3.0.1 Nightblade TANK impact and idea (stamina steal)

Lapin_Logic

3.0.1 PTS Nightblade MAGICKA TANK results

The change to orb, spear synergy is better for the rest of the game, but running a magicka heavy nightblade tank (shade, funnel health, refreshing path, reapers mark, inner rage) means you have to choose between running your buffs, or your block resource pool, if this patch is focusing players toward hybrid builds, i am confused as to why the oldest hybrid build (the NB sap tank) has been hit hardest, I fully utilise both my stamina and magicka, we have lost the 10% proc on siphoning attacks and now also have to move resources from health or magicka to make my stamina pool larger than my magicka further reducing the amount of skills i can use/buffs i can give to my group.

An example of a fight where you have to fill in/help others in the group. DUNGEON Blackheart Haven, me (tank) has become the skeleton, healer is taking a pounding and spamming to keep everyone up, I come out of skeleton phase and immediately the healer becomes the skeleton. previously i had decent heals (not enough to replace a healer, but enough to buffer untill the healer could come back) with sap and funnel and refreshing path, also back bar resto staff to hit a friendly with a healing ward for a clutch save, in the new patch i am either more squishy due to lower health, or my heals hit for less and also be more difficult to cast due to a smaller pool and and increased cost just to be able to make use of the shard synergy to ensure I gain stamina to block/bash.

I have a couple of suggestions.

1. seeing as templar can get stamina from magicka via repent/spears, DK can use ultimates and earthen heart skills, sorcs can use dark deal and warden can gain stamina with the netch.

also each class gives the GROUP a Major/minor buff (DK brutality/sorcery, templar gives magicka steal, warden gives toughness, sorcs ensure high off balance with lightning staff and the CP passive),

maybe NB could give the group STAMINA STEAL, for instance refreshing path, any enemies ON the path are inflicted with stamina steal giving any friendly players the ability to gain stamina by attacking the target x per second, this would not effect PVP as players would never stand on the path and stamina users would rarely drop a skill to run refreshing path on a stamina build, this change could also see NB more welcome in groups.

or

2. shards restore 25% of the value to your lower stat after restoring your higher stat pool, this change would also promote hybrid builds and benefit all tanks.

PS i do have all other classes as tanks but i have always fallen back to my NB tank as i find the play style the most enjoyable, yes it might not be the best tank or the ideal/meta for a tank but thats what i like about elder scrolls online, i can pick out of the box gear and craft a valuable character that performs a role but in a different way.

I hope I conveyed my thoughts in a clear manner and provided food for discussion and i look forward to seeing the next patch changes

NightbladeMechanics

It would be the first source of staminasteal in the game. I'd be down to see that, but it would need to be on a single target imo, like magicksteal. Those are powerful buffs for a class to have.

Being able to apply staminasteal might be one step toward bringing stamina back into PvE, and raising up magicka tanking.

actosh

Stamsteal could affect all targets just like it is with magickasteal on the other morph of repentance. But only as long as it falls into the same restrictions as magickasteal does wich in detail are:

- no matter how many enemys are affected by the steal u can only get 1tick (300 in morrowind) back even if u hit a 100 mobs at the same time.

Has to be coupled to refreshing path for the reasons mentioned above. It would as well finally be a support skill and a reason to bring at least one nb to the group.

I like the idea since it requires you to have good positioning to hit as many mobs as possible.

@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

esoub17_ESO30

I also like this idea with one tweak to make it more viable for tanks and healers...

Caster recovers stam equal to the total amount stolen by the group, up to 300 per tick.

With this tweak, as long as someone is attacking something on the path that has stam to steal, you regen 300 a tick even while blocking.

Autolycus

Stamsteal is a cool idea, I like it.

Lapin_Logic

esoub17_ESO30 wrote: »

I also like this idea with one tweak to make it more viable for tanks and healers...

Caster recovers stam equal to the total amount stolen by the group, up to 300 per tick.

With this tweak, as long as someone is attacking something on the path that has stam to steal, you regen 300 a tick even while blocking.

beauty part is refreshing path does small amounts of damage procing this for the casting nightblade tank or healer, essentially meaning this skill would be like the wardens bull netch in terms of resource management with a more risk reward or it costing magicka to maintain and you need an enemy to gain the resource. they can leave siphoning attacks with the changes they have made and that would give the NB tank resources to get and buff to give if they are skilled enough to work for it.

please ZOS, this would make me pumped and excited to play nightblade tank post morrowind

actosh

Would as well serve as nbs first usefull supportskill for the group.

Another important thing is zos needs to put minor stam stesl, if we get it, in a weapon or guild ability so that everyone can acess it.

crobarXIII

As much as I want stamina steal in the game to help my stam toons sustain It could also replace the proc chance of siphoning attacks. Something tells me they won't put it in the game since it will lead to more permablocking.

actosh

crobarXIII wrote: »

As much as I want stamina steal in the game to help my stam toons sustain It could also replace the proc chance of siphoning attacks. Something tells me they won't put it in the game since it will lead to more permablocking.

Then a valid counter argument would be that u can as well permablock with ice staff if ele drain is up.

wimhwimladimf

Tank doesnt need stamina steal, block cost reduction would do just fine.

crobarXIII

actosh wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

As much as I want stamina steal in the game to help my stam toons sustain It could also replace the proc chance of siphoning attacks. Something tells me they won't put it in the game since it will lead to more permablocking.

Then a valid counter argument would be that u can as well permablock with ice staff if ele drain is up.

Why would I run an ice staff as a tank? snb offers 6% more block cost reduction, 15% dmg reduction from ranged attacks, more physical & spell resistance from shield & double barring snb allows both my 5 piece sets & a monster set to always be active which is important for buffing your group

actosh

crobarXIII wrote: »

actosh wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

As much as I want stamina steal in the game to help my stam toons sustain It could also replace the proc chance of siphoning attacks. Something tells me they won't put it in the game since it will lead to more permablocking.

Then a valid counter argument would be that u can as well permablock with ice staff if ele drain is up.

Why would I run an ice staff as a tank? snb offers 6% more block cost reduction, 15% dmg reduction from ranged attacks, more physical & spell resistance from shield & double barring snb allows both my 5 piece sets & a monster set to always be active which is important for buffing your group

This was just to show that u could do it, i would never run a ice staff .

Again for the stamsteal, it wouldnt be good to add it to refreshing path, since u would proc it permanently. Could be added to mark target or sap essence/power extraction.

Tanks wont need it that much, but since there is magickasteal, whats the prob with stamsteal? Even Mag chars sometimes would need stam to breakfree/rolldodge (speaking pve wise)

Brrrofski

The 2 big problems with saptanks next patch

Siphoning/leeching strikes - you need to land like 8 or 9 light attacks in 20 seconds to get just the cost of it back. While tanking. Not happening. Mob pulls will be incredibly difficult to sustain. Single target more manageable, but you won't be using many skills. So why even be a NB tank if I spend most my time light attacking? Siphoning strikes is useless for everyone. It's a LOSS of resources. Another skill that will be forgotten about and unused forever. Good work zos.

Shard/orb - so now I'll always get magica back? On a dk or sorc, it's whatever I guess, I can convest it into Stam. Not on a NB anymore. But the shard issue does apply somewhat to every magica tank.

Also funnel got icreased last patch, so what will it cost in Morrowind?

efster

I like the idea of path giving staminasteal, but maybe not the refreshing morph. HoT plus stam return is a bit much all together, so maybe staminasteal on the twisting morph, so you have to choose between heal or stam while still retaining the major ward/resolve proc.

SA could be improved by removing the cost completely or reducing it to something reasonable. The current cost/return ratio is absurd. It still wouldn't be as powerful as the current live SA since you'd have to choose between stam or mag, but if SA cost nothing and gave me 300 stam per LA, I'd take it. As the skill is now on the PTS, it's worthless.

Autolycus

Brrrofski wrote: »

The 2 big problems with saptanks next patch

Siphoning/leeching strikes - you need to land like 8 or 9 light attacks in 20 seconds to get just the cost of it back. While tanking. Not happening. Mob pulls will be incredibly difficult to sustain. Single target more manageable, but you won't be using many skills. So why even be a NB tank if I spend most my time light attacking? Siphoning strikes is useless for everyone. It's a LOSS of resources. Another skill that will be forgotten about and unused forever. Good work zos.

Shard/orb - so now I'll always get magica back? On a dk or sorc, it's whatever I guess, I can convest it into Stam. Not on a NB anymore. But the shard issue does apply somewhat to every magica tank.

Also funnel got icreased last patch, so what will it cost in Morrowind?

I agree with you about how useless it is. The fully-leveled versions of SA and LS return 398 per light attack, so it actually takes 5s to recover the up-front cost of these skills with no reduced cost (which is still awful, that's 25% of its up-time wasted). A proper NB tank should already be weaving light attacks. I average 10-15 light attacks per 20 seconds already, I don't sympathize for NB tanks who don't want to light attack. That's been the core design of our sustain since I started tanking back when Craglorn dropped for the first time (not its re-release, but 3 years ago).

Because of how useless LS/SA are now, NB tank build diversity has been eradicated. There is no such thing as a magblade or a stamblade in this update, there is only "NB tank" (with respect to tanking, obviously dps will still be one or the other). As far as I can tell, due to the changes with shards/orbs, there is only 1 way to allocate resources now. We will put everything we can into magicka so long as our stamina is at least 1 point higher so that we can get stam back from synergies. The only way NBs could afford to have bigger magicka pools than stamina again is if this skill and its morphs return a value of resources that is actually beneficial, because right now they aren't worth slotting. After the first 5s, and assuming we are flawlessly weaving and have no mechanics to deal with whatsoever, we can net almost 6k magicka or stam back in the remaining 15s. That's enough to cover the cost of 3 skills at most. Idk about the rest of the world here, but I don't cast only 3 skills in 15s. I cast like 13-15 skills in that time. This skill is useless for us now.

Also for what it's worth, I'm not speculating. I'm basing this on actual testing and I've been altering my build to accommodate these changes in both dungeons and trials, but not pvp. I've been able to tank about as well as I always have, but my sustain is not coming from this skill. I have to rely solely on potions and group synergies to keep me afloat, which is total B.S. since other classes at least still have a way to give themselves resources back. Helping Hands isn't that great anymore but it still returns twice the stamina back to a DK tank as LS does to a NB tank, and it doesn't cost them stamina to do so, and doesn't require dropping block. Not to mention Battle Roar, or Dark Deal in the case of Sorcs... We got the shaft really, really hard this time.

Brrrofski

Autolycus wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

The 2 big problems with saptanks next patch

Siphoning/leeching strikes - you need to land like 8 or 9 light attacks in 20 seconds to get just the cost of it back. While tanking. Not happening. Mob pulls will be incredibly difficult to sustain. Single target more manageable, but you won't be using many skills. So why even be a NB tank if I spend most my time light attacking? Siphoning strikes is useless for everyone. It's a LOSS of resources. Another skill that will be forgotten about and unused forever. Good work zos.

Shard/orb - so now I'll always get magica back? On a dk or sorc, it's whatever I guess, I can convest it into Stam. Not on a NB anymore. But the shard issue does apply somewhat to every magica tank.

Also funnel got icreased last patch, so what will it cost in Morrowind?

I agree with you about how useless it is. The fully-leveled versions of SA and LS return 398 per light attack, so it actually takes 5s to recover the up-front cost of these skills with no reduced cost (which is still awful, that's 25% of its up-time wasted). A proper NB tank should already be weaving light attacks. I average 10-15 light attacks per 20 seconds already, I don't sympathize for NB tanks who don't want to light attack. That's been the core design of our sustain since I started tanking back when Craglorn dropped for the first time (not its re-release, but 3 years ago).

Because of how useless LS/SA are now, NB tank build diversity has been eradicated. There is no such thing as a magblade or a stamblade in this update, there is only "NB tank" (with respect to tanking, obviously dps will still be one or the other). As far as I can tell, due to the changes with shards/orbs, there is only 1 way to allocate resources now. We will put everything we can into magicka so long as our stamina is at least 1 point higher so that we can get stam back from synergies. The only way NBs could afford to have bigger magicka pools than stamina again is if this skill and its morphs return a value of resources that is actually beneficial, because right now they aren't worth slotting. After the first 5s, and assuming we are flawlessly weaving and have no mechanics to deal with whatsoever, we can net almost 6k magicka or stam back in the remaining 15s. That's enough to cover the cost of 3 skills at most. Idk about the rest of the world here, but I don't cast only 3 skills in 15s. I cast like 13-15 skills in that time. This skill is useless for us now.

Also for what it's worth, I'm not speculating. I'm basing this on actual testing and I've been altering my build to accommodate these changes in both dungeons and trials, but not pvp. I've been able to tank about as well as I always have, but my sustain is not coming from this skill. I have to rely solely on potions and group synergies to keep me afloat, which is total B.S. since other classes at least still have a way to give themselves resources back. Helping Hands isn't that great anymore but it still returns twice the stamina back to a DK tank as LS does to a NB tank, and it doesn't cost them stamina to do so, and doesn't require dropping block. Not to mention Battle Roar, or Dark Deal in the case of Sorcs... We got the shaft really, really hard this time.

Basically, it's the only class that can't convert magica into stamina. That sucks. A lot.

Autolycus

actosh wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

actosh wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

As much as I want stamina steal in the game to help my stam toons sustain It could also replace the proc chance of siphoning attacks. Something tells me they won't put it in the game since it will lead to more permablocking.

Then a valid counter argument would be that u can as well permablock with ice staff if ele drain is up.

Why would I run an ice staff as a tank? snb offers 6% more block cost reduction, 15% dmg reduction from ranged attacks, more physical & spell resistance from shield & double barring snb allows both my 5 piece sets & a monster set to always be active which is important for buffing your group

This was just to show that u could do it, i would never run a ice staff .

Again for the stamsteal, it wouldnt be good to add it to refreshing path, since u would proc it permanently. Could be added to mark target or sap essence/power extraction.

Tanks wont need it that much, but since there is magickasteal, whats the prob with stamsteal? Even Mag chars sometimes would need stam to breakfree/rolldodge (speaking pve wise)

I don't see any problems with adding it to Refreshing Path personally. The damage and healing on Path for a fully-dedicated tank is pretty low; in an Ebon/Alkosh/Sentinel setup (on live, where I can actually scale up my heals by having a large magicka pool) Path heals for 1k/s without exceptional buffs (give or take a little). Shadow passives are tied to it too ofc, but our Major Ward/Resolve is only just now getting a duration increase (way overdue) and it's still lackluster compared to a DK's, which can be used in a number unique ways, like the marginal damage shield preemptive to a heavy damage mechanic (while being guarded) results in a large benefit to the person guarding, though it is brief. Or compared to a Warden, who can just give it to everyone, and for longer than a NB still.

I would sooner add it to Path and have unique versions of each morph. Twisting Path could have some sort of snare added to it that would root enemies that stood in it for 3 full seconds or longer. Refreshing can have stamsteal, and then just have at least one other weapon skill somewhere have stamsteal as well, to bring it in line with magickasteal (which is also locked behind 1 class skill and 1 weapon skill). I suggest Siphon Spirit since that skill is basically useless with a cast time.