Major NB healer nerf inbound?

db0ssman

I've mained a NB healer basically since I started playing the game 3 years ago and have seen its power bounce up and down. It started off as almost a dps that could throw out some healing to a good mix of healer and DPS. Really you were trading off all the utility that a Templar adds to a group for having a healer that can both put out more HPS and a respectable amount of damage. Looking at the PTS notes for nightblade, it looks like they are basically removing most of its DPS capabilities. The main 5 sources of damage for a NB healer is refreshing path, funnel health, veil of blades, sap essence, and impale. The TL;DR from the notes is:

Refreshing Path will do no damage but marginally more healing,
Funnel health will do the same healing but 1/2 damage (2x healing % and half damage means the same net healing),
Impale will cost 30% more,
Veil of Blades will be unchanged,
sap essence will be unchanged.

Now that it will be harder to act as a damage surge to a weakened enemy and most of your single point damage spells won't do much damage or won't do any damage what advantage will there be to playing a NB to a templar or even a warden?

Both of those classes add a ton of utility to a group at the cost of less damage and more reactive healing. With these changes, damage between all 3 classes will probably be similar, but there won't be added utility with a NB.

TheStealthDude

Yep. I will probably be quitting my NB healer if these changes go live. I do so many other things on my magblade that I would have to sacrifice every other setup just to use the healing tools that NB provides.

No thanks.

WrathOfInnos

Yeah, nerfs were overkill. They could’ve made Funnel do like 10% less damage than the other morph to make the choice have more meaning. The decision to reduce it by 50% means that no build that cares about damage will ever use it, and this includes NB healers.

Somehow refreshing path got even worse treatment. A 100% removal of its damage is absurd. It’s now a dead morph.

db0ssman

I'm kind of curious as to what problem these 'fixes' are meant to solve. I guess it has something to do with PvP because usually if it doesn't make sense in a PvE context thats why they did it. I mean were tons of groups taking 4 magblade dps into HM vet dungeons and just laying down funnel health and refreshing path and not worrying about tanks or healers?

These proposed changes also kill off-meta synergy with something like a NB healer & Warden DPS. The NB healer can help suppliment a warden's fairly low dps and the warden can keep a few utility abilities on their bar to buff the group which a NB healer can't do very well. If they try and make a NB like a worse version of a Templar white-mage healer it's just going to force people into meta roles. People have to play Stam-blade/mag-sorc dps because healers won't help with dps and people have to play templar healers because the only viable dps can't help with utility. Kind of creats more problems than it solves, IMO.

brandonv516

What I will do:

Slot Refreshing Path
Slot Funnel Health

Heal.

I'm guessing I can get closer to that 2m mark in BGs with the changes.

Silver_Strider

RIP my NB Healer.
These changes are largely unnecessary and don't help make Healers more relevant in content. It's flat out nerfs to NB healers for no real reason while also killing what little utility Magblade did supply outside of DPS.

This feels like a huge step back from making each class viable for every role.

ccfeeling

Class diversity meaning
Dk tank
Temp healer
We get it Gina

Jinchuu

First they killed my WW stansorc now they're gonna kill my magden (shield and decep predator will be garbo and those are her main survivability tools), magDK and NB healer. All I have left is a nodefarmer NB and a heal warden, good times.

db0ssman

Jinchuu wrote: »

First they killed my WW stansorc now they're gonna kill my magden (shield and decep predator will be garbo and those are her main survivability tools), magDK and NB healer. All I have left is a nodefarmer NB and a heal warden, good times.

I feel for ya. Since these are only going to PTS maybe they will be scaled back before release. I hope at least.

Tasear

Noted some concerns

TheStealthDude

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

My main concern is that the unique flavor NB brought to healing was that they were both doing some damage and healing at the same time. The PTS patch notes really kill this uniqueness, as we will now have to choose ONLY healing or ONLY damage with Path of Darkness, and we lose a large amount of Damage from Funnel Health.

Now, I don't want to be doing 20k-25k DPS while being in full heal mode, but I would like to be contributing a bit more damage than other healers do. With these changes, I don't think I do any more damage than a Templar healer, maybe even less, while also not having the same level of utility that they do.

So why play a NB healer now?

Silver_Strider

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

While you're at it can you also pass on these suggestions

Blur: Let this be a group buff. Now that Major Evasion doesn't provide a dodge chance, I feel that giving AoE mitigation to the group would be nice group utility for NBs without it being OP like it would've been if it was still a passive dodge effect.

Reaper's Mark: Have this provide Minor Lifesteal, just to make it somewhat more attractive a skill to use. Nerf to Piercing aside, it's still a lackluster morph option.

Path of Darkness: Give this ability a Snare. Giving Major Expedition in a small radius is laughable, especially when it does absolutely nothing else that having a snare seems like the least it could do. Give Refreshing Path a purge effect instead of a snare would add to it utility while Twisting keeping the snare would be fine compensation for having to choice between damage or healing. I'm honestly against Path losing Damage at all but damn it, there needs to be more to this skill if they're removing this much from it to at least make it worthwhile for a Tank/Healer to use and adding a purge effect should be enough.

Pulque

One patch they nerf entire nightblade class to oblivion, except stam blade.
Nightblade healer loses its dps/heal hybrid. Nightblade tank loses its evasion+tava. Magblade you know what’s happening. Stamblade remains quite intact now.

db0ssman

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

While you're at it can you also pass on these suggestions

Blur: Let this be a group buff. Now that Major Evasion doesn't provide a dodge chance, I feel that giving AoE mitigation to the group would be nice group utility for NBs without it being OP like it would've been if it was still a passive dodge effect.

Reaper's Mark: Have this provide Minor Lifesteal, just to make it somewhat more attractive a skill to use. Nerf to Piercing aside, it's still a lackluster morph option.

Path of Darkness: Give this ability a Snare. Giving Major Expedition in a small radius is laughable, especially when it does absolutely nothing else that having a snare seems like the least it could do. Give Refreshing Path a purge effect instead of a snare would add to it utility while Twisting keeping the snare would be fine compensation for having to choice between damage or healing. I'm honestly against Path losing Damage at all but damn it, there needs to be more to this skill if they're removing this much from it to at least make it worthwhile for a Tank/Healer to use and adding a purge effect should be enough.

That could be one approach. If you are going to nerf the DPS aspect of NB healer you could add utility by switching to adding more damage prevention. I agree that in almost all pve content the Major expedition added by paths is useless (with maybe the exception of ICP's warden circles and moon hunter keep's circle mc-jerkface boss, DC II's mech end boss etc.).

I'd maybe suggest instead of minor lifesteal that you'd give it minor magicka/stamina steal to help give group sustain, which currently a NB can't do. That would probably mean removing the major berserk & self heal on kill, though. That would make the healer option lower enemy defenses & help group sustain while the DPS option prevented invis for a paltry amount of time, lowered enemy defenses, & provides a self heal/Berserk on their death. I know the second option might be a little OP for PvP, but prevent invis is basically worthless in PvE which means without the berserk there is absolutely no reason to chose that morph over the sustain morph.

Though, tbh all of these changes would just make a NB a poor man's templar. In that aspect, I'd probably rather see the NB keep the damage which gives it a reason to exist vs. being redundant.

Koensol

TheStealthDude wrote: »

Yep. I will probably be quitting my NB healer if these changes go live. I do so many other things on my magblade that I would have to sacrifice every other setup just to use the healing tools that NB provides.

No thanks.

Exactly my conclusion. ZOS keeps streamlining classes and I am sick of it. I play more pvp than I do pve, and I cannot afford losing damage on funnel. So good bye nb healer I suppose. It was fun while it lasted.

Terion_Fyr

Hi!

I play NB Healer since release.

The patch notes are bad for us but.., come on guys.

Some people here are passionate NB Healer, just like me.
We can carry Veteran Raids and Veteran Dungeons.

We can do this!

And, ZOS can still change it, since they are on the PTR, right?

Tasear

Terion_Fyr wrote: »

Hi!

I play NB Healer since release.

The patch notes are bad for us but.., come on guys.

Some people here are passionate NB Healer, just like me.
We can carry Veteran Raids and Veteran Dungeons.

We can do this!

And, ZOS can still change it, since they are on the PTR, right?

What concerns you about the changes?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Tasear wrote: »

Terion_Fyr wrote: »

Hi!

I play NB Healer since release.

The patch notes are bad for us but.., come on guys.

Some people here are passionate NB Healer, just like me.
We can carry Veteran Raids and Veteran Dungeons.

We can do this!

And, ZOS can still change it, since they are on the PTR, right?

What concerns you about the changes?

Probably that they can't put out 40k DPS while also doing 15k healing.

Silver_Strider

db0ssman wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

While you're at it can you also pass on these suggestions

Blur: Let this be a group buff. Now that Major Evasion doesn't provide a dodge chance, I feel that giving AoE mitigation to the group would be nice group utility for NBs without it being OP like it would've been if it was still a passive dodge effect.

Reaper's Mark: Have this provide Minor Lifesteal, just to make it somewhat more attractive a skill to use. Nerf to Piercing aside, it's still a lackluster morph option.

Path of Darkness: Give this ability a Snare. Giving Major Expedition in a small radius is laughable, especially when it does absolutely nothing else that having a snare seems like the least it could do. Give Refreshing Path a purge effect instead of a snare would add to it utility while Twisting keeping the snare would be fine compensation for having to choice between damage or healing. I'm honestly against Path losing Damage at all but damn it, there needs to be more to this skill if they're removing this much from it to at least make it worthwhile for a Tank/Healer to use and adding a purge effect should be enough.

That could be one approach. If you are going to nerf the DPS aspect of NB healer you could add utility by switching to adding more damage prevention. I agree that in almost all pve content the Major expedition added by paths is useless (with maybe the exception of ICP's warden circles and moon hunter keep's circle mc-jerkface boss, DC II's mech end boss etc.).

I'd maybe suggest instead of minor lifesteal that you'd give it minor magicka/stamina steal to help give group sustain, which currently a NB can't do. That would probably mean removing the major berserk & self heal on kill, though. That would make the healer option lower enemy defenses & help group sustain while the DPS option prevented invis for a paltry amount of time, lowered enemy defenses, & provides a self heal/Berserk on their death. I know the second option might be a little OP for PvP, but prevent invis is basically worthless in PvE which means without the berserk there is absolutely no reason to chose that morph over the sustain morph.

Though, tbh all of these changes would just make a NB a poor man's templar. In that aspect, I'd probably rather see the NB keep the damage which gives it a reason to exist vs. being redundant.

I still think that Blur should be changed to a group buff to at least make NB Healers more relevant, especially since we're losing out on a ton of damage now.

db0ssman

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Terion_Fyr wrote: »

Hi!

I play NB Healer since release.

The patch notes are bad for us but.., come on guys.

Some people here are passionate NB Healer, just like me.
We can carry Veteran Raids and Veteran Dungeons.

We can do this!

And, ZOS can still change it, since they are on the PTR, right?

What concerns you about the changes?

Probably that they can't put out 40k DPS while also doing 15k healing.

Lol, that would be nice. There might be people that can do that, but if you swap the DPS and HPS you wrote, that's closer to what I normally do.

idk

It appears Zos is trying to force players into making a choice with their magblade. Obviously between healing and dps. Zos has not learned many players don’t like being forced to choose in a game about options.

However, I think this is more about hitting high end raid groups that have liked magbladws when leaning content due to good dps and passive healing. This is especially true with Cr since there is a healing debuff involved.

Micah_Bayer

db0ssman wrote: »

I've mained a NB healer basically since I started playing the game 3 years ago and have seen its power bounce up and down. It started off as almost a dps that could throw out some healing to a good mix of healer and DPS. Really you were trading off all the utility that a Templar adds to a group for having a healer that can both put out more HPS and a respectable amount of damage. Looking at the PTS notes for nightblade, it looks like they are basically removing most of its DPS capabilities. The main 5 sources of damage for a NB healer is refreshing path, funnel health, veil of blades, sap essence, and impale. The TL;DR from the notes is:

Refreshing Path will do no damage but marginally more healing,
Funnel health will do the same healing but 1/2 damage (2x healing % and half damage means the same net healing),
Impale will cost 30% more,
Veil of Blades will be unchanged,
sap essence will be unchanged.

Now that it will be harder to act as a damage surge to a weakened enemy and most of your single point damage spells won't do much damage or won't do any damage what advantage will there be to playing a NB to a templar or even a warden?

Both of those classes add a ton of utility to a group at the cost of less damage and more reactive healing. With these changes, damage between all 3 classes will probably be similar, but there won't be added utility with a NB.

Adapt

Maryal

db0ssman wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

While you're at it can you also pass on these suggestions

Blur: Let this be a group buff. Now that Major Evasion doesn't provide a dodge chance, I feel that giving AoE mitigation to the group would be nice group utility for NBs without it being OP like it would've been if it was still a passive dodge effect.

Reaper's Mark: Have this provide Minor Lifesteal, just to make it somewhat more attractive a skill to use. Nerf to Piercing aside, it's still a lackluster morph option.

Path of Darkness: Give this ability a Snare. Giving Major Expedition in a small radius is laughable, especially when it does absolutely nothing else that having a snare seems like the least it could do. Give Refreshing Path a purge effect instead of a snare would add to it utility while Twisting keeping the snare would be fine compensation for having to choice between damage or healing. I'm honestly against Path losing Damage at all but damn it, there needs to be more to this skill if they're removing this much from it to at least make it worthwhile for a Tank/Healer to use and adding a purge effect should be enough.

That could be one approach. If you are going to nerf the DPS aspect of NB healer you could add utility by switching to adding more damage prevention. I agree that in almost all pve content the Major expedition added by paths is useless (with maybe the exception of ICP's warden circles and moon hunter keep's circle mc-jerkface boss, DC II's mech end boss etc.).

I'd maybe suggest instead of minor lifesteal that you'd give it minor magicka/stamina steal to help give group sustain, which currently a NB can't do. That would probably mean removing the major berserk & self heal on kill, though. That would make the healer option lower enemy defenses & help group sustain while the DPS option prevented invis for a paltry amount of time, lowered enemy defenses, & provides a self heal/Berserk on their death. I know the second option might be a little OP for PvP, but prevent invis is basically worthless in PvE which means without the berserk there is absolutely no reason to chose that morph over the sustain morph.

Though, tbh all of these changes would just make a NB a poor man's templar. In that aspect, I'd probably rather see the NB keep the damage which gives it a reason to exist vs. being redundant.

I wish they hadn't removed the damage to refreshing path, even as a stamblade that skill has been a life-saver countless times! I like having a magjca based skill to use while my stamina regens and refreshing path (in it's current live form) is perfect. The speed counters most snares, the 'path' lasts long enough to where I can run over it a few times for a decent HOT (without having to use vigor), and it does some damage to the enemy. Loosing the damage from refreshing path will suck.

db0ssman

idk wrote: »

It appears Zos is trying to force players into making a choice with their magblade. Obviously between healing and dps. Zos has not learned many players don’t like being forced to choose in a game about options.

However, I think this is more about hitting high end raid groups that have liked magbladws when leaning content due to good dps and passive healing. This is especially true with Cr since there is a healing debuff involved.

This is something I really didn't consider, but the changes still feel a little like buying a new house because the front door handle sticks a little bit. The changes are going to ripple out a lot into the rest of the game content. It's gonna be pretty tough to use my regular gear to do stuff like delves, and world bosses if I'm doing 1/2 damage. That means it will be tougher to complete world bosses with only 2 or 3 people, which happens a lot in dead zones. Having to carry around another gear set and changing my bars for overworld content isn't a big deal now that I have ESO+, but when I didn't every inventory slot was precious. It would have been almost untenable to carry new gear just for that reason.

Plus it's going to make doing a lot of normal dungeons much more of a slog when I can't help supplement some noob DPS that's only doing 5k because they have no idea what to do. Although in theory, it seems like this will help them learn, in reality, it's probably just going to cause people to boot them and rage quit dungeons. I'm sure it will result in the opposite too where a magblade dps could help bolster a weak healer, but now they can't.

Silver_Strider

Micah_Bayer wrote: »

db0ssman wrote: »

I've mained a NB healer basically since I started playing the game 3 years ago and have seen its power bounce up and down. It started off as almost a dps that could throw out some healing to a good mix of healer and DPS. Really you were trading off all the utility that a Templar adds to a group for having a healer that can both put out more HPS and a respectable amount of damage. Looking at the PTS notes for nightblade, it looks like they are basically removing most of its DPS capabilities. The main 5 sources of damage for a NB healer is refreshing path, funnel health, veil of blades, sap essence, and impale. The TL;DR from the notes is:

Refreshing Path will do no damage but marginally more healing,
Funnel health will do the same healing but 1/2 damage (2x healing % and half damage means the same net healing),
Impale will cost 30% more,
Veil of Blades will be unchanged,
sap essence will be unchanged.

Now that it will be harder to act as a damage surge to a weakened enemy and most of your single point damage spells won't do much damage or won't do any damage what advantage will there be to playing a NB to a templar or even a warden?

Both of those classes add a ton of utility to a group at the cost of less damage and more reactive healing. With these changes, damage between all 3 classes will probably be similar, but there won't be added utility with a NB.

Adapt

How exactly does a NB healer adapt when our healing skills are nerfed to do less damage? Funnel does 50% less damage but the same amount of healing and Refreshing doesn't do damage anymore, on top of offering 0 utility other than Major Expedition (which is laughable to even call utility considering it only lasts for 2 seconds). The whole reason to bring a NB Healer in a group was that they did the most damage out of the healer; Things die quicker, less healing required. Warden and Templar Healers offer buffs NB can't hope to match and with the whole reason to bring a NB Healer now trashed, what exactly is the point of them? They don't do damage, they offer no utility, no group shields and while Ultimates are redundant as long as Warhorn exists, Bolstering Darkness/Soul Siphon < Either Templar/Warden support ultimates.

This is not about adapting, this is about a straight nerf that will make NB healers redundant in every way, shape or form.

Apache_Kid

Micah_Bayer wrote: »

db0ssman wrote: »

I've mained a NB healer basically since I started playing the game 3 years ago and have seen its power bounce up and down. It started off as almost a dps that could throw out some healing to a good mix of healer and DPS. Really you were trading off all the utility that a Templar adds to a group for having a healer that can both put out more HPS and a respectable amount of damage. Looking at the PTS notes for nightblade, it looks like they are basically removing most of its DPS capabilities. The main 5 sources of damage for a NB healer is refreshing path, funnel health, veil of blades, sap essence, and impale. The TL;DR from the notes is:

Refreshing Path will do no damage but marginally more healing,
Funnel health will do the same healing but 1/2 damage (2x healing % and half damage means the same net healing),
Impale will cost 30% more,
Veil of Blades will be unchanged,
sap essence will be unchanged.

Now that it will be harder to act as a damage surge to a weakened enemy and most of your single point damage spells won't do much damage or won't do any damage what advantage will there be to playing a NB to a templar or even a warden?

Both of those classes add a ton of utility to a group at the cost of less damage and more reactive healing. With these changes, damage between all 3 classes will probably be similar, but there won't be added utility with a NB.

Adapt

Quit saying stupid ****

Kadoin

TheStealthDude wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Noted some concerns

My main concern is that the unique flavor NB brought to healing was that they were both doing some damage and healing at the same time. The PTS patch notes really kill this uniqueness, as we will now have to choose ONLY healing or ONLY damage with Path of Darkness, and we lose a large amount of Damage from Funnel Health.

Now, I don't want to be doing 20k-25k DPS while being in full heal mode, but I would like to be contributing a bit more damage than other healers do. With these changes, I don't think I do any more damage than a Templar healer, maybe even less, while also not having the same level of utility that they do.

So why play a NB healer now?

Unlikely ZOS will change it as its one of the reasons overall that healers weren't needed. ZOS isn't as incompetent as people think; they saw what was happening and they put an end to it. Right now on live, no other healer is even worth mentioning besides an NB one IF the group knows what they are doing.

exeeter702

Changes are fine. Too much overreaction in this thread. I have been healing on NB since beta and have become very familiar with losing and gaining key tools over the years.

You will be fine, and if you are going to drop nb healer because of these changes then by all means. Frankly zos still hasnt broke even on their generosity with giving us healthy offering. You all may find that a ridiculous thing to say but the skill is that strong.

Funnel health for dungeons or trials is still more group healing tied to damage than any other healer has access to, it will be critting for 8k easy. You will be fine. It is a damage loss accross the board, but is not going to invalidate nb healers.

Kadoin

exeeter702 wrote: »

Changes are fine. Too much overreaction in this thread. I have been healing on NB since beta and have become very familiar with losing and gaining key tools over the years.

You will be fine, and if you are going to drop nb healer because of these changes then by all means. Frankly zos still hasnt broke even on their generosity with giving us healthy offering. You all may find that a ridiculous thing to say but the skill is that strong.

Funnel health for dungeons or trials is still more group healing tied to damage than any other healer has access to, it will be critting for 8k easy. You will be fine. It is a damage loss accross the board, but is not going to invalidate nb healers.

Exactly...but you know the forums...

db0ssman

I decided to try out my NB on the PTS just to see how much the changes effect a NB build. It kind of went how you expected, but in the overworld (thats just where I testing around in), I think you can get away with minimal changes to still be able to do story/gathering/delve content. I haven't tried out running dungeons yet, which I might do in a few days.

Funnel health - this became as bad as you might imagine in solo play. It does less damage than sap essence or impale while the enemy is still at full health. I changed my offhand to a destro staff and replaced this with Destructive clench.

Refreshing path - kind of the same with funnel health. Getting a small amount of healing each second isn't worth taking up the slot and really doesn't help with short encounters. I replaced this with Elemental blockade.

Impale - The extra cost wasn't that noticible in the small scale. It will probably be more impactful when fighting a WB or dungeon boss where you need to use it pretty frequently while still healing.

Siphoning strikes- The tool tip in-game is clearer than the description on the patch notes. The 'double resources' you get are not from the completed heavy attack, but from that 100 magicka you get from siphoning strikes. So you get a whole, amazing, outstanding 200 magicka for completing a heavy attack. Paying 1000 magicka to get 4000 magicka in 20 seconds still seems kind of like a crap ability, and I don't thing the change will make me want to add this to my rotation. I'm really only considering adding it for the easier content to replace healthy offering because that doesn't do anything while solo and the double health regain on heavy (3.6k extra) could be useful without having the healing from Funnel health or refreshing path.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

@db0ssman you telling me that you didn't have lighting wall on your bar anyways? How did you have your nb healer set up? Personally if I ran a NB healer, my bars would look something like this-

Inner light- healthy offering- funnel health- healing Springs- combat prayer- ulti soul siphon


Lightning staff back bar
Eledrain- refreshing path- sap essance- orbs lightning wall, ulti warhorn.

Your back bar would be enough damage for everything in the overland, even with refreshing not doing damage now.