Nothing addressing the “Nightblade Meta” we’re currently saddled with

SmellyUnlimited

Competitive end game guilds are more and more looking to Magblades to fill out the majority of DPS in a trial. Outside of VAS, stam can come in, but usually at most 3,and Stamblades at that.

So you look through a group comp, and you’ll likely see 8 NB’s, 2DK (tanks). 2 Templar (healers). No class changes or rebalancing has affected this yet, nor appears to be. Sometimes they’ll allow one MagSorc in the group for providing the Asylum weapon procs, but that’s the one anomaly.

I’d like to see this next meta be representative of the community, not simply of a class, where people felt compelled then to all make Magblades just to participate in end game content.

IZZEFlameLash

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Competitive end game guilds are more and more looking to Magblades to fill out the majority of DPS in a trial. Outside of VAS, stam can come in, but usually at most 3,and Stamblades at that.

So you look through a group comp, and you’ll likely see 8 NB’s, 2DK (tanks). 2 Templar (healers). No class changes or rebalancing has affected this yet, nor appears to be. Sometimes they’ll allow one MagSorc in the group for providing the Asylum weapon procs, but that’s the one anomaly.

I’d like to see this next meta be representative of the community, not simply of a class, where people felt compelled then to all make Magblades just to participate in end game content.

NBs everywhere. And we will not likely see the change toward more diverse dps composition because, ZOS.

Joy_Division

We talked about this. ZOS is aware.

Zelos

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Competitive end game guilds are more and more looking to Magblades to fill out the majority of DPS in a trial. Outside of VAS, stam can come in, but usually at most 3,and Stamblades at that.

So you look through a group comp, and you’ll likely see 8 NB’s, 2DK (tanks). 2 Templar (healers). No class changes or rebalancing has affected this yet, nor appears to be. Sometimes they’ll allow one MagSorc in the group for providing the Asylum weapon procs, but that’s the one anomaly.

I’d like to see this next meta be representative of the community, not simply of a class, where people felt compelled then to all make Magblades just to participate in end game content.

I think its a magsorc meta too, magsorcs are everywhere too its not just not nightblades.

Tannus15

Joy_Division wrote: »

We talked about this. ZOS is aware.

I foresee you pasting this into every thread for the next fortnight

MLGProPlayer

No room for wardens in this meta, or any meta before it. ZOS, FFS, please buff wardens.

This class has never seen more than 3% endgame usage in PvE. Just look at the numbers.

Strider__Roshin

At first I thought this thread was a joke, and then I realized you were talking about PvE. Yeah, you're right lol.

I'm actually all for Nightblades being top in DPS because they need to be in order to justify the difficulty of their rotation. The self healing of magblades is pretty over the top though. Yeah their damage needs to be higher, but they kind of have it too good.

hakan

i dont see any stamblades on vet trials. Esp new ones.

Strider__Roshin

hakan wrote: »

i dont see any stamblades on vet trials. Esp new ones.

The OP it's talking about magblades.

Qbiken

Daus wrote: »

At first I thought this thread was a joke, and then I realized you were talking about PvE. Yeah, you're right lol.

I'm actually all for Nightblades being top in DPS because they need to be in order to justify the difficulty of their rotation. The self healing of magblades is pretty over the top though. Yeah their damage needs to be higher, but they kind of have it too good.

Can we stop with this "they´ve a difficult rotation" argument? It´s not really an excuse anymore now that you don´t lose the assassin's will stacks upon refreshing or duration expiries (assuming you´re in combat). And with that logic every stamina class should have garbage DPS (especially stamDK and stamsorc), but that´s obviously not the case.

Having a player created rotation that some people find difficult is not a reason to justify questionable balance.

Tremors

Daus wrote: »

At first I thought this thread was a joke, and then I realized you were talking about PvE. Yeah, you're right lol.

I'm actually all for Nightblades being top in DPS because they need to be in order to justify the difficulty of their rotation. The self healing of magblades is pretty over the top though. Yeah their damage needs to be higher, but they kind of have it too good.

Their rotation is not more difficult, it's simply their rotation guides players towards more dynamic game-play. ANY class can and should be played dynamically to maximize DPS. However a mage-blade can be driven under a static rotation and still pull higher DPS than other classes. This all comes down to experience.

hakan

Qbiken wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

At first I thought this thread was a joke, and then I realized you were talking about PvE. Yeah, you're right lol.

I'm actually all for Nightblades being top in DPS because they need to be in order to justify the difficulty of their rotation. The self healing of magblades is pretty over the top though. Yeah their damage needs to be higher, but they kind of have it too good.

Can we stop with this "they´ve a difficult rotation" argument? It´s not really an excuse anymore now that you don´t lose the assassin's will stacks upon refreshing or duration expiries (assuming you´re in combat). And with that logic every stamina class should have garbage DPS (especially stamDK and stamsorc), but that´s obviously not the case.

Having a player created rotation that some people find difficult is not a reason to justify questionable balance.

Yeah magblade rotation is not hard at all with that change. Tho stamblade on the other hand youll have a very hard time trying to top dps and survive. Even in a simple banished cells vet those flames really hurts every where is burning and cant get close to the boss.

And i believe the reason for nb is mostly war machine thing with incap/ soul harvest

JohnStorm

Magicka nightblades have too much resource sustain and healing compared to other magicka classes, as well as the highest damage ceiling.

As for people saying it has the most difficult rotation, try a magicka warden with casting shalks every 3 seconds while keeping up 3 dots and a sustain buff. Oh wait, you can't do it because you cannot sustain it without speccing into regen and losing too much damage...

ccfeeling

I have NB , DK and Sorc DPS , but I rare to play NB now , it's more difficult to me .
I like to play StamDK , easy rotation and high sustain , I like to play Pet Sorc for dungeon achievement , easy rotation , powerful and high survivability .

What I wanna say is no pain and no gain .

This is wrong that you request to nerf a class which requires to play hard .

huschdeguddzje

Don't you dare touch my stamblade

John_Falstaff

I did write in other threads, and I'll say - it's not just class. It's the content. New content favors new playstyles, and NBs just happened to be designed richly enough to fit into the new picture, while other classes remained in the past. No amount of stat nerfing to nightblades or buffing existing stamina abilities will make things right (short of making another Holy Bow, this time with ability to one-shot bosses), because good luck using easy high-DPS rotation when your content offers only a tiny spot for melee to stand in (hi, HoF), and even some dungeons don't let stamina release their potential. Even the the new proposed savior of stamina, Arms of Relequen, won't help much when you have a dozen of seconds' worth of opportunity window when you can damage the boss (Darkshade Caverns II sends regards), and when you're stamina DK, you sigh and start applying your dots, knowing that by the time they started generating some damage, the boss is invulnerable again and reflecting your attacks.

Either don't design content demanding mobility, range and burst, or start updating your classes to be designed around that content.

I reckon a lot of magicka builds (like magicka wardens) have a lot of pain points too, but I can't really talk with experience about those - which doesn't mean they don't need fixing. I just want to say that to me, it feels that some balancing stat changes won't make most current underdogs feel much more welcome in endgame content.

John_Falstaff

@ccfeeling - define 'hard', maybe? Thing is, magblade (and generally magicka classes, current vast imbalances excluded) has it easier than most, for one. Forget about rotation, everyone and their dog can manage a decent one. It's shields, range, survivability while being able to generate consistent damage. You make your point that more difficult playstyle should be rewarding; well thing is, it's neither easy nor rewarding to play same stam DK in endgame. Easier rotation is of no help at all there.

IZZEFlameLash

NB rotation is not any harder than any other proper rotation. Unsure why NBs like to view themselves as special people when EVERYONE has to do weaving and anim cancel perfectly for perfect rotation with weaves. And no. Will proc doesn't add more difficulty because you weave anyways.

Pijng

Make all classes to be equal so we can finally play minecraft in online mode.

John_Falstaff

There's a colossal difference between "equal" and "equally viable". I'd be quite content seeing a way for all classes and builds to be successful in endgame in their own unique ways, in every role. (The other option would be (for example) something like replacing the text string "Dragonknight" in character creation window and throughout the game with "PvE Tank", just to be upfront with new players as to what they're locking themselves into. If we don't want to fix things, well let's at least be honest with players.)

Pijng

John_Falstaff wrote: »

There's a colossal difference between "equal" and "equally viable". I'd be quite content seeing a way for all classes and builds to be successful in endgame in their own unique ways, in every role. (The other option would be (for example) something like replacing the text string "Dragonknight" in character creation window and throughout the game with "PvE Tank", just to be upfront with new players as to what they're locking themselves into. If we don't want to fix things, well let's at least be honest with players.)

But why "dragonknight" == "PvE Tank" when it's not?

John_Falstaff

Pijng wrote: »

But why "dragonknight" == "PvE Tank" when it's not?

Long story short, in endgame it pretty much is. Or you enjoy going to Cloudrest or Asylum on stamina DK DPS? Maybe doing vMA? (Silver lining: doing vMA on stamDK guarantees you a leaderboard reward, simply because you're the crazy minority, and even then I suspect a lot of DKs on the board is magicka.) In fact, topic starter pretty much mentioned typical current composition of trial groups - magblades as DDs, DKs as tanks, templars as healers.

Pijng

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Pijng wrote: »

But why "dragonknight" == "PvE Tank" when it's not?

Long story short, in endgame it pretty much is. Or you enjoy going to Cloudrest or Asylum on stamina DK DPS? Maybe doing vMA? (Silver lining: doing vMA on stamDK guarantees you a leaderboard reward, simply because you're the crazy minority, and even then I suspect a lot of DKs on the board is magicka.) In fact, topic starter pretty much mentioned typical current composition of trial groups - magblades as DDs, DKs as tanks, templars as healers.

It doesn't mean that dks are tanks only. You still can setup one as a dd or...heal. If they are not as viable as other classes in these roles – well, it still counts. Renaming "Dragonknight" to "PvE Tank" will lead to confusion.
More than that, not all the players are doing vTrials or vMA.

But let's be honest, how many patches we see majority of dds in vTrials as a mag ones? And DKs – they always were the best tanks for like any content in this game. Is this a problem? I guess. I don't really care, if I want to go to vTrial with my stamblade – you know, I'll do it.

kaithuzar

Somebody has to be the best at something or else diversity won’t exist.
Dk’s at tanking
Templars at healing
Nightblades at burst
Sorcs at high sustain damage
Warden at off heals, off tank, buff/support

You can’t say “we want a full support class” & then get upset at not being top/competitive at dps!

The only reason magblade is winning over sorc is the “support” we get from the other classes which allows us to sustain! Otherwise we would have to sacrifice our damage to sustain ourselves.

We have probably the best sustain out of all classes so combined with ANY group sustain & we won’t need to build for it.
However, this IS balanced from a pvp perspective.
If our sustain is to take a nerf, which I’m not against, please buff our damage as we won’t be winning any fights in Cyrodiil if we have to swap our current damage for more sustain due to a passive sustain nerf.

John_Falstaff

kaithuzar wrote: »

You can’t say “we want a full support class” & then get upset at not being top/competitive at dps!

I'm sorry, but who and when did say that we want a full support class? I can't remember hearing it from ZOS statements, and I can't remember hearing such unanimous vote from users. What if I say that I want magblade to be tanking-oriented, does that make things official? ZOS' position is "play as you like", they are trying to make all classes be good at everything (how successful those attempts are, we'll leave aside). So, thank you very much, I don't remember voting or hearing official statement that magblades are singled out to be best DPS class by divine providence.

> Warden at off heals, off tank, buff/support

That made me cringe just now. I just imagined a new player selecting a warden in chargen screen (a really nice class with own theme and flavor), without knowing that he'll be forever locked into off tanking, off healing and support. I think I don't need that sort of diversity, thank you very much.

usmcjdking

Magblades aren't overpowered, Magblades are the last ones left. There is a difference.

With the introduction of VAS and VCR scaling difficulty, ZOS developers tried their best to kill both melee and ranged toons quickly and efficiently by forcing them to spread out multiple times and over multiple objectives making it difficult for healers to maintain AOE healing coverage on the group.

Great! Except they went a little too high and to the right. So what ends up happening? Well none of the stam can effectively protect themselves from anything meaningful in these trials so they are practically disqualified. Melee is absolute hell due to all the movement so wave bye bye to DK/Magplar DPS. So this just leaves Sorc, Magwarden, Bowtard & Magblade.

Bowtard's method of beating trial bosses is to literally not be in range of any threat and exploit with Propelling Shield so you run the risk of getting banned playing a bowtard properly. Mag Warden doesn't really offer anything other than lower damage leaving you with Sorc & Magblade.

Of these two, the Magblade does more damage, has better self sustain, better resists and better mobility. So it's not a matter of nerfing Magblade IMO (albeit a small dmg nerf should be present somewhere), so much as the mechanics need to be less "all-over-the-place" and more absolute. Mechanics should either a) kill you or b) cripple you to the point that you are likely to be killed from random skeleton.

kaithuzar

John_Falstaff wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

You can’t say “we want a full support class” & then get upset at not being top/competitive at dps!

I'm sorry, but who and when did say that we want a full support class? I can't remember hearing it from ZOS statements, and I can't remember hearing such unanimous vote from users. What if I say that I want magblade to be tanking-oriented, does that make things official? ZOS' position is "play as you like", they are trying to make all classes be good at everything (how successful those attempts are, we'll leave aside). So, thank you very much, I don't remember voting or hearing official statement that magblades are singled out to be best DPS class by divine providence.

> Warden at off heals, off tank, buff/support

That made me cringe just now. I just imagined a new player selecting a warden in chargen screen (a really nice class with own theme and flavor), without knowing that he'll be forever locked into off tanking, off healing and support. I think I don't need that sort of diversity, thank you very much.

I don’t remember if there were any “official statements made”, I just remember lots of people crying on the forums over the past 4-5 years wanting a support class. Use the search function if you want to read up on it.

Regarding the “holy trinity”, I just call it like I see it.

Otherwise I just wanna know why mobs & bosses can still use the “old agony” & I can’t.

John_Falstaff

@kaithuzar , so, just to be clear, when "a lot" of people crying for support class, then their wishes must be satisfied, and that's okay by you. So, right now a lot of people are crying to nerf nightblades - should we satisfy them now, too? (In short: no, we shouldn't.) So point in case - a bunch of people crying on forums for support class isn't a reason of taking an existing one and make it only fit for support, ninja style. For all I know, people cry for nightblades to be made viable tanks; how'd you feel if nightblades could -only- tank well, and be mediocre at everything else? So there.

Pijng wrote: »

It doesn't mean that dks are tanks only. You still can setup one as a dd or...heal. If they are not as viable as other classes in these roles – well, it still counts. Renaming "Dragonknight" to "PvE Tank" will lead to confusion.
More than that, not all the players are doing vTrials or vMA.

But let's be honest, how many patches we see majority of dds in vTrials as a mag ones? And DKs – they always were the best tanks for like any content in this game. Is this a problem? I guess. I don't really care, if I want to go to vTrial with my stamblade – you know, I'll do it.

Point in case - no, it doesn't count. If class isn't viable in some role, if it's locked out of a chunk of content (content people paid for, and keep paying for), without any sort of notice - why, then people have been fooled. You're the one voting for classes not to be equal - so we'd better reflect inequality in text, during character creation. Otherwise, there -is- a confusion. And no, it's not an excuse that not everyone wants to do vtrials or vMA. It's the capability that matters - when people create a character, they don't know in advance what content they want to try, and since ZOS' states "play as you like", well, they'd better be given equal opportunities. You may not care, others do; you may not see a problem, others see it.

And yes, just to see a problem, make a stam DK, and try to get on a score run in vCR or vHoF.

usmcjdking

NBs need a tiny bit of rebalancing. Nothing dramatic.


Something which immediately come to mind are moving the ult generation passive away from Siphoning. No other class gets ult gen from it spammable. Moving it to Assassination would be the best method IMO. You could still get max return on ult gen due to Grim Resolve.

hakan

How about making incap/ soul harvests 20 percent more damage buff active at 120 ult? so warmachine and master architect get procced less.

John_Falstaff

As much as it's annoying to hear magblade-playing people arguing they should be singled out as one and only DPS class while others must be given other roles, I don't think that nerfing is the solution. Thing is, it just so happened that NB class design happened to match the demands of new content, and other classes fell behind. It's not NBs attractive because they're overpowered; it's other classes unappealing because they're not performing well. So, solving problem with nerfs will require nerfs of such a scale that will make everyone as miserable in endgame content as the current underdogs. Nerfing NBs into the ground may make a stamina DK be accepted into trial run, but only because every class would perform equally bad there. Classes must get an overhaul to be able to perform just as good.