any bonus to critical damage provided by the bonus to crit damage from stealth will be removed. All crit damage from stealth attacks will suffer accordingly. The extra damage bonus from flanking attacks is not (as of yet) involved.

geonsocal

thanks @waitwhat ...gotcha - it's in the master assassin passive within the assassination skill line...

well that sucks...

Edit: while we're talking about stuff we miss - the purge from cloak...zerg fighting no big deal, someone else always has it running...small scale you can really pay for not having it slotted...

Syrusthevirus187

It's a good change.

Pallio

Honestly, I don't understand why they keep punishing NB. I don't really play mine other than stealthy stuff for fun, but they seem to get beat up every patch, my main is(was) a healing Templar and I still say the NB stuff was too much.

IcyDeadPeople

waitwhat wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Theoldsalem wrote: »

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

But is it all crit damage from stealth attacks or just the extra damage bonus from flanking attacks when you are directly behind the target?

Any bonus to critical damage provided by the bonus to crit damage from stealth will be removed. All crit damage from stealth attacks will suffer accordingly. The extra damage bonus from flanking attacks is not (as of yet) involved.

In that case, which stealth crit damage bonuses are we talking about exactly?

This was not in the Nightblade class section of the patch notes, so I gather it is not referring to the NB Hemorrage passive (increase all crit strike dmg by 10%) Master Assassin passive (increase weapon and spell damage value while in stealth), nor the Khajiit and Bosmer passives (increase damage 10% while in stealth).

Are there other bonuses like this from armor sets or something?

chaserstorm16909

I feel for you man, but least as a stamblade you've enjoyed the stealth damage bonus up until now. My only character since launch has been a Magblade that has seen nothing but nerfs almost every patch. And magicka skills have never had the advantage of the stealth bonus. You will adapt.

waitwhat

@Chrysa1is

I empathize. It feels wrong to have to change your race, and absent class change token, your character entirely, so here I am too as a stamblade.

They get mad at us for ganking, but they don't let us do anything else. Witness all the "no stamblades in vet trails" and "nbs have no dots, their dps sucks compared to magsorcs." You hear in VOICE CHAT. People actually say it to your face.

And when we were "God mode OP" after Imperial City dropped, we were just God mode OP at ganking.

NB healer kicked immediately. NB tank kicked immediately. And those are just the magicka builds.

My one hope is that by removing the max-weapon damage meta, and by nuking auto-sustain, builds like stamblade tank will be allowed by this toxic community.

I say allowed, because the problems we have in PvE aren't actually that we're terrible. It's that we're vastly outperformed by DK tanks, Sorc DPS, Templar heals, and the survivability of all those classes. The ESO community is by and large too lazy to do anything but grind. The "hard work" of max CP usually involves either grinding or being around long enough to get there, while the build optimizers owe just as much to online guides and guildmates as they do to their own insight. Accordingly, a class that requires more work (and more death) to play, and include, in an activity gets neglected.

You and I just got to this point because we're not giving up on our characters even though it's been rough on them for a long time. I'm sure you can recall all the people who suddenly wanted to level up a magplar and needed help farming Rattlecage once Homestead dropped.

But, this post isn't actually supposed to be maudlin. We have hope now that DKs and Templars have gotten their just desserts. They will now rightly die in PvP, and they no longer have a suffocating monopoly on their PvE roles. We need sorc DPS to drop, but that may happen anyway if the sustain does hit them hard. Either wardens won't be a problem for us, or they'll be so callously OP that they'll get nerfed in time for Q4 2017. The other classes can all *** and moan, but it isn't about what I want. It's about what's fair.

Once they all have to make sacrifices, and suffer for those sacrifices, then we'll be ready.

Shadowasrial

To punish the nightblade like this is a bit extreme to be honest. Out of all the classes we are the most suited for pvp and also we happen to be the least suited for pve if your a stam blade. So to take away what really makes us accel in pvp is just wrong. So what if we can gank? There are plenty of ways to build around it. I'm a nightblade myself and many other nightblades have a hard time ganking me and I'm not even built for anti gank. So to say it's soooo overpowered is just people being salty that their toon got killed in a moment of weakness. It's bad enough that we already suffer from a crit cap and can't crit through a magic shield. Oh and we have to use our stamina for EVERYTHING. Attacking running dodging cc breaking and blocking oh and even healing. While magic has their shields that both heal them and protect them. A nightblade is meant to be an assassin. Someone who takes an advantage ( insert unshielded sorc) and obliterates them only to most likely get zerged down in half a second. If they are going to take away more from our crit then they need to offer some sort of buff to compensate. Because as it is 1v1 open combat is getting harder and harder for nightblades

waitwhat

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

waitwhat wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Theoldsalem wrote: »

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

But is it all crit damage from stealth attacks or just the extra damage bonus from flanking attacks when you are directly behind the target?

Any bonus to critical damage provided by the bonus to crit damage from stealth will be removed. All crit damage from stealth attacks will suffer accordingly. The extra damage bonus from flanking attacks is not (as of yet) involved.

In that case, which stealth crit damage bonuses are we talking about exactly?

This was not in the Nightblade class section of the patch notes, so I gather it is not referring to the NB Hemorrage passive (increase all crit strike dmg by 10%) Master Assassin passive (increase weapon and spell damage value while in stealth), nor the Khajiit and Bosmer passives (increase damage 10% while in stealth).

Are there other bonuses like this from armor sets or something?

It applies to all classes. The bonus that is being removed is something that was just part of the mechanics when attacking from stealth: You gain extra critical damage when attacking from stealth (eye indicator fully closed).

The stealthy passive for Khajiit and Bosmer is a bonus to damage done from stealth, but not specifically just critical damage. It, along with the Hemorrage passive you mentioned, are not reduced by this nerf, but the total damage done will be reduced, as the nerf removes a bonus that was applied on top of those passives. People may say: "See! The bonuses stacked! Unfair all along!" but in a heavy armor meta such statements are garbage, and none of this crit damage bonus would apply to a player with shields, unless the ordinary damage were enough to dispel the shield. Otherwise, the crit damage would just dissipate into nothing.

It will make ganking harder, and it does benefit shield users (even Dks) during the few seconds their shields drop.

Is it the end? Lol no. 100% stamblade players like OP are most often more tenacious that those that main, or even alt, other classes. How else to get through the die, retry, repeat cycle of advancement? We'll get by, and there will be other weaknesses to exploit. Frankly, templars were our unfair problem in Cyrodiil, and now we get to feast. They're new to sustain issues and survivability problems. We aren't.

MoeCoastie

deleted

geonsocal

holy crap @waitwhat ...when in the heck did you get some damn smart...

IcyDeadPeople

waitwhat wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

waitwhat wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Theoldsalem wrote: »

Yea ive did the math and I'll be losing about 7500 on my soul teather from stealth. I love this game but if they nerf crit damage from stealth and nerf the speed while in stealth i will unsubscribe and find another game. Im tired of having to change my playstyle and re gold my gear every patch

But is it all crit damage from stealth attacks or just the extra damage bonus from flanking attacks when you are directly behind the target?

Any bonus to critical damage provided by the bonus to crit damage from stealth will be removed. All crit damage from stealth attacks will suffer accordingly. The extra damage bonus from flanking attacks is not (as of yet) involved.

In that case, which stealth crit damage bonuses are we talking about exactly?

This was not in the Nightblade class section of the patch notes, so I gather it is not referring to the NB Hemorrage passive (increase all crit strike dmg by 10%) Master Assassin passive (increase weapon and spell damage value while in stealth), nor the Khajiit and Bosmer passives (increase damage 10% while in stealth).

Are there other bonuses like this from armor sets or something?

It applies to all classes. The bonus that is being removed is something that was just part of the mechanics when attacking from stealth: You gain extra critical damage when attacking from stealth (eye indicator fully closed).

The stealthy passive for Khajiit and Bosmer is a bonus to damage done from stealth, but not specifically just critical damage. It, along with the Hemorrage passive you mentioned, are not reduced by this nerf, but the total damage done will be reduced, as the nerf removes a bonus that was applied on top of those passives. People may say: "See! The bonuses stacked! Unfair all along!" but in a heavy armor meta such statements are garbage, and none of this crit damage bonus would apply to a player with shields, unless the ordinary damage were enough to dispel the shield. Otherwise, the crit damage would just dissipate into nothing.

It will make ganking harder, and it does benefit shield users (even Dks) during the few seconds their shields drop.

Is it the end? Lol no. 100% stamblade players like OP are most often more tenacious that those that main, or even alt, other classes. How else to get through the die, retry, repeat cycle of advancement? We'll get by, and there will be other weaknesses to exploit. Frankly, templars were our unfair problem in Cyrodiil, and now we get to feast. They're new to sustain issues and survivability problems. We aren't.

Thanks, that's a very helpful explanation!

To make sure I'm understanding correctly, we have base crit damage which is 150%, correct? And then on top of that we add crit damage modifiers for Shadow Mundus (plus divines), Khajiit and Bosmer passives (10%), Hemorrhage passive (10%), maybe some other armor set bonus, precise trait, and then on top of that there is another crit damage modifier for stealth attacks (the one being removed) which are not the flanking sneak attacks. Is that correct?

Do we know exactly what that stealth crit damage modifier was that is being removed? I know the flanking attack modifier is huge, like double or triple the base damage.

Tommy_The_Gun

To be honest I 100% agree with OP. If ZOS will remove stealth DMG bonus - it will be basically like removing core gameplay mechanics for NB. Half (or even more) NB passives have something to do with stealth and have perfect synergy with it.

NB relies on stealth in order to survive and on stealth DMG bonus for DPS. Taking this away is the equivalent of not letting sorcerers to summon pets or taking away templars healing bonus.

Dear ZOS. You just don't take away the core gameplay mechanics from a class just for sh*ts and giggles.

R1DD1CK

ESO is Dying .

GreenSoup2HoT

The stealth damage modifier that is being removed is a nerf to an invisible mechanic nobody really knew about. There were a ton of rumours to what this mechanic really was. It amplified the initial strike from being in stealth by a significant margin. Some say 10% others say 50%.... all we know it was a boost of some sort. Some people also say for a duration of 0.5 seconds after striking, others say only for 1 source of damage. This bonus is more apparent on PvE monsters. Thats why you see 100k wrecking blow's from stealth and things like that.

This bonus is honestly negligible. It will hurt the players that spec'd more so into the "1shot" type of gameplay with heavy attacks/wrecking blow/onslaught/snipe. Any ganker who uses "combo's"... for example, heavy att>incap>light att>execute... will hardly even notice the damage loss. It will still be a loss on your initial hit but from a ganking perspective, you should not be killing someone in "1 hit" which was the issue. Using a full combo rotation executed perfectly while your opponent is to slow to break free is what ganking is about. Its about opportunity and all that... not really going to get into what ganking is because its not a favoured playstyle in any community in any game.

Nightblades will still retain the stun and free critical strike from going into stealth. They will still benefit from any passives that involve stealth. All this does is make the 1 shot builds not so strong which is a good thing.

I think what stealth truly needs to flourish is a way to return to "hidden" and not be stuck in combat for 5 minutes. If i engage on someone for example and it fails... if i escape and go behind a rock out of sight i should be able to go back into the "hidden" status and try again if i choose. This is what stealth gameplay lacks for classes outside of nightblade. Stealth needs to have more cat and mouse elements in it. Nightblades already do that pretty well but if any other class tries and fails.. well it takes ages to get outta combat. I know zos is looking into the in-combat status situation and i hope it gets resolved.


In short, i wouldn't be to worried about loosing this hidden stealth critical damage bonus and be more worried about the sustain changes happening. Being a ganker you gotta push a lot of damage and sacrifice sustain to do so, with these sustain nerfs ganking is really gonna be kill or be killed.

Just note that with all these sustain changes to Redguard/Dk/Siphoning Strikes/CP/Vigor costing 30% more.... cc'ing your opponent every 6 seconds while using shadow cloak and dancing around your opponent will be very strong. I personally think Nightblades are still in a very good spot.

Runschei

At least the crit still works in pve. Ha-ha.

We've been nerfed into hell and back earlier, and nearly forced to gank in pvp. The majority of stamina nightblades tend to gank because an open world playstyle without any class self heal (I know we have vigor and 2h momentum) or good survivability is just too damn hard. We're as squishy as a gummy bear! Can't even use cloak to escape with as anything and everything will counter it.

Now ofc there are some nightblades amazing at open world, but I myself am nothing but a ganker troll and scrollrunner. I don't know how to open world as stamina. Hell I can barely do it as magica, and just 'stealing' someones build is not an option for me as I will struggle as hell to adapt to the required rotation. Our passives with stealth are only relevant in pvp. ZOS nerfs stealth in pvp. That's logic right there

GreenSoup2HoT

@Runschei The one shot onslaught builds are the reason we lost that hidden stealth crit damage, 100% justifiable imho.

Runschei

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

@Runschei The one shot onslaught builds are the reason we lost that hidden stealth crit damage, 100% justifiable imho.

Personally I use either a 3skill combo or 4 if needed. Some say I will clearly notice this nerf, and some say I am one of those that won't notice it at all. I don't know what to believe so I guess I'll just try it out on the PTS asap

GreenSoup2HoT

Runschei wrote: »

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

@Runschei The one shot onslaught builds are the reason we lost that hidden stealth crit damage, 100% justifiable imho.

Personally I use either a 3skill combo or 4 if needed. Some say I will clearly notice this nerf, and some say I am one of those that won't notice it at all. I don't know what to believe so I guess I'll just try it out on the PTS asap

For me, my gank started with a duelwield heavy attack. So this hidden damage bonus was only granted to half of my initial heavy attack. I personally wont even notice.

Lemme know your findings on pts!

makreth

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

@Runschei The one shot onslaught builds are the reason we lost that hidden stealth crit damage, 100% justifiable imho.

instead they should tweak the onslaught skill or change the critical dmg there from sneak atks. Ultimate atks from sneak just dont feel right..

Runschei

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Runschei wrote: »

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

@Runschei The one shot onslaught builds are the reason we lost that hidden stealth crit damage, 100% justifiable imho.

Personally I use either a 3skill combo or 4 if needed. Some say I will clearly notice this nerf, and some say I am one of those that won't notice it at all. I don't know what to believe so I guess I'll just try it out on the PTS asap

For me, my gank started with a duelwield heavy attack. So this hidden damage bonus was only granted to half of my initial heavy attack. I personally wont even notice.

Lemme know your findings on pts!

Started out with a magica nightblade but had no idea what I was doing so I just perma cloaked, secretly stole kills from other players and resurrected everyone I found in pvp with my sweet -55% res time. I then figured I should do something about me being in stealth like 80% of my time so I created my stamina. Damn I like her.

And sure thing! I'll let you know what I notice

IcyDeadPeople

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

The stealth damage modifier that is being removed is a nerf to an invisible mechanic nobody really knew about. There were a ton of rumours to what this mechanic really was. It amplified the initial strike from being in stealth by a significant margin. Some say 10% others say 50%.... all we know it was a boost of some sort. Some people also say for a duration of 0.5 seconds after striking, others say only for 1 source of damage. This bonus is more apparent on PvE monsters. Thats why you see 100k wrecking blow's from stealth and things like that.

This bonus is honestly negligible. It will hurt the players that spec'd more so into the "1shot" type of gameplay with heavy attacks/wrecking blow/onslaught/snipe. Any ganker who uses "combo's"... for example, heavy att>incap>light att>execute... will hardly even notice the damage loss. It will still be a loss on your initial hit but from a ganking perspective, you should not be killing someone in "1 hit" which was the issue. Using a full combo rotation executed perfectly while your opponent is to slow to break free is what ganking is about. Its about opportunity and all that... not really going to get into what ganking is because its not a favoured playstyle in any community in any game.

Interesting, and good point. I think the 100k wrecking blows and crazy onslaught numbers are using the massive flanking bonus, though, which if I understand correctly is not being removed.

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

I think what stealth truly needs to flourish is a way to return to "hidden" and not be stuck in combat for 5 minutes. If i engage on someone for example and it fails... if i escape and go behind a rock out of sight i should be able to go back into the "hidden" status and try again if i choose. This is what stealth gameplay lacks for classes outside of nightblade. Stealth needs to have more cat and mouse elements in it. Nightblades already do that pretty well but if any other class tries and fails.. well it takes ages to get outta combat. I know zos is looking into the in-combat status situation and i hope it gets resolved.

From your forum signature, I wonder if you have played ESO recently? Stealth mechanic was altered with Homestead patch so that everybody goes back into hidden state very quickly. Certainly this makes it much easier to gank on magicka DK at least.
.

t3hdubzy

Has anyone confirmed if the nightblade passives and race passives are being nil, or are they talking about the world increase in damage from stealth?