PTS Update 18 - Feedback Thread for Nightblade Balance

Silver_Strider

Why are people still talking about this as though ZOS is going to change anything?
They already stated there isn't going to be any class balance changes so the only things we can do is provide feedback on the skills that did get changed. Nothing else in NB's toolkit is getting changed so enough with "Incap needs a nerf" or "Buff Siphoning Attacks" as those aren't getting changed this patch.

Debilitate will continue to be lackluster solely based on the fact that its weaker than Crippling Blast and in almost no situation will it be run as its a DPS loss on anything of importance. It could refund 200% of its cost and people would still most likely use Crippling Blast. It needs a new effect entirely but that's not happening in this patch (or any patch for the next year I'm sure)

Dark Shade just needs to apply its debuff often enough in AoE situations for nearly 100% uptime so making it occur every 4 seconds would be the ideal solution. That's all it needs.

Dark Cloak is fine, other than crit scaling on it. Change it to use the higher crit value and its golden.

Strife needs something. A slightly lower cost than suggested, maybe a buff to the heal component of it, SOMETHING. Right now, only NB healers will ever use it as Healers typically have more sustain anyways that it will be largely inconsequential to them but it feels wrong to nerf it based solely on DPS arguments since its not just a DPS tool but a healing one as well. PvP NB won't drop Strife as it's still very useful in self sustaining yourself since you'll need to use less resources in the long run to heal yourself since your offense ability is still doing that. This only really hurts Magblade DPS in PvE and NB tanks but the former can switch for Force Pulse or Imbued Weapons while the later is kind of screwed as they'll have to drop it from their bar entirely to make room for Dark Cloak, reducing their ultimate regen

Path change was unnecessary. Damage was already lower than WoE and the change just made Refreshing Path better than Twisting as the damage difference is so poultry, the heal just outshines it. At the same time, this is a nerf to NB Healers and Tanks as Refreshing Path took a hit for really no reason. Please, at least consider a cost reduction on Path, if nothing else.

Bolstering Darkness needs to be changed to a placeable ground based AoE, similar to Nova. Having it centered on the caster means that it would be incredibly risky (and foolhardy) for anyone to go to the Tank's location to retrieve the buff. If anything, it makes much more sense for a Healer to run the skill since they're in a much better position to rep the full benefits of it; everyone takes less damage, it has a heal synergy and it can be placed wear the majority of the group is, instead of having the group come to the Ultimate. Ofc, as long as Warhorn is around, neither NB Tanks nor Healers will be able to run this ultimate regardless but that just shows how overtune Warhorn is.

NyassaV

Minalan wrote: »

L

WhipSmartMcoy wrote: »

Been a main Nb since console launch and I honestly LOVE where the Nb is. I honestly think it should be the poster child of balance in this game lol.

But anyways;
Incap is perfectly fine
The ulti gen on SH seems pointless to me since Nb already has strong ulti gen. Maybe replace that effect with something more useful, like a snare or a dot? It needs something to compete with Incap.

Assasins blade

The problem is that by ‘Poster Child For Balance’ you Nightblades usually mean ‘for us’ and specifically ‘not for you or anyone else’.

Unavoidable instant death combos? Yep. Sorc has one now, let’s see how long it takes for nightblades to cry foul. Oh wait...

it kinda has two. The meteor one and the overload one

Subversus

NyassaV wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

L

WhipSmartMcoy wrote: »

Been a main Nb since console launch and I honestly LOVE where the Nb is. I honestly think it should be the poster child of balance in this game lol.

But anyways;
Incap is perfectly fine
The ulti gen on SH seems pointless to me since Nb already has strong ulti gen. Maybe replace that effect with something more useful, like a snare or a dot? It needs something to compete with Incap.

Assasins blade

The problem is that by ‘Poster Child For Balance’ you Nightblades usually mean ‘for us’ and specifically ‘not for you or anyone else’.

Unavoidable instant death combos? Yep. Sorc has one now, let’s see how long it takes for nightblades to cry foul. Oh wait...

it kinda has two. The meteor one and the overload one

Whereas, funnily enough, magblade has no unavoidable instant deaths

Avran_Sylt

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Subversus

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Oh damn, fair point.

And yeah, now that I think of it it does have a one shot combo but it requires a lot of people to buff up proxy damage. But to be fair, it is avoidable because all the potatoes have to do is not stack.

BohnT

Subversus wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Oh damn, fair point.

And yeah, now that I think of it it does have a one shot combo but it requires a lot of people to buff up proxy damage. But to be fair, it is avoidable because all the potatoes have to do is not stack.

Oh there are more things:
One shot meteor into fear. (With the right setup you can hit 19-26k meteors on any player) and man it's so awesome when someone just dies from that meteor and leaves nothing behind other than a pile of ash
Incap into will from hide is also enough to kill many players, not duel builds but in OW
Against vamps: infused prismatic torugs+incap with random skill can one shot almost any of the khajiit snipers in cyro

Subversus

BohnT wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Oh damn, fair point.

And yeah, now that I think of it it does have a one shot combo but it requires a lot of people to buff up proxy damage. But to be fair, it is avoidable because all the potatoes have to do is not stack.

Oh there are more things:
One shot meteor into fear. (With the right setup you can hit 19-26k meteors on any player) and man it's so awesome when someone just dies from that meteor and leaves nothing behind other than a pile of ash
Incap into will from hide is also enough to kill many players, not duel builds but in OW
Against vamps: infused prismatic torugs+incap with random skill can one shot almost any of the khajiit snipers in cyro

One shot meteor doesn’t work ever since they removed the cast time on merciless. You can break and block and you’ll block the merc. Meteor on its own doesn’t do much anymore

Same with incap > merciless , you can break it very reliably if you know what they’re doing.

Minalan

Subversus wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Oh damn, fair point.

And yeah, now that I think of it it does have a one shot combo but it requires a lot of people to buff up proxy damage. But to be fair, it is avoidable because all the potatoes have to do is not stack.

Oh there are more things:
One shot meteor into fear. (With the right setup you can hit 19-26k meteors on any player) and man it's so awesome when someone just dies from that meteor and leaves nothing behind other than a pile of ash
Incap into will from hide is also enough to kill many players, not duel builds but in OW
Against vamps: infused prismatic torugs+incap with random skill can one shot almost any of the khajiit snipers in cyro

One shot meteor doesn’t work ever since they removed the cast time on merciless. You can break and block and you’ll block the merc. Meteor on its own doesn’t do much anymore

Same with incap > merciless , you can break it very reliably if you know what they’re doing.

Caluurions was absolutely made for Magblade ganking, I’m sure you can work it in with a fear and incap or merciless combo that should kill just about anyone. Mix that with sloads set or Zaan and it’s going to send plenty of people running to the forums to demand more Magblade nerfs.

And you know they will.

Subversus

Minalan wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Subversus

Technically it does, but it requires a hell of a lot more setup, bar cost, is much more prone to failure, and usually needs Caluurion.

Rapids into Merciless -> Proxy Det -> Cloak to enemy -> Concealed Weapon (Stun + OB) -> Incap (Proxy Det + Caluurion)

(It's not really possible to do this in duels, btw, mainly Cyrodiil ganking)

Oh damn, fair point.

And yeah, now that I think of it it does have a one shot combo but it requires a lot of people to buff up proxy damage. But to be fair, it is avoidable because all the potatoes have to do is not stack.

Oh there are more things:
One shot meteor into fear. (With the right setup you can hit 19-26k meteors on any player) and man it's so awesome when someone just dies from that meteor and leaves nothing behind other than a pile of ash
Incap into will from hide is also enough to kill many players, not duel builds but in OW
Against vamps: infused prismatic torugs+incap with random skill can one shot almost any of the khajiit snipers in cyro

One shot meteor doesn’t work ever since they removed the cast time on merciless. You can break and block and you’ll block the merc. Meteor on its own doesn’t do much anymore

Same with incap > merciless , you can break it very reliably if you know what they’re doing.

Caluurions was absolutely made for Magblade ganking, I’m sure you can work it in with a fear and incap or merciless combo that should kill just about anyone. Mix that with sloads set or Zaan and it’s going to send plenty of people running to the forums to demand more Magblade nerfs.

And you know they will.

Yeah calu is very strong with magblade, due to the travel time synergy.

It’s strong on sorc too though, very strong actually. @Murador178 has been wiping the floor with literally (LITERALLY) everyone on the pts on his sorc with calurion.

Kilandros

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

BohnT

Kilandros wrote: »

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

I Support that.
for balance reasons we need less counterplay

Nevasca

Kilandros wrote: »

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

I hope you are trolling.

KingJ

BohnT wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

I Support that.
for balance reasons we need less counterplay

Well Zos hate conterplay so I see wrobel doing it.

Did they every nerf potion enchants @BohnT or is it still possible to get 21 second cooldown on pots.

BohnT

KingJ wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

I Support that.
for balance reasons we need less counterplay

Well Zos hate conterplay so I see wrobel doing it.

Did they every nerf potion enchants @BohnT or is it still possible to get 21 second cooldown on pots.

Still possible and will make it 100% into live version.
Will be very nice to see Argonians only in pvp to nerf them in Update 19 to their 1.5 performance

Minalan

KingJ wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

Assassin's Will proc should be undodgeable.

I Support that.
for balance reasons we need less counterplay

Well Zos hate conterplay so I see wrobel doing it.

Did they every nerf potion enchants @BohnT or is it still possible to get 21 second cooldown on pots.

Yep, they can get up over 50% uptime on immovable. Nearly Permanent effects on a lot of other things.

If ZOS wasn’t so bad at their job, this wouldn’t be half as funny.

Who knows if it’s intended or not, when you can STILL hit people with 50K empowered overload shots.

KingJ

@ZOS_GinaBruno can you ask @ZOS_Wrobel to make sure he fix Dark cloak so the Heal scales off of max crit instead of just magic crit.Some Nb tanks like myself have higher Weapon crit than spell crit and as it is right now wouldn't be all that useful if it can't crit.

Nevasca

KingJ wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno can you ask @ZOS_Wrobel to make sure he fix Dark cloak so the Heal scales off of max crit instead of just magic crit.Some Nb tanks like myself have higher Weapon crit than spell crit and as it is right now wouldn't be all that useful if it can't crit.

While we are at that, can we remove the crouch animation? Looks sily when you aren't actually going invisible.

KingJ

Littlebluelizard wrote: »

KingJ wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno can you ask @ZOS_Wrobel to make sure he fix Dark cloak so the Heal scales off of max crit instead of just magic crit.Some Nb tanks like myself have higher Weapon crit than spell crit and as it is right now wouldn't be all that useful if it can't crit.

While we are at that, can we remove the crouch animation? Looks sily when you aren't actually going invisible.

Yes please.

Feanor

Littlebluelizard wrote: »

KingJ wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno can you ask @ZOS_Wrobel to make sure he fix Dark cloak so the Heal scales off of max crit instead of just magic crit.Some Nb tanks like myself have higher Weapon crit than spell crit and as it is right now wouldn't be all that useful if it can't crit.

While we are at that, can we remove the crouch animation? Looks sily when you aren't actually going invisible.

That would be a nerf to NBs class teabag abilities though.

Ragnarock41

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Ragnarock41

Yeah, which is why comparing BE to Strife isn’t a good idea. Even comparing Crippling Grasp to BE is crap. BE is most closely associated with Twin Slashes.

But with people so gung-*** about comparing strife to BE I wanted to specifically target the other parts of the skill.

What exactly is your reasoning for clarifying the heavy melee focus of the DK? I might not understand your point of view.

my reasoning is very simple. melee versus ranged. The mechanics in this game are always against melee players, both in pve and pvp. While embers have a heal with it, its not going to be as good as having blade cloak on a stam DD.

Normally I don't even care about this but seeing magblades asking for embers nerf is completely ridicilous to me.

I'm not asking for this to be nerfed,but then again I play mdk too.

Of all the things mDK has, I really don't understand why anyone would ask for an embers nerf. The stamina version is a very average dot in pvp, and the magicka version is only solid in pvp due to the heal on it. And as for PvE goes , who cares really?
Changing the cost would serve no purpose other than making a few angry magblade mains happy because they somehow believe this serves justice or something.

NyassaV

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Ragnarock41

Yeah, which is why comparing BE to Strife isn’t a good idea. Even comparing Crippling Grasp to BE is crap. BE is most closely associated with Twin Slashes.

But with people so gung-*** about comparing strife to BE I wanted to specifically target the other parts of the skill.

What exactly is your reasoning for clarifying the heavy melee focus of the DK? I might not understand your point of view.

my reasoning is very simple. melee versus ranged. The mechanics in this game are always against melee players, both in pve and pvp. While embers have a heal with it, its not going to be as good as having blade cloak on a stam DD.

Normally I don't even care about this but seeing magblades asking for embers nerf is completely ridicilous to me.

I'm not asking for this to be nerfed,but then again I play mdk too.

Of all the things mDK has, I really don't understand why anyone would ask for an embers nerf. The stamina version is a very average dot in pvp, and the magicka version is only solid in pvp due to the heal on it. And as for PvE goes , who cares really?
Changing the cost would serve no purpose other than making a few angry magblade mains happy because they somehow believe this serves justice or something.

Burning embers spam nets 4.5k healing per second and 6.5k DPS
Strife spam nets 2.5k healing per second and 9k DPS

This sounds balanced to me ^ Next patch it will not be the same though

Both of these were done on a dunmer without any buffs/passives. Only light armor skill line passives