Nightblade Sap Tank... still dead?

MacCait

I left the game after Morrowind Patch completely destroyed my main character, my Nightblade Sap tank as well as the nonsense in changing Earthtear cavern.

Have recently returned...

Are Nightblade Tanks still dead in the water?

Would appreciate your thoughts

EDIT...UPDATE April 2018: After returning to the game and testing out NB tanking again, I was pleased to discover it wasn't dead, just a bit wounded . In fact my old build still worked, though it is a lot harder to use through:
A: The general overzealous nerf to sustain probably hit tanks the hardest, generally making tanking much more of a struggle
B: The specific nerf to siphoning strikes/sttacks meant that the NB tank has to choose the resource they want back, either Stam or Mag, whereas before we got a little bit of each.
C: The price increase of skills, especially Strife, means that you run out of magicka quicker.

I've been having fun with my NB tanks over the last few months. They definately feel weaker, and are a bit more of a struggle to play, which is such a shame. Compared with the super easy to use 3-button DK tank that can take on any content, the NB tank is even more of a struggle than before the war-on-sustain, but I won't give up on it. The NB tank is still my favorite of all my tanks. I still even prefer it to my DK trials tank, but it is certainly not what it used to be.

It feels weaker. What made it stong was its ability to heal through the damage (using strife, refreshing path, sap essence) instead of the usual constant stand and block approach of other tanks. That's what makes the NB tank so fun as it's much more a fighter than a blocker, and even contributed to a group heal... but that has for sure been hit very hard by the Morrowind nerfs to sustain and the increase of price to NB skills such as Strife.

I'm excited to see what happens with tanking in general in Summerset, but especially with regards to my beloved NB tank. I like the sound of the self-heal being added under Dark Cloak, but am also concerned the NB tank will lose what made it unique; the ability to heal through damage by fighting (strife, sap essence, refreshing path), rather than a standard self heal. The proposed ADDITIONAL increase once again to Strife obviously has many NB tank players a bit worried, and seems totally unnesesary.

Overall in Summerset, I would really love to see all non-DK tanks get a big boost, enabling them to even become a main trials tank. I have a DK trials tank, and honestly it just seems super easy to use and I get very bored of that tanking style. I would love to see more NB, Templar, Sorc, and Warden tanks able to tackle trials not just as an off-tank, but also as a main trial tank.

I understand that ZOS always want one class to do something better than the others, but the gap between a DK tank and the others is far too great. This limits everyone to using a generic meta DK build if they want to main tank vet trials... That's just boring IMO.

Long Live the NB Tank

timborggrenlarsenb16_ESO

Yes & No - Go all LA (Again ) and go + for regain Magican. And you are " okay "

MacCait

timborggrenlarsenb16_ESO wrote: »

Yes & No - Go all LA (Again ) and go + for regain Magican. And you are " okay "

Thanks... bit out of touch with the lingo... LA?

Can you elaborate?

Am faced with putting Champion Points in and as my old build was destroyed... no idea what works now... if anything

Thanks

Jitterbug

It can be done but nowhere near to the power of yore.

5 bahara 5 twilight (I think, the 10% heal one) or leeching and malu.

LA is light armor.

timborggrenlarsenb16_ESO

MacCait wrote: »

timborggrenlarsenb16_ESO wrote: »

Yes & No - Go all LA (Again ) and go + for regain Magican. And you are " okay "

Thanks... bit out of touch with the lingo... LA?

Can you elaborate?

Am faced with putting Champion Points in and as my old build was destroyed... no idea what works now... if anything

Thanks

LA= Light Armor

Blackleopardex

Ehm... The nightblade tank itself is very much alive and was never dead. However the 'sap-tank' as you say, meaning I assume: The more targets, the more sap hits, the more stamina siphoning restores.. Then yes it has been dead since they changed the skill. Sad to say the true sap-tank and the special way it worked is dead and will probably stay dead.

Aisle9

1) No, don't go Light Armor.
2) Saptanks are indeed dead.
3) Funneltank is really fun.

This is my setup:

5 Bahraha's Curse.
5 Livewire.

Situational:
2 Swarm Mother (where there are adds)
Master S&B (last boss)

Backbar
Maelstrom Lightning Staff.

1 Cost reduction Glyph, 2 Magicka Regen Glyph.

Leeching Strikes.
Replace Sap Essence with Funnel Health.

I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it's very active as the resource sustain from Leeching Strikes requires you to light attack, as it doesn't proc on skills anymore.

It's particularly fun when you're running with 3 Stam DDs.

If you want to use Sap Essence instead of Funnel Health:

3 Cost Reduction Glyphs and Siphoning Attacks. Restore stamina with heavy attacks.

Have fun.

Nemesis7884

Aisle9 wrote: »

1) No, don't go Light Armor.
2) Saptanks are indeed dead.
3) Funneltank is really fun.

This is my setup:

5 Bahraha's Curse.
5 Livewire.

Situational:
2 Swarm Mother (where there are adds)
Master S&B (last boss)

Backbar
Maelstrom Lightning Staff.

1 Cost reduction Glyph, 2 Magicka Regen Glyph.

Leeching Strikes.
Replace Sap Essence with Funnel Health.

I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it's very active as the resource sustain from Leeching Strikes requires you to light attack, as it doesn't proc on skills anymore.

It's particularly fun when you're running with 3 Stam DDs.

If you want to use Sap Essence instead of Funnel Health:

3 Cost Reduction Glyphs and Siphoning Attacks. Restore stamina with heavy attacks.

Have fun.

using a very similar set up except the master weapons cause i am a pleb player without friends

Aisle9

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Aisle9 wrote: »

1) No, don't go Light Armor.
2) Saptanks are indeed dead.
3) Funneltank is really fun.

This is my setup:

5 Bahraha's Curse.
5 Livewire.

Situational:
2 Swarm Mother (where there are adds)
Master S&B (last boss)

Backbar
Maelstrom Lightning Staff.

1 Cost reduction Glyph, 2 Magicka Regen Glyph.

Leeching Strikes.
Replace Sap Essence with Funnel Health.

I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it's very active as the resource sustain from Leeching Strikes requires you to light attack, as it doesn't proc on skills anymore.

It's particularly fun when you're running with 3 Stam DDs.

If you want to use Sap Essence instead of Funnel Health:

3 Cost Reduction Glyphs and Siphoning Attacks. Restore stamina with heavy attacks.

Have fun.

using a very similar set up except the master weapons cause i am a pleb player without friends

Swap to a different monster set, problem solved.

Bloodspawn, Lord Warden or the 1piece Chokethorn/1piece Shadowrend combo of the classical tank setup.

Or Maelstrom S&B also works.

The only reason I swap is because Swarm Mother is useless if there's nothing to pull, but there's plenty of healing coming from livewire and bahraha, so the extra is just icing.

WillhelmBlack

Think you'll have to wait for the Necromancer class to come out.

Sabbathius

MacCait wrote: »

Thanks... bit out of touch with the lingo... LA?

Nobody is in touch with the lingo in this game.

LA = Light Armor. Unless LA = Light Attack. Unless LA = Lethal Arrow.

victoriana-blue

MacCait wrote: »

I left the game after Morrowind Patch completely destroyed my main character, my Nightblade Sap tank as well as the nonsense in changing Earthtear cavern.

Have recently returned...

Are Nightblade Tanks still dead in the water?

Would appreciate your thoughts

There have been some nice changes to path and the shadow passives (making it easier to keep up major ward and resolve), but we're nowhere near what we could do pre-Morrowind. Sap essence is good to grab aggro at the start of a fight or for emergencies, but it's too expensive to spam anymore. There have been more "make blocking strategic" changes/nerfs too.

I still do vet dungeons with my nb tank, but there's not much room for error and you need to be well above average to run trials with it. My gear is usually Bahraha's Curse + Swarm Mother and a flex set: I've played around with Livewire, Leeching (not as effective on my hybrid tank as it used to be), Alteration Mastery, and Resilient Yokeda. Woeler has a build that uses SPC in dungeons, giving healers more options. Frost staff backbar is still useful for blockade and the interrupt, not to mention the resource swap and the ultimate is a nice nuke on trash enemies. The character is flexible enough to make pug dungeons a cinch - I'm not dependent on a good healer and the heals/dots top up the dps.

ParaNostram

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Think you'll have to wait for the Necromancer class to come out.

Have to wait a long time for that then. Necromancer is unlikely this year.

Silver_Strider

Does Alteration Mastery still reduce Block Cost or did they fix that permanently?

Was tempted to try 5 Shacklebreaker with 5 Alteration Mastery to see how well that would work for Sap Tanking but if AM doesn't reduce Block Cost, I might try Amberplasm instead.

Fuxo

I have a NB tank with heavy bahraha and light fortified brass. It's only for dungeons though. The point of wearing light is to have some penetration to take the full advantage of bahraha's heal, which depends on the damage done. The tooltip is a bit misleading and the heal is usually lower if the damage is not high enough.

thedude33

Don't be a sap. Try another class

MacCait

Ahh sad day... I had hoped after the Morrowind debacle and enough time past that they would of fixed the Nightblade tank and made them viable again... such a shame.

I thought the idea of ESO was that every class can do everything.

Seems like the heavy attack thing is still current? That's one reason I left, stripped the joy from the game... after a brief visit, can't see anything to keep me here still.

MacCait

thedude33 wrote: »

Don't be a sap. Try another class

Yip tried al other classes, just don't like them as much as the Nightblade

Chaos2088

I've played with a few NB tanks in the game, they are effective if you know what you are doing.

Alot of people will moan at you, but hey you paid for the game as much as anyone else...if you wanna play it, play it.

Currently the game is bent towards DK and Ward tanks. But they do on plan on delivering the any class any role....just a case of when. lol

Tommy_The_Gun

I think this is as close as you can get to a sap tank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBstBT-1dHI

Girl_Number8

MacCait wrote: »

thedude33 wrote: »

Don't be a sap. Try another class

Yip tried al other classes, just don't like them as much as the Nightblade

Sap tankys are great Stick with what you want. No they are not strong as they were but they are still around. So it may take some work but since you already know the class you are already a step ahead, Good luck

ArchMikem

I actually got teamed with a NightBlade Tank the other day in a Dungeon. They're pretty rare but then I saw that guy.

thedude33

Trying to theorycraft magblade sap style tank for pvp in 2 man group.

_Salty_

I was a sap tank since console launch. Every single patch kicks them square in the crotch. I've moved on.

ccfeeling

End game content, yes they are dead
Else, they are still fine

Voxicity

MacCait wrote: »

Ahh sad day... I had hoped after the Morrowind debacle and enough time past that they would of fixed the Nightblade tank and made them viable again... such a shame.

I thought the idea of ESO was that every class can do everything.

Seems like the heavy attack thing is still current? That's one reason I left, stripped the joy from the game... after a brief visit, can't see anything to keep me here still.

1) Nightblade tanks are 'viable'. Warden bow bow healers are viable if you're a good player. They just aren't 'meta' and neither is a Nightblade tank.

2) Every class can do everything. Some classes are better than others. It would be absolutely impossible (without some sort of miracle) to have every class identically 'good' at every possible role in every possible situation. There are far too many variables for that to be a thing

3) Many classes can run a light attack rotation (magplar, magnb, magdk) just with a heavy attack here and there, or none at all. ZOS are changing off balance next patch in that it will give much more heavy attack resource return, but be up only at certain periods. Meaning you should (in ZOS' intended direction) be able to run a light attack rotation and heavy attack when boss is off balanced, on all classes. Whether or not this is the case, I guess we'll see when it hits live and everything fizzles out

efster

NB tanks are just fine almost everywhere -- even "sap tanking" still works, after a fashion. You just have to work harder at it now.

aeowulf

Dead, no more sap tanks.

NB tanks exist, as you can see from this thread, but I've not seen a single one in a (vet or otherwise) dungeon in the last 6 months They lack in some key areas, especially crowd control. Sap used to kinda make up for that as mobs could get close enough to hit you (unlike when rooted from dk, warden, sorc) and others, so the heal kinda evened things out nicely. Our fears are the kind of reverse of crowd control, and mass is only two targets now. The other morph takes three secs to arm, which is longer than most pve fights these days. There are also resource changes, executioner may be broken, and leeching has an upfront cost so it can land you in trouble if you need resources fast - it takes about 9 secs to break even if you light attack every second, for example. They have become exceptionally tough to play now, too tough for a game

The real issue is the other tanks are so good, everyone is now used to grouping with a dk or warden, and know the play style they need. NB tanks were always different, and I'd have no idea how to play with one tanking for a group now.

I think Zos want to split each Skill line for every class into distinct categories, very interested in what happens in this space.

There are a few underplayed combos in this game, dk, sorc & nb healers too, although the latter is apparently good in theory, the targeting of their main heal is not going to be easy in a trial, I think they would need to stand with a clear view of a tank.

MacCait

Thanks for all the answers

Doctordarkspawn

@MacCait

Make it simple for you.

If you use a suggested setup you'll do allright. But be aware that every patch has new content designed for block tanks, and they keep doing their best to relegate any sort of healing or team support to normal.

Basicly if you dont want to tank anything above normal? Dont come back. In fact if you want to have any build freedom at all, stick to normal, or just dont play. This game has no build freedom.

MacCait

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

@MacCait

Make it simple for you.

If you use a suggested setup you'll do allright. But be aware that every patch has new content designed for block tanks, and they keep doing their best to relegate any sort of healing or team support to normal.

Basicly if you dont want to tank anything above normal? Dont come back. In fact if you want to have any build freedom at all, stick to normal, or just dont play. This game has no build freedom.

Pretty much why I left... shame... I was hoping after nearly a year things would have improved, but chatting to folk online today I'm hearing people are still not happy with all the sustain changes, heavy attacking, and now the changes to block. Seems like the game is getting harder and totally losing its soul and all the fun that the game used to have. If its not fun, I think I'll stay away