NB tank - meeting notes feedback

aeowulf

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Nightblades:
There was a feeling the patch was more about what was being taken away rather than what was gained. Nightblades DPS is still good, but tank and healing NBs were particularly affected by the changes. More of this will be put into the respective sections

It was also mentioned that the cumulative changes to Nightblades, in particular the loss of healing, has turned the class into more of a “brawler” that relies on non-Nightblade stuff like gear that defines their builds.

We were running low on time, so specific Nightblade feedback will be sent to the Developer team.

Tanks:

Nightblade tanking was centered on Tavas and that is going away. In general, it’s probably a good thing not to have classes depend on a single set of gear, but update 20 is not offering an attractive alternative for nightblades. ZOS indicated they are aware NB tanking sustain is dependent on light attacking (not easy) and avoiding certain hits (now not possible). There was some back and forth as to exactly what sort of fights and scenario NBs fall short on, however we were running out of time. We will follow up with an email to get everyone on the same page.

More tanking feedback was sent to ZOS in lieu of time constraints

So... NB tanks. I will give some thoughts on the above & my experiences in general:

"Nightblade tanking was centered on Tavas and that is going away. In general, it’s probably a good thing not to have classes depend on a single set of gear, but update 20 is not offering an attractive alternative for nightblades." - I feel this statement is absolutely correct, but the alternatives should be in place before the options are removed. I always felt Tavas was the alternative to sap tanking which was a class based tanking style. Which leads nicely onto my thoughts.

I don't think ZoS know what they want with NB tanks, or they are not communicating this. I actually think it's the former and they are procrastinating and not making a decision because they are scared to get their design wrong. Bit wierd considering they are generally not scared of massive changes. Or they are clueless what to do, but I doubt this.

Where do I think NB tanks fall short? There is no easy answer to this but it's not just one area - all roles should lack in at least one area, to allow other classes to be situationally better. This would promote diversity, it's getting very boring to only ever see DK or Warden tanks in vPUG finder.

Permablock is one area. Firstly it's not needed in all but a few content situations, but it IS needed in a few. Whilst content exist with mechanics that only some classes can reasonably complete, it puts the remaining classes in a non-viable category. vAA axes spring to mind of a fairly good example.

So what does perma-blocking give us:

25% damage reduction against everything
CC immunity
Training wheels

I'd actually say the last point was the most important. Right now a NB tank has no way to learn - other classes can just hold block if they are unsure whats going to happen, and generally speaking they will be OK. This is not the case for NB, so they die, group wipes, repeat. Consider the first boss in vFH. There is also a troll that will clobber you for insta-death if you don't block - and this is not the boss. The tank HAS to deal with two mobs, there are also additional adds. With a class that can perma block, it's a non-issue, but a NB needs to get out the bosses special attack -> which means the troll can go off screen -> so you might not see it's heavy attack -> so you end up needing combat tips on to notify you of the heavy attacks coming in -> but you then end up blocking all the trash too -> which needs something akin to perma-block. You cannot be 100% all the time, and NB tanks need to be 100% all the time. Even a partner asking what you want for dinner later can cause a wipe - it has happened. (Dinner was good though.)

If you want a class to not be able to perma block this is absolutely fine, but you need to realise what is being removed and replace it with something comparable in return. Class diversity should be the aim, not imbalance which happens when the removed feature is not replaced. Think of it this way: everyone in your group has a slice of coffee cake. Someone takes yours away. Diversity is getting it replaced with a slice of carrot cake, imbalance is not being given any cake back.

Honestly, right now IF NB Tanks are going down the non-permablocking route I feel they need something like a sustainable version of Magma shell capping any single source of incoming damage to somewhere between 10% - 40% of their max health. (to put it in perspective, Magma shell is 3%...) That way, if they missed a heavy attack, they would not automatically die. Bare in mind, with perma-blocking you never miss blocking any heavy attacks. I would probably put it on shades, with the description of them taking the excess damage, or give it a 'cost whilst active' cost, maybe of health.

Evasion change - this is also going to hurt NB tank sustain, they will get hit more and take more damage. It's also generally the direct attacks that are killers, 25% reduction to AE damage won't help. Dodging did, but you could not rely on it.

CC immunity - Well, it's actually a pretty big thing too. Not getting knocked out of your own refreshing path for example. If this is removed by desire to have a non perma-blocking class, then it should also be replaced. I think the healing portion of siphoning strikes should be removed and replaced with 2-3 seconds of immovable on melee attack. NB play style should be getting out the way of damage, not healing through it. The current PTS Evasion change will really help StamDPS as they take mostly AE damage...

For training wheels... I have no answer. Maybe an armour set that has a 5 piece of reducing the cost of block to zero. More experienced player will swap this out for ebon at some point.

Some class skills are significantly worse than their generic tanking counterparts. For example:

Dark Shade - 2700 Magicka - Damage, Minor Maim, occasionally AE minor maim

Heroic Slash - 2970 Stamina - Damage, 60% snare, minor maim & MINOR HEROISM

On what planet would you need to be on to want Dark Shade over Heroic Slash? Class based skills should always be slightly better than their generic counterparts otherwise you have a class skill that will not be chosen. With most of the current content the only mobs that specifically need maim on them are bosses so single target is usually fine. Dark shade AE usefulness can even be completely negated by a monster set for that odd encounter it is needed.

and that's just one example.

Crowd Control is also an issue for NB tanks. If you go down the route of non-permablocking, they not only loose CC immunity but need to spend more time watching for heavy attacks, which means less time spent elsewhere (like pulling mobs in) and needingto spend resources on break free more often. Combined with NB tanks needing to be at 100% efficiency with no slip ups, it's too much. Maybe shades should also become that 'helping partner' that does this for you, or even better changing mass hysteria. Two morphs there, neither are useful in PVE.

Skill line segregation:

OK ZoS - you are on the right track, you just need to get all retro(active) on us. Wardens have three clearly defined skill lines, one for healing, one DPS, one tank. This means they are really easy to balance. A warden tank, equipping tanks skills, get tank passives. DK have two skill lines for tanking, which is one reason they make excellent tanks and sub par healers/dps. NB are all over the place. Shadow appears to be the tanking line according to the passives, but there are more dps skills in that line than tanking skills. This is going to make them really hard to balance. They just need reorganising before you start making more sweeping changes beacuse right now you impact the wrong roles a lot. Infact you should prob look at all classes here and use Wardens as your reference.

But these are only all suggestions, and need tweaking to get the balance right. What I think is NB tanks need is someone at ZoS to take one through some tough DLC content and decide for themselves. I always loved Gilliams Bloodletter, and I consider it a reason why NB tanks probably lost sap tanking. What many don't realise is whilst he appears very unkillable in a lot of situations, he is not providing any CC so his group is probably also dead. The death of the rest of the group was often an issue for me back in the sap tanking days.

Silver_Strider

1) Have Blur apply to Teammates. Since this skill is now going to give out AoE mitigation instead of Dodge Chance, I feel it would be akin to DK's Obsidian Shield and Warden's Frost Cloak in terms of defensive utility. While AoE mitigation might be somewhat more powerful in terms of PvP and the like, the fact of the matter is, its not a unique buff at all since its easily replicated with the Gossamer set, which will potentially be meta to run with the Evasion change anyways, not to mention all the other methods of acquiring this buff (Blade Cloak, Shuffle, etc). The only problem with this suggestion is that Magblade would be even more powerful in PvE content since they'd have access to it too and while it would be a DPS loss for them to run it, it would be a small price to pay for such utility and without Healers giving up another set and having to grind CoS for Gossamer (and trust me when I say, the grind for a Gossamer Necklace is REAL).

2) Give Path of Darkness a synergy that grants Empower w/ Refreshing Path granting 2 Empower stacks. This is honestly a very minor change to NB utility but one that I feel that would greatly benefit NB Tanks and Healers since we're losing out on the damage we had from Refreshing Path and gaining next to nothing for it and while again, Magblade gaining more utility in the form of Twisting Path getting an Empower Synergy for allies to use (easily dealt with by removing the synergy from Twisting) I feel that's a small price to pay to make NB Tanks and Healers more useful.

3) Have Debilitate apply Minor Lifesteal to the target. Trash skill that gains some minor utility for Tanks and Healers to run it. DPS won't use it because it's a DPS loss but at least it'll finally get a functional, albeit minor, purpose and it let's Tanks/Healers get back some of the damage we'd otherwise lose for using Refreshing Path.

4) Have Dark Shade scale on Health and root enemies hit by the AoE attack. I'm also fine with the Trap morph of Fear getting the root but I feel that Dark Shade would benefit from a slight buff since even with the AoE Maim, people still prefer Heroic Slash for obvious reasons. If nothing else, I'd like for the Shade to "inherit" Siphoning Strikes and restore Health+Stamina for the Caster as it's attacking so that it can be used as a sustain tool on top of a Maim dispenser.

5) Reduce the cost of Soul Siphon down to 100 Ultimate. Simply put, this ultimate is bad when compared to other Healer Ultimates on any level. It costs twice as much as Warden's Tree, which also have several other benefits to them, such as Minor Toughness, Major Mending AND refunding some of the Ultimate cost, Templar Ultimate that is a super powerful PvP tool for groups and the Resto Ultimate is godly with all that it does for a slightly lower cost than Soul Siphon. Lowering the cost of this ultimate is hardly gamebreaking.

6) Have Reaper's Mark restore X Max Magic/Stamina (whichever is lower) upon enemy death, instead of Major Berserk. If effect ends before target dies, restore only 20% of X instead. Again, a sustain buff for the downtrodden NB Tanks that can't catch a break. It's a direct nerf to the DPS potential of this skill with the loss of Major Berserk but honestly, who was using this skill outside of vMA runs, if even that. Even with Piercing Mark being nerfed, it's still the go to morph for PvP purposes and Reaper Mark becoming a half decent sustain tool as well as a means of applying Major Fracture should Ice Staff Tanking come into play, so it seems like an alright adjustment to an otherwise meh skill.

7) Alter the Dark Vigor passive to increase healing received for each Shadow ability slotted by 1/2% each on top of its current effects. We're losing Minor Vitality and this is compensation for it. It won't fully make up the difference but a buff's a buff. Hell, you could even increase it to 2/4% and it honestly would still be weaker than DK in any practical application but that would be somewhat powerful in PvP so I'll settle for 2%.

8) Change Dark Veil to a 7/15% dodge chance while blocking. Bake the increased duration previously granted into the skills directly. Keeping Tava Dodge Tanks alive while keeping the flavor for Tanking purposes only, since blocking is a Stamina killer otherwise. It's not like NB has the sustain nor burst heal required to be permablockers in PvP that this change wouldn't alter NB in PvP all that much but offer NB Tanks much needed support in PvE content that they desperately need and it allows them to keep Tava utility.