[Class Rep] Nightblade Feedback Thread

Deathlord92

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

At the risk of getting trolled

Anyone found any good solo Stamblade assassination builds cp?

Everything is just tanking and healing through my junk.

I'm using Spriggan, NM Acolyte, Bloodspawn - wd buffed 5.2.

I've never felt this clunky or inept before

Lol welcome to the assassin's class, the nerfed out one trick pony. I don't Stam, but magnb only ganking with calu anymore, IDC what anyone else says it's impossible without that set, and if they disagree I say prove it.

The single target burst class, lawl, not no mo

They need to buff our damage or give some secondary buffs to skills. Like even fear is a joke now for Stam, why would ANYONE use that over fg fear because of passives. Fears out of global cooldowns it's just better.

Nbs are nerfed hard because everyone hates assassins

Exactly how I feel.

Deathlord92

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »

At the risk of getting trolled

Anyone found any good solo Stamblade assassination builds cp?

Everything is just tanking and healing through my junk.

I'm using Spriggan, NM Acolyte, Bloodspawn - wd buffed 5.2.

I've never felt this clunky or inept before

Lol welcome to the assassin's class, the nerfed out one trick pony. I don't Stam, but magnb only ganking with calu anymore, IDC what anyone else says it's impossible without that set, and if they disagree I say prove it.

The single target burst class, lawl, not no mo

They need to buff our damage or give some secondary buffs to skills. Like even fear is a joke now for Stam, why would ANYONE use that over fg fear because of passives. Fears out of global cooldowns it's just better.

Nbs are nerfed hard because everyone hates assassins

They nerfed nb into oblivion and buff all the other classes.

GhostofDatthaw

I seriously can't remember the last time I saw an actual buff for my magnb.

I'm not even kidding.

Think about it

What was magnbs last real buff?

Bladerunner1

From a PVE perspective of an average player with below average internet connection, Dragonhold numbers:

My Stamblade DPS is at 75k,
My Stamsorc is 83k,
My StamNecro is 88k.

I think Nightblade is a bad pick for someone with crappy internet, you can push the light attack button and just hope it registers each time, missing light attacks causes a big drop in DPS if you're not into a dynamic rotation, and you're not prepared for the eventuality of missing a light attack without an addon.

There are many parses found on Google where the differences between classes are much smaller, but those people are squeezing 52+ light attacks and skills per minute and landing every single light attack to optimize their Nightblade DPS.

In my case, I can land 55 skills per minute on a Necro (not counting the off-cooldown detonating siphon) miss a lot of the light attacks and still crank out 88k with a CIRCULAR ROTATION. I'm letting the archer vanish a while and barbed trap is missing some of the time.

I'm forced to slow waaay down on Nightblade to get all the light attacks to land, get an assassin's scourge proc every 5 light attacks. With a bow equipped I have to slow down to 46 skills per minute, with dual wield it ranges from 50-54 skills per minute depending on exactly how crappy the internet is at the time.

I treat the Sorc like a Nightblade with the same sort of rotation, and activating bound armaments every 5 light attacks, but I'm pushing 56 skills per minute and fully expecting a light attack to miss once in a while. As a result the bound armaments DPS is pretty high since I only really need 4 out of 5 light attacks to land.

Xologamer

Wasnt sure how this patch will be but i think its very ok for blades only damn thing i think EVERYONE would change is:









remove dumb useless ult casttimes

TwiceBornStar

Good morning Gina and the team,

1) I would like to see a few Dual-Wield skills/morphs added based on Magicka rather than Stamina, and of course the same applies to any other weapon skill line.

2) I would like the Nightblade to also enter Sneak upon activating Shadowy Disguise, and stay in Sneak after Shadowy Disguise wears off.

3) I would like Siphoning Strikes to function more like the Sorcerer's Surge ability, because a Dual-Wield, One-handed and Shield, Two-Handed, Bow using Magicka-based Nightblade doesn't utilize Weapon Damage and therefore Light Attacks are underwhelming.

Thank you for your time.

Deathlord92

TwiceBornStar wrote: »

Good morning Gina and the team,

1) I would like to see a few Dual-Wield skills/morphs added based on Magicka rather than Stamina, and of course the same applies to any other weapon skill line.

2) I would like the Nightblade to also enter Sneak upon activating Shadowy Disguise, and stay in Sneak after Shadowy Disguise wears off.

3) I would like Siphoning Strikes to function more like the Sorcerer's Surge ability, because a Dual-Wield, One-handed and Shield, Two-Handed, Bow using Magicka-based Nightblade doesn't utilize Weapon Damage and therefore Light Attacks are underwhelming.

Thank you for your time.

I do like your idea with cloak that’s an interesting one nb definitely needs some kind of buff with how powerful the other classes are right now.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

Magicka Nightblade from a PvP perspective ...Where to start....


Shadowy disguise
A very powerful defensive tool "when it works."

To get it to work you must build for speed. The reason being that it is easily countered by AOE and you MUST put distance between you and your enemy very quickly or it will fail.

Right now my present build has "steed mundus", "wind running CP passive," +2 swift jewelry rings, twisting path and concealed weapon.

What I gain from this is a cloak that actually allows me to escape most of the time. I also gain the ability to buff my teammates movement speed from twisting path which is particularly useful in running down very mobile enemy players.

The trade off is that I am pushing a lot of my damage capability and 3 slots of my 12 total skill slots into speed just to get a working cloak.

The next issue is Concealed weapon
The main reason this gets slotted is for the 25% movement speed. The speed is necessary for both ranged and melee nightblades again, mostly because of cloak. Slotting it as a ranged nightblade results in a mostly dead skill but if you don't slot it, someone is going to gap close on you and knock you out of cloak with aoe. If you don't slot it you must slot a stun such as mass hysteria or clench or you will rarely get your cloak off.

If you choose to run concealed as your spammable then obviously your going to do the bulk of your fighting within melee range however doing so produces it's own headaches. Namely, how do you mitigate all the extra damage you will be receiving by being in close range?

A) Run heavy armor as opposed to light and hit like a wet noodle - ( counter productive as a DPS Magblade)
b) Slot healing skills of which you have siphoning strikes, refreshing path and swallow soul. Siphoning strikes heals for a pittance, refreshing path also heals for a pittance and requires you to be standing in it which is counter intuitive more often than not and swallow soul's heal is linked to its damage output which is hugely problematic especially in PvP where mitigation is so high. On top of this, swallow soul can be dodged. This actually forces the magicka nightblade into the restoration staff skill lines to offset its horrendous healing capabilities.
c) Some form of evasion

To cut a long story short, "MOST" of your skill bar ends up being full of skills slotted strictly for survival with virtually nothing slotted for actual damage. Also, the defensive skills tend to be expensive requiring an insane amount of magicka regeneration needed to sustain. This in turn lowers damage further.

So where is your damage expected to come from? The only place it can can, Proc sets!


How are these issues addressed??

A) Remove the 25% speed bonus from concealed weapon and add it either to shadowy disguise or as a nightblade passive with the provision of "WHILE WEARING 5 LIGHT ARMOR, increase movement speed by 25% while sneaking or invisible!"

Fix magicka nightblades self healing issues. This will free up valuable skill slots for damage in PvP.

C) Lower the cost of magicka nightblades defensive skills across the board. This will not affect PvE much and it will have a noticeable impact in terms of damage output in PvP.

D) Shift grim focuses defensive component to concealed weapon.


Ability issues

Death stroke - The cast delay needs to go.
Assassin's blade -> Would really love to see the execute kick in at 30% especially considering it is dodged most of the time!
Blur -> Lower its cost
Grim Focus -> Greatly speed up the arrows travel time.

Concealed weapon -> Shift grim focuses defensive component to concealed weapon and buff its damage.
Cloak -> discussed above.
Path of darkness -> There is a weird animation delay that I get a lot which causes my character to stop moving forward, pause and cast. Fix that please.

Soul tether -> remove the cast time.
Strife -> Increase its damage and healing.
Cripple -> Does anybody use it?
Siphoning strikes -> Buff its healing

Vyvrhel

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

A) Remove the 25% speed bonus from concealed weapon and add it either to shadowy disguise or as a nightblade passive with the provision of "WHILE WEARING 5 LIGHT ARMOR, increase movement speed by 25% while sneaking or invisible!"

I would vote for giving Major Expedition or other speed boost to both versions of cloak. Or if somebody thinks this is very OP, make one escapist and one critical version of cloak, where the first would give the expedition (and maybe some damage penalty) while the other a guaranteed crit on a next NB class skill.

Also I would either love to have a stam version of a cloak or even better a radically reduced cost - at least for the "run away" variant.

OTOH it would be also nice if SA and Incap get some love.

VaxtinTheWolf

Here I am again, with a collection of simplified suggestions of things I've been thinking about for this class over a period of time. I don't care if you don't want or like to be told what to do at this point. I'm going to continue sharing these thoughts.


Assassination

• Assassination Ultimate - Don't taze me bro!
  
  Death Stroke (Base Ability): Retains current cost of 70 Ultimate and the effect of increasing your damage against the target. This ability will now apply Major Defile to the enemy when used with 120 ultimate or more. (Possibly increasing this proc to 150 ultimate instead.)
  
  Incapacitating Strike (Stamina Morph): Applies Major Defile and stuns for 2 seconds when used with 120 Ultimate or more. Removed silence effect. While slotted, gain the Reave effect.
  
  Soul Harvest (Magicka Morph): Applies Major Defile and silences for 3 seconds when used with 120 Ultimate or more. While slotted, gain passive Ultimate when achieving a killing blow.
  
  
• Have the Blur ability also provide Minor Evasion to nearby allies (Not yourself, as you only gain Major Evasion from this) as an additional base effect.
  
  
• Add to one of the Passives, possibly Master Assassin or Dark Veil, to grant 25/50% or at least 15/30% movement speed while in sneak, so Nightblades aren't 'required' to become a blood sucker to enjoy a better stealth gameplay experience.
  
  
• Grim Focus
  
  To be honest, I'm not really even sure what the team wants this ability to actually do or become. I don't have any great ideas for it either, other than removing the heal component's melee range requirement. Alternatively you could just remove that effect entirely and replace it with something else, like a strong lingering DoT upon impact or allow it to pierce 50% of the target's resistances something.

Shadow

• Shift the +25% movement speed from Concealed Weapon to Veiled Strike as a base effect while retaining the stun if in sneak or while cloaked. Surprise attack continues to reduce the target's armor as a morph effect. I don't currently have any ideas for it myself, but Concealed Weapon could be granted a new unique(?) effect now.
  
  
• Shadow Cloak
  
  ...No. I'm not touching this one. I'd probably be dragged off and disappear in a back alley or something.
  
  
• Refreshing Path
  
  Option 1: Increase the range of this ability to match that of Twisting Path. Seriously, at least allow it to heal more than a tiny area to make it more appealing. I don't think most of the other ground AOE abilities that heal are this narrow of a space.
  
  Option 2: Although I'd like the range of this ability to be increased in general, I'd also be content with this skill doing half the coefficient of the heal as damage, mimicking the effect that Strife has between it's two morphs.
  
  
• For the ability Aspect of Terror, I think it could use a slight bit of extra help after Turn Evil ripped the soul of this ability away from it. Maybe adding a 30% snare for 3-4 seconds after the Fear effect ends as a base morph effect would at least give it some crutches to try and stand on.
  
  
• Extend the base duration of the Shadow Barrier passive that grants Major Resolve. Not everyone makes use of shadow abilities at all times, and I feel like I need to wear at least two pieces of Heavy Armor for the bonus duration when I'm only using one ability like Refreshing Path on my Healer. I believe increasing this to 10 seconds as the default would make it more ideal. Wearing 7 pieces of Heavy Armour would then give you 20.5 seconds of Major Resolve when using a Shadow Ability.

Siphoning

• Remove the cast time from the Soul Shred ultimate and it's morphs. Why is that on this ability? That actually bothers me more than the cast time on Death Stroke. With the changes to blocking and animation blending currently on the PTS, you could possibly work on making this skill's animation faster or have it run it's full course without it being immediately canceled by activating block. I have had more than a few extra deaths trying to make use of the Ultimate in PvP environments ever since the cast time was added.
  
  
• Malevolent Offering
  
  
• Remove the Major Brutality/Sorcery effect from Drain Power and add it as a base effect to Siphoning Strikes, as the skill in and of itself doesn't do that much. The morphs would retain their respective effects of returning Magicka or Stamina resources.
  
  
• Drain Power
  
  (Base Ability): Damages the enemy and reduces their Weapon/Spell damage by x amount for 8 seconds.
  
  Power Extraction (Stamina Morph): In addition to the base effect, you gain the x value of Weapon/Spell damage that the enemy is to be reduced by for 4 seconds.
  
  Sap Essence (Magicka Morph): In addition to the base effect, it now heals for x amount and the heal is strengthened depending on the number of enemies hit.

Ozazz

buff nb plz

Ozazz

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Can stamblade receive a slight buff to damage please so we on par with templar. Give us major fracture back on surprise attack or buff tooltip slightly and give us a strong dot on ambush.

yes please, with healing and tanking still at a all time high they should consider giving us major fracture back. theirs absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have it considering how many other sources of damage we lost!

Deathlord92

Ozazz wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Can stamblade receive a slight buff to damage please so we on par with templar. Give us major fracture back on surprise attack or buff tooltip slightly and give us a strong dot on ambush.

yes please, with healing and tanking still at a all time high they should consider giving us major fracture back. theirs absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have it considering how many other sources of damage we lost!

Pretty damn sure when I wrote that message stamina wardens and stamina necro wasn’t so op now it’s case of buff nb so we are on par with all the other classes because sorc is also strong not so strong it needs a nerf but it’s doing better then nb is.

ThePedge

Major Fracture and Breach on respective morphs or Veiled Strike.

Make Veil of Blades be fixed to player. I want it to be MY veil.

Increase buff duration of Shadow Barrier by 2s at base, to 8s.

Fix cloak being broken by projectiles

Iskiab

ThePedge wrote: »

Major Fracture and Breach on respective morphs or Veiled Strike.

Make Veil of Blades be fixed to player. I want it to be MY veil.

Increase buff duration of Shadow Barrier by 2s at base, to 8s.

Fix cloak being broken by projectiles

About your last item on the list, this will be worse after the patch. People using detect pots will break stealth with any ability so no more cloaking whips.

Something to help melee magblade would be good. Doesn’t have to be a stealth thing, just something so a magblade can stay alive in melee.

Xvorg

TwiceBornStar wrote: »

Good morning Gina and the team,

1) I would like to see a few Dual-Wield skills/morphs added based on Magicka rather than Stamina, and of course the same applies to any other weapon skill line.

2) I would like the Nightblade to also enter Sneak upon activating Shadowy Disguise, and stay in Sneak after Shadowy Disguise wears off.

3) I would like Siphoning Strikes to function more like the Sorcerer's Surge ability, because a Dual-Wield, One-handed and Shield, Two-Handed, Bow using Magicka-based Nightblade doesn't utilize Weapon Damage and therefore Light Attacks are underwhelming.

Thank you for your time.

I don't get 3. Why are you comparing surge (which give major brut and major sorc) with Siph strikes? And what do they have to do with weapon dmg? Siph strikes gives you the resource needed dependig on themorph and not on the weapon, so if you use a bow and siphoning attacks, then you will get magicka, ut if you use leeching strikes, you will get stamina.

Vyvrhel

I understand devs are affraid to boost the damage since it will unavoidably lead to another wave of complaints from PvPers. So what about to boost defences. Like give NB skills and/or passives to make the class faster and CC resistant. Or some self healing spammable available to stam builds, too.

wsmith97ub17_ESO

I think my favorite class will never see fixes due to pvp complainers. Death by nb can be a bit shocking for snowflakes.

Now those players suffer ptsd.

Vyvrhel

wsmith97ub17_ESO wrote: »

I think my favorite class will never see fixes due to pvp complainers. Death by nb can be a bit shocking for snowflakes.

Now those players suffer ptsd.

So what about this. They can abandon that ridiculous assassin toolkit and go instead something like scout or swashbuckler.

OFFENSE:
No burst damage but rather an endless, tiring and annoying [snip] of debuffs, dots, stuns, knockbacks, this all stacking on the target and when there is enough stacks, a finish execution skill which would scale with the debuffs and dots on the target, much like enrage mechanics on a boss. Do you recall the Cyrano of Bergerac play? So something like "when I am done with the mocking poem I am going to finally kill you".
Not the typical "after 10 stacks of blabla you do xyz damage" but "this skill does damage up to 1000% depending on how much dots is ticking on the target and how much debuffs you have on him".

DEFENSE:
speed, evasion, dodge rolls, jumps, sidesteps, "catch me if you can" style.

About the Assassination: look while it can feel great to be able to oneshot a player from sneak they are certainly not going to go this way. Just imagine yourself being on the wrong side of that oneshot.
Everything they did so far suggest that the plan is to make sure fights last long enough that even a beginner somehow understands what is happening. Therefore all the heal buffs and damage nerfs.
People who are not able to understand what hit them tend to give up PVP and/or eventually even rage quit.

[Edited to remove profanity]

VaxtinTheWolf

Can this issue/bug also get resolved? When you slot a Siphoning ability, you gain the bonus magicka on the opposite bar. The tooltip values are also affected. I demonstrate this in the video below.

https://youtu.be/ggFr5LtQICs

MusCanus

Vyvrhel wrote: »

Just note that anything what would remotely resemble a part of an one shot combo is not coming back. This is not my wish, but a simple fact.

Yet there are still delayed off GCD abilities on other classes, and if you get caught in them + Ulti like Onslaught, you're pretty much toast, but god forbids that NBs would be able to land their combo.

Vyvrhel wrote: »

no sane designer will allow oneshotting in PvP, for obvious reasons.

There're oneshotting mechanics in PvP under certain conditions, and there always will be. For NBs such conditions just can't be met vs semi competent player.

Vyvrhel wrote: »

BTW the cc / dot evasive rogue class is a typical solution implemented in many MMOS

Other MMOs don't have one button purge with no cooldown, or even better, autopurge once in a few secs.
And even if there wasn't one in this game too
CC / dot evasive rogue class, you say, let's see

CC from incap - gone
Snare from mass hysteria - gone
Snare from ambush - gone
CC from off balance (the only good one atm) - will be gone

Dot from poison inject (not even a class skill) - not good anymore
Dots in general are not viable
Debuff from SA - gone, replaced with a very weak one
Debuff from incap - gone
Debuff from mass hysteria - gone

Evasion dodge chance - long gone
Undodgeable attacks - more than ever

Vyvrhel wrote: »

Come with a better idea then.

Simple. Just revert all the bad ideas that have been implemented for no reason.

Deathlord92

MusCanus wrote: »

Vyvrhel wrote: »

Just note that anything what would remotely resemble a part of an one shot combo is not coming back. This is not my wish, but a simple fact.

Yet there are still delayed off GCD abilities on other classes, and if you get caught in them + Ulti like Onslaught, you're pretty much toast, but god forbids that NBs would be able to land their combo.

Vyvrhel wrote: »

no sane designer will allow oneshotting in PvP, for obvious reasons.

There're oneshotting mechanics in PvP under certain conditions, and there always will be. For NBs such conditions just can't be met vs semi competent player.

Vyvrhel wrote: »

BTW the cc / dot evasive rogue class is a typical solution implemented in many MMOS

Other MMOs don't have one button purge with no cooldown, or even better, autopurge once in a few secs.
And even if there wasn't one in this game too
CC / dot evasive rogue class, you say, let's see

CC from incap - gone
Snare from mass hysteria - gone
Snare from ambush - gone
CC from off balance (the only good one atm) - will be gone

Dot from poison inject (not even a class skill) - not good anymore
Dots in general are not viable
Debuff from SA - gone, replaced with a very weak one
Debuff from incap - gone
Debuff from mass hysteria - gone

Evasion dodge chance - long gone
Undodgeable attacks - more than ever

Vyvrhel wrote: »

Come with a better idea then.

Simple. Just revert all the bad ideas that have been implemented for no reason.

Completely agree if they reverted all the changes nb will actually be fun again.

Vyvrhel

MusCanus wrote: »

Simple. Just revert all the bad ideas that have been implemented for no reason.

That would be very nice. But do you really believe they are going to do it? I think not, and my worst fears are they will do nothing since "NB is good" as some ppl claim which is ridiculous.

azjuwelz

I like the expedition for magblade ideas, and I don't see having a few of these as OP.

Remove the ultimate cast times, change Silence back to defile or at least some other rebuff.

That would at least make nightblades viable in pvp.

Xologamer

revert every balance change to somersend patch -ez fixed game thx all

Drakavyn_morelock

Iv been playing since launch and night blade has always been my favourite class mag and stam toons but it desperately needs buffing now can't dd or survive

Also I feel like melee mag blade play style should be viable with all the melee range mag abilities, it just seems like that would make sense... to me it does anyways

Dax_Draconis

My major pain point for stamina NB, is the wildly different builds required to effectively play PvE & PvP with the class. As a PvE player, I was very surprised that I have to completely change my entire build, armor, traits, weapons, skills... ALL, to do an effective PvP NB. Why is it so different? Why do you want your stealthy assassin class to be lugging around a heavy 2H weapon? I couldn't find any build that matched my PvE dw/bow playstyle, and that is a big problem for me.

Vyvrhel

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

My major pain point for stamina NB, is the wildly different builds required to effectively play PvE & PvP with the class. As a PvE player, I was very surprised that I have to completely change my entire build, armor, traits, weapons, skills... ALL, to do an effective PvP NB. Why is it so different? Why do you want your stealthy assassin class to be lugging around a heavy 2H weapon? I couldn't find any build that matched my PvE dw/bow playstyle, and that is a big problem for me.

A very good point. The 2H weapon is used for Rally, which is the only way how to prebuff with Major Brutality.

Maybe if they changed Drain Power and it's morphs, Power Extraction and Sap Essence, so the Major Brutality buff would not depend on hit on an enemy, but the caster would get it automatically upon cast, it would lead to more diverse builds.

Another good change would be an improvement of Blur and it's morphs. As it is now, you are better off with Shuffle.

Vyvrhel

....so what about these two changes for the beginning:

Drain Power
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Area
Range: Radius: 8 meters
Cost: 3510 Magicka
Skill description
Siphon the vigor from your enemies' blood, dealing 615 Magic Damage to all nearby enemies. You gain Major Brutality and Sorcery, increasing your Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 20% for 20 seconds.

Power Extraction
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Area
Range: Radius: 8 meters
Cost: 2983 Stamina
Skill description
Siphon the vigor from your enemies' blood, dealing 683 Disease Damage to all nearby enemies. You gain Major Brutality and Sorcery, increasing your Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 20% for 20 seconds. If an enemy is hit, you reduce their Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 200 for 8 seconds,

Sap Essence
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Area
Range: Radius: 8 meters
Cost: 3510 Magicka
Skill description
Siphon the vigor from your enemies' blood, dealing 616 Magic Damage to all nearby enemies and healing you and your allies for 211 plus 20% more for each enemy hit. You gain Major Brutality and Sorcery, increasing your Weapon Damage and Spell Damage by 20% for 20 seconds.

******************************************************************

Phantasmal Escape
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Self
Cost: 3780 Magicka
Skill description
Surround yourself in a phantasmic aura to gain Major Evasion, reducing damage from area attacks by 25% for 15 seconds. Activating this ability removes all snares and immobilizations from you and grants immunity to them for 15 seconds. You also gain Major expedition for 5 seconds.
******************************************************************
Mirage
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Self
Cost: 3510 Magicka
Skill description
Surround yourself in a phantasmic aura to gain Major Evasion and Minor Resolve, reducing damage from area attacks by 25% and increasing your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 1320 for 26 seconds. You also gain Major expedition for 5 seconds.

TwiceBornStar

Xvorg wrote: »

TwiceBornStar wrote: »

Good morning Gina and the team,

1) I would like to see a few Dual-Wield skills/morphs added based on Magicka rather than Stamina, and of course the same applies to any other weapon skill line.

2) I would like the Nightblade to also enter Sneak upon activating Shadowy Disguise, and stay in Sneak after Shadowy Disguise wears off.

3) I would like Siphoning Strikes to function more like the Sorcerer's Surge ability, because a Dual-Wield, One-handed and Shield, Two-Handed, Bow using Magicka-based Nightblade doesn't utilize Weapon Damage and therefore Light Attacks are underwhelming.

Thank you for your time.

I don't get 3. Why are you comparing surge (which give major brut and major sorc) with Siph strikes? And what do they have to do with weapon dmg? Siph strikes gives you the resource needed dependig on themorph and not on the weapon, so if you use a bow and siphoning attacks, then you will get magicka, ut if you use leeching strikes, you will get stamina.

Surge works in combination with abilities where Siphoning Strikes only works with Light Attacks. To me that seems like a huge difference and a bit of a disadvantage for Magicka Nightblades. For example: As a Magicka Nightblade, you could use Siphoning Strikes in combination with Concealed Weapon *if* Siphoning Strikes worked like Surge.

So that's why. I understand that Siphoning Strikes still refunds Magicka or Stamina, but that doesn't change the fact that Melee Light Attacks on a Magicka Nightblade aren't much use because of the inherent lack of Weapon Damage due to a lower Stamina. Concealed Weapon (Melee-range!) on a Magicka Nightblade works much better. Basically, what I'm saying is, is that a Magicka Nightblade still has a few Melee-range type abilities, but Siphoning Strikes the way it works now doesn't work very well for a Magicka Nightblade, unless the Nightblade is equipping a Staff.

And let's be honest for a second, what kind of self-respecting Assassin wants to stab someone in the back with a Staff?