Still No Strife Change

NyassaV

I was told to wait until week three and here we are. The skill remains to costly for what it offers. I'm tired of the class getting worse and worse but at the same time "Easier to play." A 40% cost increase is unacceptable.

So Magblade isn't really over preforming much in comparison to stamblade in PvP Environments. I'm honestly shocked to see Magblade gets hit with a strife nerf (and stamblade still has ez sustain). Which is the one thing ZoS could do to actually truly annoy me. With this change to strife the skill is no longer really unique anymore and it doesn't even fix the issue of them over-preforming in PvE environments. It literally only punishes solo players and people who PvP. Many roleplayers (myself included) started playing a nightblade two years ago cuz strife was a fun skill and not overly punishing. Most those people are still very casual and will probably wish they choose something else to play. In addition to this most tanks use this skill for healing so the cheap cost is very necessary for them, another skill that tanks use for healing is burning embers which is FAR cheaper than strife is on live. A solution would be to make Strife cost about as much or slightly less then concealed weapon. That way the uniqueness of the skill in preserved and it still does less damage than Concealed Weapon and Force pulse. I can get behind a cost increase but the current amount that is proposed is pretty stupid as it doesn't do anything but hurt an audience it's not supposed to. If they'd make it unreflectable, increase the base healing/make it's healing done it's own value as opposed to a percentage of damage done, allow Strife's individual ticks to crit again/make the HOT value not refresh each time it's cast but instead when it's value becomes higher, it'd still be worth slotting as a defensive counterpart to Force Pulse's pure damage. But hey lets give mDK more sustain and make it even more powerful than it already is (Which is fine, but not if strife has the cost of force-pulse).

Now Force Pulse and Strife cost the same, so why would anyone use Strife instead of the objectively better Force Pulse (which isn't even a class ability)? Alright, so you lose out on a little bit of extra healing, whoop-dee-doo unless you're in solo content or a bad group. I get it that you can tweak your setup to still use Strife like you used to (kinda), but why bother using it when Force Pulse is a better version that costs the same? Can anyone explain why they would still want to use Strife instead of Force Pulse now? It's really getting old with this "community asks for a slight tweak, ZOS swings the nerf sledgehammer" business.

Sustain is what made the magicka nightblade what it is. It is part of their identity. Changing that drastically effects it. Especially because they buffed the DKs sustain which is pretty stupid seeing as DK has and always will be powerful no mater what ZOS does to it.

Let's not forget in PvP strife is reflectable while crushing shock isn't. TBH that doesn't even make sense since I am stealing life from someone not throwing something at them!

You are trying to change magblades PvE preformance but really all you do is affect PvP. You can still sustain perfectly fine in a PvE environment with Strife as a spammable but in PvP magblade is getting shafted due to how Siphoning attacks works now. A Magblade could use leeching strikes to help them sustain their stamina becuase strife was relatively inexpensive however now that will no longer be a very viable option thus magblade cannot sustain anymore. Reverting Siphoning attacks to it's pre-morrowind state would be nice (Adjusted values if you must) but you could just not increase the cost of strife.

I don't understand is why zos insists on messing with the way that magnb plays. A lot of players like magnb because of the lack of heavy attacks, that's what makes it enjoyable to play, and if you get rid of that, magnb brings nothing really unique in terms of gameplay to the table. Ruining the way the class plays for balance issues is not the way to make changes. If I have to heavy attack all the time, I'm just not going to play the game anymore or simply respec to stamblade.

Strife was imbalanced in terms of cost/damage ratio. So it needed adjustment in one or the other way. Putting it as high as force pulse is the wrong way of balancing PvE. And PvP simply suffers because of it.

Also cementing the DK tank meta cuz embers only costs like 1.5k (1.3k with light armor passives) now nightblade looses their cheap heal/damage dealer. But hey thanks for fixing the animation issues which is by far a L2P problem because after a bit of practice it's easy to get used too.

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

On the Strife nerf,

I've been experimenting with Force Pulse in PvP in light of this.

Force Pulse is:

• More damage (if you account for Penetrating Magic and Altmer/Dunmer racials, it might even be more or the same without racials)
• Unreflectable, which is very strong as the rest of the ranged mNB kit is reflectable. Allows much more pressure against DKs and Wardens.
• Can be much more reliably animation canceled in lag
• No need to slot an extra skill to get Ancient Knowledge, allowing use of better alternative abilities
• Doubles the uptime of status effects. This might not seem like much, but burning adds quite a bit of pressure if your damage is already pressure based.

Strife:

• While minor vitality is strong, much of the effect is lost by being front-bar'd, especially if you're damage shield based.
• The HoT won't proc against block, can be "mitigated" (including against damage shields, no crits), and can be negated by dodging/reflecting the base damage, making it very weak in most practical situations. The strength of the HoT doesn't translate to PvP at all due to the ways to avoid and mitigate it. I don't even notice it's gone.

The actual strength of this ability was being able to stack more damage as a return for it's cheaper cost. Without that, it's a very weak skill compared to FP/CS.

You want to have more diversity in builds, but don't you see that with these kind of changes when you are the one who kills diversity with changes like this. This is a game changer for every single magblade and even those few stamblades who refuse to PvP for Vigor and need a little healing

LSKidson wrote: »

[*] Strife: Honestly, the strife change was absolutely crippling (In raid and on dummy). There are a lot of good posts on here that explain and compare strife to force pulse and the justification for the huge cost increase just doesn't exist. I don't think the cost increase idea is a terrible one because the skill does offer some utility, but it should not cost as much as force pulse. Currently, on live strife costs a ~1900, I think a cost of 2100-2300 would be much more inline with the utility and damage this skill offers.

Overall this change is moronically stupid and I'd like it if the Devs would explain more in-depth about this and why they are doing it. The reasons they have given so far are stupid due to the results we have found

reprosal

Other

I think you need to relax about Strife for now... still 2 more PTS updates and whatever they decide to adjust on the last week before pushing Summerset live.

If nothing happens after the May 14th update, then I can understand your concerns more.

And yes, I main a Magblade in PvE.

exeeter702

Little bit of healing whoop de do? You should not undervalue something solely for the purpose of trying to reinforce your argument.

Swallow soul and funnel health increase your total overall healing by 3 percent just for slotting the ability and both heal for a damn respetcable amount. Not to mention minor vit on swallow and ally healing on funnel, and ult gen.

THAT is why you consider strife over force pulse. It is not a raw dps ability, it never was. Get over it. If you value the benefits of strife you will make use of it. If you dont give a *** about the additional utility provided (or are not built around maximizing its healing) and just wanted to use it because it looked different and was cheaper, than zos is telling you to bad. One being a class skill and one being a weapon skill has nothing to do with it.

And for what its worth, in actual practical use on the pts, the sustain hit, while noticable (as zos intended) is not un-manageable.

RoyJade

One less-cost morph + one more cost and more heal moprh

Zos need to state what is strife exactly : a dps, healer, tank, solo oriented, group-friendly… ?
Personally, I think strife's damage should be nerfed a little. Swallow soul, with the passive minor vitality added, is clearly tank or solo oriented and should do either more damage (would become -again- a spammable for dps while being good for tanks). Funnel heal is clearly heal-oriented and the first skill in the NB's healer tree, so it should heal more target (either two unaffected target or three including the caster) and do more healing.

Summary :
- Swallow soul as a dps morph while being tank-friendly, with same damage than now, the old cost and less healing ;
- Funnel heal as the healer morph, with less damage, more healing and more healed target.

And if strife/swallow is not intended to be a dps skill, nerf the damage instead of the cost but add a health percentage heal on the base skill and this morph. Minor vitality with a heal scaling on health instead or damage will help tank more than the pre-nerf swallow.
But I would find that sad if NB lost their distant spammable, even if they have another one (concealed).

Lucky28

One less-cost morph + one more cost and more heal moprh

Swallow soul should cost less (the same cost as it has currently on live) and Funnel Health should cost more and heal 2 additional allies like it used to. Strife is Magblades spammable DPS skill and one of their most defining abilities the cost increase on it is foolish.

if that change goes live. i'm just rerolling. and i don't want to do that because magblade is my favorite class in this game by a mile but if i wanted to play a sorc i'd play a sorc and sorc is what magblade plays like with that cost increase.

mr_wazzabi

The best course of action is to leave strife as it is on live

WembleyOTG

Edited

NyassaV

Change Strife

I'm actually surprised with the amount of diversity in these answers @ZOS_Wrobel you've got ideas here, free ideas!

Jeezye

Increase the Cost of impale rather than strife to compensate

I can understand how strife is over performing from a dps to magical efficiency standpoint. If they really want to change the skill, it’s the healing component that should be buffed to compensate.

Either blanket buff the percentage, or what I also came up with is making the heal over time stackable?? So spamming the ability stack HoTs on you, would be a cool thing imo.

DeliCreep

Other

I get it that you do not like having worse sustain, but right now magicka nightblades do not need any regen on their gear and they can still sustain better than any other class (sustaining without any HAs is easy for them), which is totally not right. Also this week's patch notes have not been released yet.

Juhasow

Other

Leave it with same cost as Force Shock. I wouldnt even mind if Impale cost would be increased on top of that to be on pair with Mages Fury cost.

kypranb14_ESO

I would love to see Strife drop to ~2400 base cost to match DK's Lava Whip, I might even renew my ESO+. As of right now, I cancelled it, and have no intention of buying Bummerset.

SpiderCultist

Change Strife

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Juhasow

Other

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Enslaved

Increase the Cost of impale rather than strife to compensate

Strife nerf is over the top, I agree. On the other hand, force pulse gives you way too much for its cost. Make it reflectable as any magicka projectile should be, anyways.

Nifty2g

It is a spammable, and theyre bringing spammables in line with each other, I think it is totally justified.

Enslaved

Increase the Cost of impale rather than strife to compensate

Nifty2g wrote: »

It is a spammable, and theyre bringing spammables in line with each other, I think it is totally justified.

Force pulse - cannot reflect it, will apply secondary effect if you are not shield spammer, other morph will stun you if you are trying to use any channel skill.
Strife - can be reflected, deals less damage than force pulse, apply HoT on caster.

Force pulse used to have base cost of 2700, and for what it provide the cost is ridiculously small.
Strife used to cost ~1900 magicka and for what it provide cost of about 2100-2200 would be reasonable. But 2.6K+? if they made impale cost that much I would say its adequate but this is just taking away class defining spammable from mNBs for no reason at all.

Latin

Change Strife

A cost parity with Force Pulse is acceptable. Its skill coefficients are 2.4-4.7% higher than Force Pulse's.
This means that as a benchmark, Strife does slightly more damage than the core damage components of Force Pulse, but lack the potential utility of applying elemental status and the secondary AoE damage. The trade-off makes the two options competitive for mag NB.

Broadly, the starting point for the cost adjustment would have taken into account of the potential resource management of the class. In this case, Siphoning Attacks, despite the tough nerf a few patches ago, still plays a strong role in helping with sustain, whether in trials or vMA.

It is true that the cost of Molten Whip is only 90% of that of Force Pulse (and Strife in PTS 4.0), while having higher skill coefficients (8.2-10.5%), but the effect of its secondary effect (the passive SD increase for Ardent Flame skills) is dwarfed by the healing of Strife and the potential AoE damage of Force Pulse. Even with the change to the Combustion passive, the resource management of DK, in terms of equivalent resource restored per second, still lags behind that of NB with Siphoning Attacks. Furthermore, the absence of a DK execute skill would have also been factored when balancing skill potential against skill cost. But of course, the value of a comparative analysis against Molten Whip is lower when determining an appropriate starting point for Strife cost adjustment (which is what is happening with this change on the PTS), because they are of different classes and users don't have to decide which one to use, and so there's no basis to determine the trade-off or opportunity cost.

With the introduction of Elemental Weapon, which is a comparable alternative to Force Pulse, the potential damage when weaved consistently also has to be factored in. The random elemental status applied can be very powerful with chance, but is poised against the supposed randomness of it. The cost to damage could be re-examined in the future depending on the evolution of the meta, but I find that it is currently at an acceptable level. It certainly makes for another option for mag NB, especially since light attacks already play a dominant role in the rotation for Merciless Resolve and Siphoning Attacks.

SpiderCultist

Change Strife

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

templesus

Lol if you think magblade has bad sustain try playing stamplar.

Juhasow

Other

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

Do You really spam Strife that much in PvP that this change will drain You out of magicka before You'll be able to kill someone ? I dont think that in PvP this change will be that noticable for mag nb's that actually use brains intsead of just mashing buttons. Just do heavy attack here and there like everyone else.

SpiderCultist

Change Strife

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

Do You really spam Strife that much in PvP that this change will drain You out of magicka before You'll be able to kill someone ?

The question is, who will be using Strife with that cost increase when you can have a better spammable for the same cost?

SpiderCultist

Change Strife

And on top of that, the destro skill (force pulse or crushing shock) doesn't feel "nightbladish" in the sense of a "bloodmage" (if someone at ZoS ever thought about something similar). Their more archetypal skill nerfed to be utterly useless. Thank you ZoS

Summerset, never forgotten, never forgiven.

DPShiro

Other

Reduce the cost of Strife and Force Pulse!

Rex-Umbra

Change Strife

Make it cool like dks flame lash

NyassaV

Change Strife

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

Do You really spam Strife that much in PvP that this change will drain You out of magicka before You'll be able to kill someone ? I dont think that in PvP this change will be that noticable for mag nb's that actually use brains intsead of just mashing buttons. Just do heavy attack here and there like everyone else.

You don't do a lot of magblade PvP wit strife huh? Well your are sorta right, typically you are casting other things and just try and keep the HoT effect up and you spam it when you are fully offensive and not turtling

The cheap cost of strife made it so that magblade is more effective when offensive than defensive. Nightblades have no good defense so their offense is cheap. Cloak can be to unreliable at times for it to be a viable defensive option so any good nightblade uses cloak as a tool and not just for defense or sneaking past people. Now that strife has a cost increase it isn't effective to go offensive nor is it effective to go defensive... So it's screwed

usmcjdking

NyassaV wrote: »

Nightblades have no good defense so their offense is cheap.

wut

NyassaV

Change Strife

usmcjdking wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

Nightblades have no good defense so their offense is cheap.

wut

Cloak only works 50% of the time, cloak has very hard counters, and you do have the option of using Mirage but sometimes it can be hard to fit on your bar.

Templar has BoL and I guess ritual counts, sorta
Sorc has Hardened Ward, streak, and dark conversion
DKs have an array of passives + the bursty heal from embers (embers is inexpensive)
Wardens have... What don't Wardens have?!?!

NyassaV

Change Strife

templesus wrote: »

Lol if you think magblade has bad sustain try playing stamplar.

DW heavy attacks are sorta the best heavies in the game. I quit playing stamplar a long time ago but I am very well versed in how they play

Juhasow

Other

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

Do You really spam Strife that much in PvP that this change will drain You out of magicka before You'll be able to kill someone ?

The question is, who will be using Strife with that cost increase when you can have a better spammable for the same cost?

Hmm so other spammables also grant You healing over time and Siphoning skill line passives ? Like I said for PvE people would switch to Elemental Weapon anyway and for pvP this change is not end of the world.

NyassaV wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

SpiderCultist wrote: »

If this goes live I suppose my magblade will make one heck of a crafter despite of being my main.
I don't care about positioning my shadow without target or using staves as 2 set pieces, this nerf is absurdly unnecessary.

Yeah...and then You discover Elemental Weapon.

Now that you mention it, yes I can see it... for a PVE scenario but since I mostly play pvp I guess my magblade will be better off ganking. Either that, or I play a sorcerer.
What annoys me the most is devs' justification: make spammables comparable in cost, when everyone knows they cannot be compared functionally and will render Strife near to useless.

Do You really spam Strife that much in PvP that this change will drain You out of magicka before You'll be able to kill someone ? I dont think that in PvP this change will be that noticable for mag nb's that actually use brains intsead of just mashing buttons. Just do heavy attack here and there like everyone else.

You don't do a lot of magblade PvP wit strife huh? Well your are sorta right, typically you are casting other things and just try and keep the HoT effect up and you spam it when you are fully offensive and not turtling

The cheap cost of strife made it so that magblade is more effective when offensive than defensive. Nightblades have no good defense so their offense is cheap. Cloak can be to unreliable at times for it to be a viable defensive option so any good nightblade uses cloak as a tool and not just for defense or sneaking past people. Now that strife has a cost increase it isn't effective to go offensive nor is it effective to go defensive... So it's screwed

I dont know why more expensive Strife will suddenly stop magnb from beeing more effective when offensive than defensive. As for the defense go yes and no. Nb's definietly dont have that easy defensive like others build can have especially when outnumbered but it's not like they have super weak defensive in every scenario and they cannot adapt to improve it. Again I dont see how the change to Strife will suddenly make PvP mag nb offensive unreliable. At the end maybe less playstyles will be available for the class but it definietly wont be end of the world and still mag nb's will be able to be effective.

Osubaker33

They didn't increase the cost of strife enough, another 20% higher cost would be perfect.