PTS Update 16 - Feedback Thread for Nightblades

SanTii.92

Zuboko wrote: »

While I have not ran a test with the Nightblade on the PTS I can tell you this the changes to Agony will almost guarantee I will never use that skill. I want to be able to play a Nightblade or more specifically a stamina Nightblade but I already find them too squishy in the health area the idea that you have added the ability to make them even more squishy means that I might just have to permanently retire my dream class until I can somehow bypass the biggest problem they seem to have which is only getting amplified with this proposed change.


Please make them less squishy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you find them so squishy, how about you suit your build to your needs?

kaithuzar

Sorry ZOS, but Major Mending > Minor Mending; why in tamriel would we be jumping for joy over a skill that give minor mending & can kill us, when every other class has major mending????

Tornaad

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

While I have not ran a test with the Nightblade on the PTS I can tell you this the changes to Agony will almost guarantee I will never use that skill. I want to be able to play a Nightblade or more specifically a stamina Nightblade but I already find them too squishy in the health area the idea that you have added the ability to make them even more squishy means that I might just have to permanently retire my dream class until I can somehow bypass the biggest problem they seem to have which is only getting amplified with this proposed change.


Please make them less squishy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you find them so squishy, how about you suit your build to your needs?

I would love to.
I have tried several builds, but trying to manage their survivability with their ability to compete in group dungeons effectively is a fine art that I have not been able to master.
I can solo dolmens, and world bosses just fine with my sorcerer just fine, but I have yet to be able to do the same with my Nightblade.
From numerous sources and personal experience I have found that Nightblades, especially stamina Nightblades are one of the hardest classes in the game to play and it seems that they like to make them hard as the developer comments to the changes they made to agony say that you could kill yourself with this skill.
My request is simple. Make them more friendly to play.

Can you play them successfully at any level of the game?
Yes you can.
Why am I having the problems I'm having?
Simply put I am not skilled enough.
Does that mean there is not a problem with how the class is built and designed?
No.
Why would I say that both my skills and the class could be part of the problem?

I have played this game since just about the same time the One Tamriel update so a little more than a year or so. I have put many hours of play into trying to learn the various aspects of the game and am not asking for them to make the class easy to play. I am just asking for them to tweak it just enough to make it so that most anyone after putting several hundred hours of play into the game can get to where they can compete at any level in the game with the class. Not necessarily be the best at anything but at least compete at any level of play.

I have put more time into my Nightblade and have comparable equipment to my sorcerer but I can do more with my sorcerer than I can my Nightblade. That says exactly what many who develop builds for others to use, all say, the class is extremely hard to play.

One prime example that I have heard, every class but the Nightblade has a damage shield of sorts. Now not only does the Nightblade not have a damage shield they have an ability that they can use to kill themselves with. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

Xsorus

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

Tornaad

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

OdinForge

kaithuzar wrote: »

Sorry ZOS, but Major Mending > Minor Mending; why in tamriel would we be jumping for joy over a skill that give minor mending & can kill us, when every other class has major mending????

No one is going to beat you up and make you run the skill, if you don't want to like it or run it, don't.

Doesn't change the fact that it's a strong complimentary heal.

Maryal

Do I get AP for killing myself in Cyrodiil?

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Heresyall wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Heresyall wrote: »

Hello ,

I'll talk mostly here about the new agony (Malevolent Offerings).
Actually the idea was good but it has alot of weaknesses that will make it totally useless in pvp :

1) Magblade is already one of the squishiest class in cyrodiil right now ,making it sacrifying hp to heal another one is kinda meh.

2)You have to target someone to heal : ????? it's actually impossible in cyrodiil even with the help of the ui , every ally that will be nearer than the target you want to heal will take it instead of him and you'll basicaly lost hp for nothing by healing a random guy.

3)Rapid regen is way better this patch because of the vma resto staff up : don't need to target , heal yourself , gives magicka back and for mutagen ,can purge .Magblade in pvp basically don't have slots for random skill even if it's totally free.

4)Make the minor mending morph a selfhealing one if not targetting anyone : -> put the cost at like 2 k magicka and if you don't target an ally make it heal the caster for 50% of the base healing , it might be worth it to slot if like that ( should give around the same hots as rapid regen or even a bit more) / 1 target maximum possible.

Did you test the change?

1.) Magnb when properly built is definitely not one of the squishiest classes, not saying it doesn't have flaws but it's definitely not one of the squishiest.

2.) It's very easy to target allies with this heal, you aren't lining up headshots here.

3.) Rapid regen is far inferior to this heal, the tooltip on this heal can easily exceed 23K. The VMA staff doesn't change that fact.

4.) This IS a self heal if you don't target anyone, and one without a cost at that.

Actually i tried it and the selfheal is less than rapid regen by calculation of the dmg taken + healing taken. (no cp into healing)

Edit:Battle Spirit doesn't reduce the dmg taken from this skill ,wich makes the skill worse than rapid regen when you're trying to heal yourself in pvp.

Ofc it's worse than rapid regen as a self heal, and what do you mean with battle spirit doesn't reduce dmge taken? reduces healing done, which reduces dmge taken.

Battle Spirit doesn't reduce oblivion damage not from sets or enchantments.

Xsorus

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

You can't kill yourself with the ability, It applies a Hot that can crit and Heals for vastly more then anything in the game.

You can also Cloak to avoid the damage completely.

If it goes live it'll be one of the most powerful heals in the game.

Tornaad

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

You can't kill yourself with the ability, It applies a Hot that can crit and Heals for vastly more then anything in the game.

You can also Cloak to avoid the damage completely.

If it goes live it'll be one of the most powerful heals in the game.

The developers say you can kill yourself with it.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Developer Comments:

This redesign of Agony and its morphs gave us an opportunity to create a new ability more in-line with the theme of Siphoning. It helps Nightblades fulfill the healing role in a unique way, and synergizes with the other Siphoning abilities that let you steal health like Strife or Siphoning Strikes. You can then transfer that health to your allies.

Like Cauterize, this ability can be self-cast. Since you’re taking damage each time it heals, the total return will be less efficient than casting it on an ally instead.

Agony, now known as Malevolent Offering, is a powerful heal and it only damages you if the target is actually healed. But be careful! You can kill your character with this ability.

"You can kill your character with this ability."

Xsorus

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

You can't kill yourself with the ability, It applies a Hot that can crit and Heals for vastly more then anything in the game.

You can also Cloak to avoid the damage completely.

If it goes live it'll be one of the most powerful heals in the game.

The developers say you can kill yourself with it.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Developer Comments:

This redesign of Agony and its morphs gave us an opportunity to create a new ability more in-line with the theme of Siphoning. It helps Nightblades fulfill the healing role in a unique way, and synergizes with the other Siphoning abilities that let you steal health like Strife or Siphoning Strikes. You can then transfer that health to your allies.

Like Cauterize, this ability can be self-cast. Since you’re taking damage each time it heals, the total return will be less efficient than casting it on an ally instead.

Agony, now known as Malevolent Offering, is a powerful heal and it only damages you if the target is actually healed. But be careful! You can kill your character with this ability.

"You can kill your character with this ability."

If we're talking yourself, you're not going to kill yourself with the ability, Hell you could probably cast it on multiple people and still have trouble killing yourself.

Tornaad

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

You can't kill yourself with the ability, It applies a Hot that can crit and Heals for vastly more then anything in the game.

You can also Cloak to avoid the damage completely.

If it goes live it'll be one of the most powerful heals in the game.

The developers say you can kill yourself with it.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Developer Comments:

This redesign of Agony and its morphs gave us an opportunity to create a new ability more in-line with the theme of Siphoning. It helps Nightblades fulfill the healing role in a unique way, and synergizes with the other Siphoning abilities that let you steal health like Strife or Siphoning Strikes. You can then transfer that health to your allies.

Like Cauterize, this ability can be self-cast. Since you’re taking damage each time it heals, the total return will be less efficient than casting it on an ally instead.

Agony, now known as Malevolent Offering, is a powerful heal and it only damages you if the target is actually healed. But be careful! You can kill your character with this ability.

"You can kill your character with this ability."

If we're talking yourself, you're not going to kill yourself with the ability, Hell you could probably cast it on multiple people and still have trouble killing yourself.

I didn't ask how easy it was. I asked how many other classes have the possibility to kill themselves with their own abilities.

SanTii.92

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO wrote: »

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Heresyall wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Heresyall wrote: »

Hello ,

I'll talk mostly here about the new agony (Malevolent Offerings).
Actually the idea was good but it has alot of weaknesses that will make it totally useless in pvp :

1) Magblade is already one of the squishiest class in cyrodiil right now ,making it sacrifying hp to heal another one is kinda meh.

2)You have to target someone to heal : ????? it's actually impossible in cyrodiil even with the help of the ui , every ally that will be nearer than the target you want to heal will take it instead of him and you'll basicaly lost hp for nothing by healing a random guy.

3)Rapid regen is way better this patch because of the vma resto staff up : don't need to target , heal yourself , gives magicka back and for mutagen ,can purge .Magblade in pvp basically don't have slots for random skill even if it's totally free.

4)Make the minor mending morph a selfhealing one if not targetting anyone : -> put the cost at like 2 k magicka and if you don't target an ally make it heal the caster for 50% of the base healing , it might be worth it to slot if like that ( should give around the same hots as rapid regen or even a bit more) / 1 target maximum possible.

Did you test the change?

1.) Magnb when properly built is definitely not one of the squishiest classes, not saying it doesn't have flaws but it's definitely not one of the squishiest.

2.) It's very easy to target allies with this heal, you aren't lining up headshots here.

3.) Rapid regen is far inferior to this heal, the tooltip on this heal can easily exceed 23K. The VMA staff doesn't change that fact.

4.) This IS a self heal if you don't target anyone, and one without a cost at that.

Actually i tried it and the selfheal is less than rapid regen by calculation of the dmg taken + healing taken. (no cp into healing)

Edit:Battle Spirit doesn't reduce the dmg taken from this skill ,wich makes the skill worse than rapid regen when you're trying to heal yourself in pvp.

Ofc it's worse than rapid regen as a self heal, and what do you mean with battle spirit doesn't reduce dmge taken? reduces healing done, which reduces dmge taken.

Battle Spirit doesn't reduce oblivion damage not from sets or enchantments.

Reduces healing done, which reduces dmge taken.

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

Xsorus wrote: »

It's easy to solo world bosses and dolmens on a stamina nightblade, equip dual wield... there.. you now can't be killed while spamming a channeled attack that heals you and applying a dot that heals you.

That's not the point. What other class can kill themselves with their own abilities?

You can't kill yourself with the ability, It applies a Hot that can crit and Heals for vastly more then anything in the game.

You can also Cloak to avoid the damage completely.

If it goes live it'll be one of the most powerful heals in the game.

The developers say you can kill yourself with it.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Developer Comments:

This redesign of Agony and its morphs gave us an opportunity to create a new ability more in-line with the theme of Siphoning. It helps Nightblades fulfill the healing role in a unique way, and synergizes with the other Siphoning abilities that let you steal health like Strife or Siphoning Strikes. You can then transfer that health to your allies.

Like Cauterize, this ability can be self-cast. Since you’re taking damage each time it heals, the total return will be less efficient than casting it on an ally instead.

Agony, now known as Malevolent Offering, is a powerful heal and it only damages you if the target is actually healed. But be careful! You can kill your character with this ability.

"You can kill your character with this ability."

If we're talking yourself, you're not going to kill yourself with the ability, Hell you could probably cast it on multiple people and still have trouble killing yourself.

I didn't ask how easy it was. I asked how many other classes have the possibility to kill themselves with their own abilities.

Why does it even matter.

wildbear247

I can understand buffing Manifestation of Terror so that it see's more use (the change to it makes it seem like a great keep defense tool, or a counter ball-zerg tool if placed correctly and they run into it ). However I don't see the need to nerf Mass Hysteria. I think Mass Hysteria fits well into the assassin role that a Nightblade fulfills...jump into a small group of enemies and pop Mass Hysteria to open up your target for a high-burst combo and attempt to eliminate him...then hope you can secure the kill and cloak away before his buddies jump on you.

With the increased ultimate cost of Death Stroke and its morphs in earlier patches, and now this nerf to Mass Hysteria...it just seems you're slowly whittling away at the assassin role that is unique to the Nightblade. Templars have their house and excellent healing; Dragonknights have durability and highest single target damage in PvE; Mag Sorcerers have superb ranged burst and mad AOE damage; Wardens...well..lol...probably could use some love; if Nightblades should fulfill a stealthy burst assassin role that is weak on healing and durability, all I ask is that you be careful to not undermine this role. Mass Hysteria affecting one less enemy means one more enemy that can neutralize a NB assassination attempt.

That is all, thanks for reading

Azurya

wildbear247 wrote: »

I can understand buffing Manifestation of Terror so that it see's more use (the change to it makes it seem like a great keep defense tool, or a counter ball-zerg tool if placed correctly and they run into it ). However I don't see the need to nerf Mass Hysteria. I think Mass Hysteria fits well into the assassin role that a Nightblade fulfills...jump into a small group of enemies and pop Mass Hysteria to open up your target for a high-burst combo and attempt to eliminate him...then hope you can secure the kill and cloak away before his buddies jump on you.

With the increased ultimate cost of Death Stroke and its morphs in earlier patches, and now this nerf to Mass Hysteria...it just seems you're slowly whittling away at the assassin role that is unique to the Nightblade. Templars have their house and excellent healing; Dragonknights have durability and highest single target damage in PvE; Mag Sorcerers have superb ranged burst and mad AOE damage; Wardens...well..lol...probably could use some love; if Nightblades should fulfill a stealthy burst assassin role that is weak on healing and durability, all I ask is that you be careful to not undermine this role. Mass Hysteria affecting one less enemy means one more enemy that can neutralize a NB assassination attempt.

That is all, thanks for reading

Totally agree with this.
And okay a NB that hast the desire to heal, to give that one an skill to do so, maybe good for those, for all others you take a skill away ....
and it sounds much like a harakiri-skill! No other healing class has an healing ability that by using it, deals masive dmg to the healer itself! And a dead helaer sucks, no need for that! Though I will give it a try this weekend, but being very sceptic about this.

Feanor

Malacthulhu wrote: »

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

I don't agree with this change to Agony, but if you're going to go ahead with this health sacrifice functionality, then here's my suggestion:

Make the heal a large instant heal with a cast time (not a heal over time). Make it the strongest non-Ultimate heal in the game. Give it a cast time so it can be interrupted in PvP to balance out the fact it's such a powerful heal.

The other benefit of combining an instant heal with the health sacrifice component being a DOT, is that you could cast it twice in quick succession and only incur 1-2 additional seconds of the self-DOT.

That is actually really smart.

It's not. It would need to not allow cloak. Interrupting an invisible target is quite hard.

aeowulf

New agony - OK, i actually quite like the idea of 'blood magic', but I do have some issues with the current implementation, around what i've read. not tried it yet on PTS and won't get the chance until the weekend.

1) Targeting - is like guard. With guard, even with just two it is not easy to target the other player. It requires concentrating and luck. It will be near on impossible for a NB healer to target the tank in a trial what with all the melee dps in the way. there is also a chance that at the last second a mob will get in the way, or another player that doesn't need healing. However, unlike guard this skill will kill you if you get it wrong.

2) Agony CC - when i started playing, 4 years ago my NB was very weak, i could not take on two enemies at once. Agony could CC one mob out of action for a bit, at range. This was literally a life saver. I don't know what levelling a NB up as a new player is like these days, but without that skill, I probably would not be here today. Now at CP cap, i don't need it but are new players being catered for?

CC changes in general - I don't PVP but it seems odd we are loosing CC and two stronger classes are getting it buffed. I remember watching a friday video back in April about the vision of NB's and that was kinda battlefield mobility. Why not just remove all NB CC but give them a buff to make them immune to CC (like a pot does) ?

Overall, disappointed to see NB tanks got no help. These were decimated with the Morrowind changes. They have no way of restoring stamina whilst blocking (unlike DK and warden) which means they can't block anywhere near as much. Increased damage and a lot more being kicked around onto your back because of this. Not nice, firstly for your healer and secondly spending your life on your back is not 'battle field mobility'. Previously the amount of magicka they could get back allowed them to cast sap essence a lot, healing the party an amount which compensated for the lack of crowd control the class has. This is effectively removed too now. Overall that single change to siphoning pretty much wiped NB tanking off the map for anything above normal content.

NB also have nothing that scales with max health, another kicker for NB tanks. DK get shields, wardens get a heal and a DD. NB also get no shields.

When I quit NB tanking with morrowind, i switched to DD. it's actually quite depressing to see how may non-NB class skills you use. I use 3 dual wield, 2-3 bow skills and usually an assault skill. This is over half my skills that are not class based

fred4

BohnT wrote: »

When you are running concealed weapon you play with either DW or 2h and both these weapons deal no damage with light attacks and heavy attacks.

That is simply not true when you put it as starkly as that. A 2H weapon has better stats than a staff and it gets 5% extra damage from a passive. I believe DW works out the same. A flame staff will give you 8% extra damage from a passive. The Master-At-Arms CP star applies to both. The upshot, in my build, is that non-crit 2H light attacks slightly outperform my staff light attacks, even though they are physical. For other builds this will vary depending on CP, what type of staff you are comparing it with, and how much you stack spell damage. In my builds spell damage, while higher than weapon damage, tends to be low, because I stack magicka. I can see how a different build would show a greater discrepancy, but IMO the main problem is the critical chance and damage, which 2H/DW light/heavy attacks derive from the physical stats. I basically think this issue was more pronounced in the past, but has already been ameliorated with the introduction of Master-At-Arms.

crobarXIII

I like that they are changing an underused skill in an attempt to give us a new tool in our kit. I play as a NB tank & this just looks like another HoT to add on my bar (Already use 3 refreshing path, funnel health & vigor). It seems to me like they are pushing NB tank to be a HoT tank but the issue is all our class HoT's scale with magicka & since the morrowind patch I now need more stamina than magicka in order to receive stamina from shards. Pre morrowind a NB tank could have 30k+ magicka & 15k stamina & not really have issues with stamina management. Now after morrwind I have under 20k magicka which weakens my heals & on top of that with the sustain nerfs we can't even spam our "bust" heal sap essence to recover after taking huge damage. If a HoT tank is what they want the NB tank to be, I'm all for it but at least give us some healing that scales with health & a magicka morph of bone shield. As a HoT tank I feel that a shield is a must in order to give those HoT's time to heal us back up after taking a lot of damage.

P.S. Please give NB tanks a root..... Now that I think about it, make one of the agony morphs an aoe root the leeches health from the ads

fred4

Zuboko wrote: »

SanTii.92 wrote: »

If you find them so squishy, how about you suit your build to your needs?

I would love to. I have tried several builds ... I can solo dolmens, and world bosses just fine with my sorcerer just fine, but I have yet to be able to do the same with my Nightblade.

What level / CP are you? World bosses run the gamut from easily soloable to very hard. Dolmens, however, should be p*ss easy for anyone with full CP, in my opinion.

Why am I having the problems I'm having?

If you have no problems with your mag (?) sorc, then I don't know. If a light armor build, equip Harness Magicka, Healing Ward and Light's Champion, and your survivability should be comparable. If it's a stamblade, you need Shuffle, Rally and - unfortunately - PvP some to get Vigor. As someone else has mentioned, you might go Dual Wield / 2H. Bloodthirst is an excellent heal, as is Rend. If using bow, use Draining Shot.

I have put more time into my Nightblade and have comparable equipment to my sorcerer but I can do more with my sorcerer than I can my Nightblade. That says exactly what many who develop builds for others to use, all say, the class is extremely hard to play.

I am having a private discussion with Lexxypwns about how squishy magblade really is. The upshot is, it comes down to how you build. You have to pay attention to your bar setups to avail of the extra magicka from slotting a Siphoning ability, and so on. You have to pay attention to what your skill rotation might be, so you avail of the Shadow passive for resistances. Be mindful of where you get your healing from. Refreshing Path will give you healing, resistances, and AOE. Funnel Health / Swallow Soul is invaluable in PvE, and that heal keeps going for 8 seconds while you spam Sap Essence which gives you simultaneous healing in trash pulls. However, for me, in PvP, the major build-change came after comparing my magblade to my magwarden. The warden felt tankier, partially because the class has a healing skill line that you inevitably experiment with. There is nothing stopping your magblade from feeling similar, if you slot resto staff skills, such as Healing Ward and Light's Champion.

One prime example that I have heard, every class but the Nightblade has a damage shield of sorts.

The big emphasis being "of sorts". DK damage shields are minuscule, more of a utility feature so that enemies can't crit you for a second, in PvP. The templar shield, I believe, scales with health and is only associated with tanks. Warden does not have a shield (Shimmering Shield is akin to DK wings, not a shield). Sorcs are unique in that they have a class shield suitable for (magicka-stacking) DPS builds.

aeowulf

crobarXIII wrote: »

I like that they are changing an underused skill in an attempt to give us a new tool in our kit. I play as a NB tank & this just looks like another HoT to add on my bar (Already use 3 refreshing path, funnel health & vigor). It seems to me like they are pushing NB tank to be a HoT tank but the issue is all our class HoT's scale with magicka & since the morrowind patch I now need more stamina than magicka in order to receive stamina from shards. Pre morrowind a NB tank could have 30k+ magicka & 15k stamina & not really have issues with stamina management. Now after morrwind I have under 20k magicka which weakens my heals & on top of that with the sustain nerfs we can't even spam our "bust" heal sap essence to recover after taking huge damage. If a HoT tank is what they want the NB tank to be, I'm all for it but at least give us some healing that scales with health & a magicka morph of bone shield. As a HoT tank I feel that a shield is a must in order to give those HoT's time to heal us back up after taking a lot of damage.

P.S. Please give NB tanks a root..... Now that I think about it, make one of the agony morphs an aoe root the leeches health from the ads

Tanking in ESO requires two key things from a class, resource management & crowd control. NB lack in both now. We used to have superb (albeit random) resource management but the changes to siphoning essentially turned the skill into a heal, not a resource return. For crowd control we've never been excellent either, but agony was part of CC (and a life saver in my early days as a NB) and then there's hysteria. If you used this in PVE the group screams at you for fearing the mobs out of their ground AE. If you don't use talons, you are asked to, like healers used to get asked to use shards. It's expected from a tank. Usually someone pipes up 'he isn't a dk' so the mobs still just run round all over the place. On top of those two requirements, there is group utility. i.e. what can your tank do for the group. We've never really excelled here either. But our resource management really made up for all the other shortcomings. The change to siphon was atrocious, it's barely worth slotting now. It requires light attacks to proc it, which means this skill is useless whilst blocking, which tanks do a lot of.

Some help could be given to NB in the form of minor stamina steal, & put a health cost on one of those morphs. There is a distinct lack of stamina gain skills/sets in the game. There are literally hundreds of ideas on the forums for NB tanks. Just a case of waiting for ZOS to actually work out what their vision of a NB is, and then implement it. Right now we are just somewhere in the middle and it hurts, lots.

actosh

aeowulf wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

I like that they are changing an underused skill in an attempt to give us a new tool in our kit. I play as a NB tank & this just looks like another HoT to add on my bar (Already use 3 refreshing path, funnel health & vigor). It seems to me like they are pushing NB tank to be a HoT tank but the issue is all our class HoT's scale with magicka & since the morrowind patch I now need more stamina than magicka in order to receive stamina from shards. Pre morrowind a NB tank could have 30k+ magicka & 15k stamina & not really have issues with stamina management. Now after morrwind I have under 20k magicka which weakens my heals & on top of that with the sustain nerfs we can't even spam our "bust" heal sap essence to recover after taking huge damage. If a HoT tank is what they want the NB tank to be, I'm all for it but at least give us some healing that scales with health & a magicka morph of bone shield. As a HoT tank I feel that a shield is a must in order to give those HoT's time to heal us back up after taking a lot of damage.

P.S. Please give NB tanks a root..... Now that I think about it, make one of the agony morphs an aoe root the leeches health from the ads

Tanking in ESO requires two key things from a class, resource management & crowd control. NB lack in both now. We used to have superb (albeit random) resource management but the changes to siphoning essentially turned the skill into a heal, not a resource return. For crowd control we've never been excellent either, but agony was part of CC (and a life saver in my early days as a NB) and then there's hysteria. If you used this in PVE the group screams at you for fearing the mobs out of their ground AE. If you don't use talons, you are asked to, like healers used to get asked to use shards. It's expected from a tank. Usually someone pipes up 'he isn't a dk' so the mobs still just run round all over the place. On top of those two requirements, there is group utility. i.e. what can your tank do for the group. We've never really excelled here either. But our resource management really made up for all the other shortcomings. The change to siphon was atrocious, it's barely worth slotting now. It requires light attacks to proc it, which means this skill is useless whilst blocking, which tanks do a lot of.

Some help could be given to NB in the form of minor stamina steal, & put a health cost on one of those morphs. There is a distinct lack of stamina gain skills/sets in the game. There are literally hundreds of ideas on the forums for NB tanks. Just a case of waiting for ZOS to actually work out what their vision of a NB is, and then implement it. Right now we are just somewhere in the middle and it hurts, lots.

Totaly agree.

crobarXIII

aeowulf wrote: »

crobarXIII wrote: »

I like that they are changing an underused skill in an attempt to give us a new tool in our kit. I play as a NB tank & this just looks like another HoT to add on my bar (Already use 3 refreshing path, funnel health & vigor). It seems to me like they are pushing NB tank to be a HoT tank but the issue is all our class HoT's scale with magicka & since the morrowind patch I now need more stamina than magicka in order to receive stamina from shards. Pre morrowind a NB tank could have 30k+ magicka & 15k stamina & not really have issues with stamina management. Now after morrwind I have under 20k magicka which weakens my heals & on top of that with the sustain nerfs we can't even spam our "bust" heal sap essence to recover after taking huge damage. If a HoT tank is what they want the NB tank to be, I'm all for it but at least give us some healing that scales with health & a magicka morph of bone shield. As a HoT tank I feel that a shield is a must in order to give those HoT's time to heal us back up after taking a lot of damage.

P.S. Please give NB tanks a root..... Now that I think about it, make one of the agony morphs an aoe root the leeches health from the ads

Tanking in ESO requires two key things from a class, resource management & crowd control. NB lack in both now. We used to have superb (albeit random) resource management but the changes to siphoning essentially turned the skill into a heal, not a resource return. For crowd control we've never been excellent either, but agony was part of CC (and a life saver in my early days as a NB) and then there's hysteria. If you used this in PVE the group screams at you for fearing the mobs out of their ground AE. If you don't use talons, you are asked to, like healers used to get asked to use shards. It's expected from a tank. Usually someone pipes up 'he isn't a dk' so the mobs still just run round all over the place. On top of those two requirements, there is group utility. i.e. what can your tank do for the group. We've never really excelled here either. But our resource management really made up for all the other shortcomings. The change to siphon was atrocious, it's barely worth slotting now. It requires light attacks to proc it, which means this skill is useless whilst blocking, which tanks do a lot of.

Some help could be given to NB in the form of minor stamina steal, & put a health cost on one of those morphs. There is a distinct lack of stamina gain skills/sets in the game. There are literally hundreds of ideas on the forums for NB tanks. Just a case of waiting for ZOS to actually work out what their vision of a NB is, and then implement it. Right now we are just somewhere in the middle and it hurts, lots.

I know NB tanks need a root which is why & added it in the P.S. & I have also mentioned a few times in the past in NB tank threads. As far as stamina sustain I'm having no issues with just leeching strikes, heavy attacks & with the occasional shard. I'm actually having a harder time sustaining magicka in big pulls due to inner fire cost. Also the buff to swarm mother has helped a lot with ad control but we still need a way to apply cc on a group besides using fear or soul tether.

Tornaad

fred4 wrote: »

Zuboko wrote: »

SanTii.92 wrote: »

If you find them so squishy, how about you suit your build to your needs?

I would love to. I have tried several builds ... I can solo dolmens, and world bosses just fine with my sorcerer just fine, but I have yet to be able to do the same with my Nightblade.

What level / CP are you? World bosses run the gamut from easily soloable to very hard. Dolmens, however, should be p*ss easy for anyone with full CP, in my opinion.

Why am I having the problems I'm having?

If you have no problems with your mag (?) sorc, then I don't know. If a light armor build, equip Harness Magicka, Healing Ward and Light's Champion, and your survivability should be comparable. If it's a stamblade, you need Shuffle, Rally and - unfortunately - PvP some to get Vigor. As someone else has mentioned, you might go Dual Wield / 2H. Bloodthirst is an excellent heal, as is Rend. If using bow, use Draining Shot.

I have put more time into my Nightblade and have comparable equipment to my sorcerer but I can do more with my sorcerer than I can my Nightblade. That says exactly what many who develop builds for others to use, all say, the class is extremely hard to play.

I am having a private discussion with Lexxypwns about how squishy magblade really is. The upshot is, it comes down to how you build. You have to pay attention to your bar setups to avail of the extra magicka from slotting a Siphoning ability, and so on. You have to pay attention to what your skill rotation might be, so you avail of the Shadow passive for resistances. Be mindful of where you get your healing from. Refreshing Path will give you healing, resistances, and AOE. Funnel Health / Swallow Soul is invaluable in PvE, and that heal keeps going for 8 seconds while you spam Sap Essence which gives you simultaneous healing in trash pulls. However, for me, in PvP, the major build-change came after comparing my magblade to my magwarden. The warden felt tankier, partially because the class has a healing skill line that you inevitably experiment with. There is nothing stopping your magblade from feeling similar, if you slot resto staff skills, such as Healing Ward and Light's Champion.

One prime example that I have heard, every class but the Nightblade has a damage shield of sorts.

The big emphasis being "of sorts". DK damage shields are minuscule, more of a utility feature so that enemies can't crit you for a second, in PvP. The templar shield, I believe, scales with health and is only associated with tanks. Warden does not have a shield (Shimmering Shield is akin to DK wings, not a shield). Sorcs are unique in that they have a class shield suitable for (magicka-stacking) DPS builds.

Thank you for acknowledging the problems that exist. I'm now CP 500ish. I got up to CP 400ish before switching to a sorcerer. My Nightblade is a Stamina Nightblade that I am trying to build out for PvE. I'm going to give it a try again after this patch comes out and see if I can get it to work. I've been slowly trying to experiment with build options, but it is really discouraging.
I will again mention that I know part of my problems are user error. I just also realize that it is only part of the problem. And I can only fix my part.

Maryal

I tried out Agony on PTS and was NOT impressed. The only way this revised version of Agony makes any sense is if NBs comprise the vast majority of the insanely high-health/un-killable builds. Barring that unlikely statistic, the only other reason I can see for the constant ... 'lack of love' for the NB class has to be psychological (IMO). I'm serious.

Think about it ... we are given this new agony skill ... a skill that requires us to damage ourselves in order to give health to an ally, however, while we are given this new skill, our best defensive skill, fear, gets nerfed. Think about this a little more. Say we use this new and improved agony, and in so doing, our health will takes a nose dive. Sure, we can cast Vigor, but Vigor is not a big-burst instant heal which means there will be a period of time after casting agony that we will be quite vulnerable (due to the drop in our health)

Whoever was in charge of making this change to agony, knew very well that when a NB used this skill it would result in a (short) period of vulnerability. Knowing this, they nevertheless chose to nerf our best defensive skill, 'fear.'

But ... the 'trap' morph of fear got buffed you say? How much protection do you think standing on your fear trap is going to offer ... a trap that the enemy will now be able to see? Part of the success of using fear as a defensive skill has always been the element of 'surprise.' Sure, an enemy may know you have the ability to use fear, but they never knew exactly when you were going to use it, and when you did use it, it was 'instant.' You don't get any of that with a highly visible trap that takes 3 seconds to arm (or however long it takes).

Cloak you say? I've read on the forums that some people say that you can cloak in order to avoid the damage to your health from casting Agony. I tried cloaking during that time but I didn't have any success getting into cloak ... not while the damage was occurring anyway. There was a lot of lag, maybe that messed up my cloak, I'll have to try again to be sure. Besides, there are way too many things that break cloak, it just isn't reliable.

DDuke

shinikaze wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Ok, having done a little testing on PTS:

Malevolent Offering - Healthy Offering/Shrewd Offering
Overall impression: (unsurprisingly) very disappointed.

The Good:

• You can remove the damage portion by cloaking.
• Heal is very close to Vigor in terms of strength, and lasts twice as long.
• Costs nothing.

The Bad:

• Can't be used to proc "when you take damage" sets (e.g. Legion, Storm Knight etc).
• Similar to above, can't be used to stack Wrath heavy armor passive.

The Ugly:

• Doesn't scale with highest resources (despite costing nothing), only with magicka/spell damage - another useless Siphoning skill for stamina builds.

Suggestions on how to make it atleast usable:

• Make it proc "when you take damage" sets & passives.
• Make it scale with stamina & weapon damage as well if they're your higher resource.

P.S. Can we expect any changes to Power Extraction this PTS, @ZOS_GinaBruno ?

Can you try wearing the set that raise 400 spell/weap damage to class skills? how much is the hot in pvp for a full stamina nb with this set up? thank you (really exited about class hot, even if its a weak one)

Now all i need is power extraction to proc major brutality outside battle *PLEASE*

Tooltip before equipping Innate Axiom: 8770/10s (877/s)
Tooltip after equipping Innate Axiom (+1096 magicka & 400 spell damage): 10620/10s (1062/s)

For comparison:
Vigor before: 11 892/5s (2378/s)
Vigor after: 11 166/5s (2233/s)


As you can see, Offering is really bad on a stamina character, even if you equip some of these "hybrid" sets.

Main issue is that you'll have very little magicka from enchants/attributes, and there's no good "hybrid sets" for jewelry that a stamblade can use (as Shackle & Axiom are both crafted).

DDuke

I also tested how different modifiers affect Offering:

While having points in Master-at-Arms (other CPs don't change the tooltip) or casting Relentless Focus does increase the tooltip of how much damage you'd take from the skill, this seems to be a tooltip bug only as Combat Metrics didn't register any change in tick dmg after applying Minor Berserk buff or adding/removing points from Master-at-Arms.

Similarly, casting a damage reducing skill (i.e. Bolstering Darkness) didn't reduce the damage taken - so it seems to be 100% tied to the amount healed.

Edit:
Did more testing, and it seems that while you can cloak during the effect (it doesn't break cloak), you'll still take damage from it. Disappointing.

Zer0oo

DDuke wrote: »

I also tested how different modifiers affect Offering:

While having points in Master-at-Arms (other CPs don't change the tooltip) or casting Relentless Focus does increase the tooltip of how much damage you'd take from the skill, this seems to be a tooltip bug only as Combat Metrics didn't register any change in tick dmg after applying Minor Berserk buff or adding/removing points from Master-at-Arms.

Similarly, casting a damage reducing skill (i.e. Bolstering Darkness) didn't reduce the damage taken - so it seems to be 100% tied to the amount healed.

The damage you get should be oblivion damage and should follow the same rule and bugs(increased tooltips from cp and other buffs).

SanTii.92 wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

The heal for Malevolent Offering is actually quite high but still i don't see any real use for it. Why would i use as healer a skill that could kill you?

It's called playing smart. Yes it could kill you, but also the value of such a strong hot is inmense. Being able to support a group without sacrificing many skills into it allows you to pick more offensive skills. You could pretty much support a group of four with agony, funnel health and healing ward, and maybe some healing ults just by yourself under many circumstance. Honestly, as a mag warden main i'm quite jealous.

Still why should i use it? If i use rapid reg i get alittle less healing on one person but alot more total healing since it hits more than 1 person and i don't risk anything. (The only reason to use this skill would be if i don't want to use a resto)

Also as warden you have natures embrace which almost works the same way just better(you can target an ally and both get an insane hot just no damage for you), so i really don't know why you would want that skill.

DDuke

Zer0oo wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

I also tested how different modifiers affect Offering:

While having points in Master-at-Arms (other CPs don't change the tooltip) or casting Relentless Focus does increase the tooltip of how much damage you'd take from the skill, this seems to be a tooltip bug only as Combat Metrics didn't register any change in tick dmg after applying Minor Berserk buff or adding/removing points from Master-at-Arms.

Similarly, casting a damage reducing skill (i.e. Bolstering Darkness) didn't reduce the damage taken - so it seems to be 100% tied to the amount healed.

The damage you get should be oblivion damage and should follow the same rule and bugs(increased tooltips from cp and other buffs).

It should based on every other source of oblivion damage, but it didn't. It kept ticking for precisely 306 no matter how I spent my CPs and whether I had Minor Berserk or not.

D0PAMINE

DDuke wrote: »

KingJ wrote: »

The agony change is just bad why use a heal that hurts you.Change the base morph to a HOT that attach to you or a ally and one of the morph give minor mending.

You can cast it on yourself, meaning it'll both damage and heal you. It can be used to get Minor Mending as well as stacking Wrath & proccing "when you take dmg" sets such as Legion & Fury (latter only if the dmg can crit) and if the heal portion outweighs the dmg taken portion, that's pretty good.

Well said, I didnt consider that it could be used to proc certain sets. Interesting.