Let's discuss Cloak

Aedrion

Hello fellow ESO-players

Yes, this again. But don't worry, I'm not going to scream from the rooftops about how cloak needs to be nerfed into the ground and all NB's should be free kills. I understand that cloak is the key class skill for NB's and that any tampering with it, changes the class' gameplay fundamentally.

However, since this has happened for the iconic skills of all other classes, forcing them to adapt, I feel an argument-based discussion about Cloak is required.

I will present my arguments in a comprehensive manner below and would ask that in defending your stance, whatever it might be, you do the same. Please refrain from making blanket statements with no arguments to back them up. Such statements have no value in a discussion.

So, on with it. I think that cloak currently offers too much potency rolled into one skill when compared to similar skills used by the other classes. Below I will list everything cloak offers you.

Cloak offers immediate invisibility. In PvE this isn't very powerful, in PvP, stealth is very potent. It permits you to move without another player being able to predict where you'll reappear. It gives you control over positioning in a fight, as well as the opening move.

Cloak acts like a magicka dodge-roll. Any attack thrown against you just before cloak is negated entirely. But contrary to dodge-roll, during cloak, no attacks can be made against you since you cannot be targetted. It is thus more potent than dodge-roll by far.

Cloak suppresses all active DoTs on you for its duration. Any dots, be it something minor as the ticks from Flame Reach or something huge like the ticks from Dawnbreakers are also completely negated. This permits one to wait out the duration of some potent DoTs like the DB ticks (5 seconds) and effectively half its damage. It also prevents other effects that Dots provide such as Skoria procs and possibly healing for the attacker.

Cloak increases you weapon and spell damage by 10% for your next attack. Given how this next attack will crit and possibly stun, this is very potent. A surprise attack from stealth for example will apply debuffs, stun and crit all at once at +10% weapon damage.

Cloak assures that next attack will also be a critical strike. Meaning any sets that synergise with on demand crits (Caluurion for example) will be very potent since this ability will proc when you choose. It also permits one to choose to crit with skills like Incap strike or Assassins Will, dealing immense damage on demand.

Slotting cloak increases your max HP by 4% due to the passive.

Cloak can be recast while in stealth, for no added cost, without breaking stealth. Other powerful skills or moves that mitigate tons of damage like Streak and Dodge-roll have an addative cost upon use within a short span after using it. This makes sense, as spamming streak and dodge-roll with impunity would be too strong. Cloak doesn't have this. It can be cast - even by stamina users – multiple times in a row.

Cloak permits full HP regen. Yes, this is part of its power since many a NB pairs Troll King with cloak to permit those few seconds to essentially nearly reset their HP without an opponent being able to stop it. Compare this to Mist Form, where HP regen is halted.

Cloak, finally, is such a blanket immunity to nearly all attacks that NB's can and do build for full damage because they don't need to have much inherent protection. Whenever they are losing a fight, cloak can – in most cases but not all – give them perfect protection for a few seconds and permit them to re-engage.

This list, I hope, demonstrates how potent cloak is compared to some other iconic skills. I am aware there are counters. In fact, I have one with Hurricane. There's also magelight but honestly, slotting Radiant Magelight just to avoid NB's cloak leaves you with a dead skill in any other scenario. And there's potions, but that's a 45 second cooldown and a consumable to boot. It leaves you with a mostly useless potion otherwise. If anything, these specific sacrifices made to counter just one skill only prove how potent that skill is.

In effect, the only true counter to cloak that doesn't hamper your effectiveness in combat in general is AoE but even then, seeing a dodge or miss with an AoE skill on a NB using cloak is not unheard of.

Does cloak need to be nerfed into the ground? Hell no. Many of these elements are fine and make the class awesome to play. Cloak deserves a spot on your bars and people should indeed have to learn how to deal with it. But that does not change the fact that it offers you a huge amount of benefits all rolled into one button.

Thus, I would recommend one of two changes related to its use so that cloak falls in line with other similar skills.

Either:

Tweak healing while in cloak or reduce healing taken while in cloak significantly. This would offset the ability to use cloak to reset a fight consistently. A milder version would be suspending health regen while cloaked. So that the NB can still use vigour and rally before vanishing, but has to actively use those skills before deciding to vanish instead of waiting for a Troll king proc and then cloak.

Or:

Change DoT damage mitigation while in cloak so that Nb's still need to get purged and healed and should avoid letting an opponent hit them with too many DoTs at once. DoTs could still be mitigated but maybe by 50% only, or 30%. This would prevent cloak being the ultimate invulnerability skill.

I understand this is a controversial debate and one that seems to lay bare that cloak is essential to a NB's kit. But it's simply not right that most classes need to compromise and balance their kit while one class doesn't. There's a reason this is a returning pain-point and I'm hoping that a debate surrounding this skill can be had without it devolving into a mudball fight. Even if your memento's tell you otherwise.

Cheers for any opinions.
Aedrion

Lucky28

they should restore swallow soul and refresing path to what it was an un-nerf mark. the mark change was probably the stupidest change ZOS has ever made and it still baffles me how they came to that conclusion.

Scamh

Meh. Looks like any other "I don't like stamblades" thread to me.

Fyi. AOE is the best counter to cloak. Cloak does not deny "all" damage, which should be a super obvious one in this steel potato meta. I mean, does anyone even slot single target skills any more.

Anyway. Meh. From a magblade's (the other, mostly forgotten spec) perspective, it's far from overtuned. I don't have to list why, it's there for everyone to see.

DocFrost72

However, since this has happened for the iconic skills of all other classes, forcing them to adapt, I feel an argument-based discussion about Cloak is required.

Not formed an opinion on the rest of the post yet, but for a second consider that saying "others suffered therefore you must suffer" only perpetuates suffering. The whole "dig two graves" thing.

LeifErickson

I feel like the biggest problem of cloak is that it's not fun to fight against. It's really frustrating for your opponent if you are using cloak effectively and I think that's why people are so annoyed with the skill.

Scamh

LeifErickson wrote: »

I feel like the biggest problem of cloak is that it's not fun to fight against. It's really frustrating for your opponent if you are using cloak effectively and I think that's why people are so annoyed with the skill.

i think the one thing that irritates me more is a stam sorc in a tower

jediodyn_ESO

Cloak is annoying but most the people who complain don’t bother using one of the dozen of counters to it.

Everyone can use detect pots, everyone has access to at least one AE, everyone can get magelight. There are so many other counters. Most players who complain do so because they don’t realize how easily it can be countered. Everyone who complains should have to spend a week playing that class they are complaining about in PvP before being heard.

P.s. this is also why the “class rep” system is broken. You know who should be giving the devs feedback? Those thugs on every server who are always class hopping to the most op build/class, dominating the games over every patch. They actually understand what is broken.

Jimmy_The_Fixer

The issue with cloak is how polarizing it can make certain matchups.

It provides a blanket immunity to all single target abilities which is obscenely strong but it’s also a completely dead skill against most builds running steelnado/ice blockade/hurricane/etc.

I personally would like any change that lowers the raw power of cloak in best-case scenarios but also weakens the existing counters to cloak. That way we don’t have to deal with the rock-paper-scissors nonsense and can allow skilled play to be a stronger determining factor.

Aedrion

@Lucky28 : Mark's change isn't related to cloak's potency exactly. It is however a skill that kept people out of stealth for far too long. If you point is that we could use more effective counters, then I agree. But those counters shouldn't completely negate cloak either.

@Scamh : This isn't an anti-NB thread. I think NB's are cool to play with and against. I love what they're supposed to be. I simply wish to point out that their main defence however, does a lot for one skill and needs a tweak. Your assumption that your opinion is so obviously true that you needn't defend it, is downright absurd.

@DocFrost72 : That's also not what I'm saying. The game has evolved, the meta has changed and skills have been brought in line with eachother to try and iron out overperformance. In doing so, some classes have had the functionality of one of their core skills changed and have adapted with new play-styles and setups. I mentioned this to counter the argument that a NB with a weaker cloak, is a dead NB.

@LeifErickson : Mostly correct yes. Some fights I simply leave because I see that the opponent will drag it out forever using cloak and that all the benefits it offers. But streak is also annoying, BoL spam and Total Dark are also annoying, DK snares and slow and roots are also annoying. But they're not going to carry a player.

HowlKimchi

Magblades are bad enough guys

Derra

LeifErickson wrote: »

I feel like the biggest problem of cloak is that it's not fun to fight against. It's really frustrating for your opponent if you are using cloak effectively and I think that's why people are so annoyed with the skill.

It has a plethora of associated problems.

It aids in denying heavyattack sustain (complementing dodge + block).
It prevents offensive based regen (magica steal).
It prevents offensive based healing (siphoning, embers, surge, etc).

Generally being able to prevent an enemy from attacking entirely in a game that has lots of mechanics associated with being able to attack an opponent or scaling of dmg done to them is problematic.

Furthermore the aoe counters argument isn´t really valid when either cloak can be spammed (aoe generally don´t deal high enough dmg and cost a lot) - or when shade is incorporated.

I feel the only aoe that reliably allows to softcounter cloak with it is hurricane if the NB is somewhat experienced in using it.

Scamh

Aedrion wrote: »

@Scamh : This isn't an anti-NB thread. I think NB's are cool to play with and against. I love what they're supposed to be. I simply wish to point out that their main defence however, does a lot for one skill and needs a tweak. Your assumption that your opinion is so obviously true that you needn't defend it, is downright absurd.

I didn't say this was an anti-nightblade thread. I said you "seems like you don't like stamblades". Then I said something along the lines of "there's a forgotten spec". Good to have that confirmed.

Maybe it's absurd that I assume that everyone else sees how many counters there are. But since you are the one writing the page on "cloak", that should have been part of your research. Anyway, I'm sure you'll find the topics with those lists on the forums.

Skander

The irony?

Cloak isn't used by magicka becouse it gets them killed more then save them

Stamina instead has a whole mag pool that wound't be used otherwise

Lucky28

Aedrion wrote: »

@Lucky28 : Mark's change isn't related to cloak's potency exactly. It is however a skill that kept people out of stealth for far too long. If you point is that we could use more effective counters, then I agree. But those counters shouldn't completely negate cloak either.

As someone who used to main magblade (before Murkmire *** up the class) i disagree. Mark needs it's duration back it was a bad change. aside from that, we don't need more counters to cloak we just the the ones that already exist to work and a stam detect pot would be nice.

Toc de Malsvi

You forgot to mention it gives Major Resolve and Major Ward for a few seconds. It is undoubtedly too strong when combined with Shade use. It is very easy to escape groups of enemies with Shade+Cloak, outside of game breaking lag. It deserves adjustment but with the number of night blades out there don't be surprise is a great outcry of any healthy criticism of the skill.

Jeezye

To be honest cloak only got so insanely potent when it was changed to suppress dot damage. After that, cloak became the ultimate defensive tool, negating incoming direct attacks as well as dot damage while allowing repositioning and healing. Heck even momentum could be cast (and still can?) while in cloak. Imo cloak should either suppress healing in the same manner it suppresses damage, or allow dots to take effect while invisible.

This is coming from a magblade main since beta, who doesn't even use the skill.

Jeezye

jediodyn_ESO wrote: »

Cloak is annoying but most the people who complain don’t bother using one of the dozen of counters to it.

Everyone can use detect pots, everyone has access to at least one AE, everyone can get magelight. There are so many other counters. Most players who complain do so because they don’t realize how easily it can be countered.

All counters you mentioned are not viable, except of spamming aoes. Detect pots grant a very limited duration and handicap you by giving up other important buffs. Magelight and its stam counterpart are INSANELY expensive while having super short range, so NB's with one dodgerolle + cloak usually don't get caught by the effect. It really is frustrating to play against, and its always a gamble if you or the NB will run out of resources faster when spamming cloaks vs aoes.

A class' defensive setup should not be based just around one skill, just like sorcs have shields to back up streak and DKs run strong healing to go with wings. Templars have to build super tanky so spamming BoL actually takes effect, and has other downsides.

Dojohoda

Firstly, your one-button prelude is misleading! Certain passives can be gained by any Shadow skill.

Shadowy Disguise provides:
1. Brief Invisibility (can be broken)
2. Suppress dots, if invisible
3. Next attack within 3 seconds will crit.
THAT'S ALL

You are aware that cloak has been nerfed or broken numerous times, and that NB is nerfed every patch? On to that point..

Nightblades ALWAYS have to adapt. Some of us are shelved.. tanks namely. Healblades are now delegated to 4-man groups. Stamblade is good, but they use several non-class skills. Magblade lost a lot this patch. Our heals were nerfed, sustain nerfed, and ironically our ability to take other nightblades out of cloak is nerfed. In a previous patch we lost an invisibility morph for a heal.

Regarding single target attack: Single target attack cannot break cloak, so yes, if we luck out and don't lag, your attack won't hit us if we cloak at the right time.

Regarding healing and Shadowy Disguise: First, nightblade heals are more garbage with current patch. Shadowy Disguise does not create healing. Heals have to also be cast/received, just like any other player.
(The other cloak morph, Dark Cloak, is a heal, but it doesn't make one invisible!)

Also, a Shadowy Disguise using magblade's best heal is not a class heal and it was nerfed! (Healing Ward) Also, if we cast it, it usually lands on another player.

If you want to play effectively against a nightblade, you can. Unlike other "iconic" skills, you can deny a blade his Shadowy Disguise.

--- STAMBLADE ---
Lastly if you are complaining about Stamblade, they don't use class heals with Shadowy Disguise. What you are really asking for is a nerf to stam-heals. (Not trying to trigger. (I don't want them nerfed))

HankTwo

What I don't like about cloak in general is that it promotes gameplay that can be incredibly unfun to play against. The same was true for the speed meta and old streak, but those things have been dealt with.

Two examples:
- ‘Good’ snipe spammers that actually know how to keep a distance further than the range of gapclosers or normal ranged skills. They keep attacking until the opponent gets too close and then just cloak away. There is zero counterplay against this on most melee builds when done right by the NB.
- Magblades that resto staff light attack from range and instantly cloak afterwards. They can repeat this indefinitely and there is close to nothing you can do against this kind of trolling, especially if they couple cloak with shade.

I personally believe that enabling such behavior, where one person can attack another on an open field with no real counterplay available (even if it is just trolling), is a bad design choice. While some tweaks to cloak could improve balance, I think a true rework of the skill would be better. Hell, the devs could be creative and make cloak even more powerful but transform it into a very cheap ultimate. Such a drastic class change would make many people unhappy, though, so it’s unlikely to happen.

thankyourat

Magblade is probably the worse class this patch. No reason to nerf it further. There are plenty of nerfs that will affect stamblade and not magblade. You could change either incap or relentless focus back to a magicka morph. Either one of those changes would bring stamblade down to the rest of the classes. Snipe is due for a rework as well.

Priyasekarssk

LeifErickson wrote: »

I feel like the biggest problem of cloak is that it's not fun to fight against. It's really frustrating for your opponent if you are using cloak effectively and I think that's why people are so annoyed with the skill.

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage , which is down right stupid. Only DKs , wardens with heavy armor meta can survive that ***.

What ZOs wants is every one run around with 35K+ resistance with good healing in DKs & wardens with seventh legion with 3.5K weapon damage and 7k penetration. Combine dawn-breaker at same time. Roll over entire map as immortals.
Now almost entire cyrodil population is DKs or wardens with some healers here and there.

Complete crap . Right now ZOs is full EP xenophobics only buff EP races and classes excluding wardens. See DK with lizards immortals even with 10+ mage sorcs. DK warden another immortals. Magicka NBs with Dark elf never nerfed or other dps classes buffed. All trials only magicka NB dps. Why cant buff other class DPS ? On duels top 10 its only Nbs , DKs and wardens. In Bgs I simply quit if I have light armor build in my team and opponents have 4 DKs or 4 Wardens or 4 NBs . Its simple waste of time.

Only aim of balance team is for EP to win all alliance wars ? Ok lets all play EP.

Who cares , Noob streamers want it to kill potatoes and self proclaim themselves as pros. Post murkmire *** entire cyrodil is tank mania.

Dojohoda

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage ,

PVP- I play magblade and I don't believe this claim. Show screenshots of this please.

idk

Beside cloak being nerfed to where it does not cleans the DoTs away it also has a counter.

OP conveniently complains about the counter I have found great success with, magelight. It is great pulling a NB out of stealth and killing them. Heck, most of the time they do not know how to react.

Also, radiant significantly increases survival when attacked by that same NB when they are in stealth (or any ganker) so it is not as limited as OP wants to make it out to be. Not to mention OP did not go through all counters. Probably the ones they thought were easiest to belittle.

And yes, I used to hate NBs being able to stealth until I learned how to approach pulling them out of stealth. A bit part is figuring out how most players react when they go into stealth. After that you will get most of them. With how easy, and fun, I find this i am surprised to see these threads anymore.

Priyasekarssk

Dojohoda wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage ,

PVP- I play magblade and I don't believe this claim. Show screenshots of this please.

Do you need build for NB 7K+ spell damage ? You can shot anyone in 2 seconds. Because you are always invisible , no attack you . Even then escape with shadow image after kill, then another , then another. Many are running this build in BGs and duals. Last dueling tournament in EU mageblage is no1 who have similar kind of build .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UpQfZMGBEw

My build is more or less similar with infused jewelry. Thing is only NB can do it . No other magic classes . You cannot escape and one get shot easily in other classes. Assassin will hit like 35K+ . NBs always have guaranteed crit. Dont buff up crit.

Bomb all the cyrodil. Even emperor cannot survive this *** when many people around. Bomber builds this is ridiculous. Dont worry ZOs wont nerf it. I promise. The R word *** need it as EP should win all alliance wars. Instead they will nerf sorcs until no one in AD plays the game.

Dojohoda

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage ,

PVP- I play magblade and I don't believe this claim. Show screenshots of this please.

Do you need build for NB 7K+ spell damage ? You can shot anyone in 2 seconds.

Yes, please.. except the build might get nerfed if it's made public. =( So, maybe not.

iALEXi

Why not make cloak the same as mist form? For what I see now, is that cloak is a free ticket out of death with the abuse of people using trollking and heals during the cloak. Mist form also gets no healing so why not.

idk

iALEXi wrote: »

Why not make cloak the same as mist form? For what I see now, is that cloak is a free ticket out of death with the abuse of people using trollking and heals during the cloak. Mist form also gets no healing so why not.

It is also not a free ticket out of death as the counters are easy to use for anyone that has bothered to learn to use them.

evoniee

promoting bulky *** gameplay that made this game unenjoyable :clap:



all class already has a counter to it and people still complaining smh

general: aoe damage non ground /ground /overtime /single damage, aoe stun, mage light, expert hunter, channeling damage
nightblades: piercing mark, cloak
templar: backlash, puncture
dk: fiery breath, volatile armor
sorc: lightning form, streak, haunting curse
warden: perma frost, fissure

Dojohoda

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage ,

PVP- I play magblade and I don't believe this claim. Show screenshots of this please.

Do you need build for NB 7K+ spell damage ? You can shot anyone in 2 seconds. Because you are always invisible , no attack you . Even then escape with shadow image after kill, then another , then another. Many are running this build in BGs and duals. Last dueling tournament in EU mageblage is no1 who have similar kind of build .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UpQfZMGBEw

My build is more or less similar with infused jewelry. Thing is only NB can do it . No other magic classes . You cannot escape and one get shot easily in other classes. Assassin will hit like 35K+ . NBs always have guaranteed crit. Dont buff up crit.

Bomb all the cyrodil. Even emperor cannot survive this *** when many people around. Bomber builds this is ridiculous. Dont worry ZOs wont nerf it. I promise. The R word *** need it as EP should win all alliance wars. Instead they will nerf sorcs until no one in AD plays the game.

Thanks for sharing the build. I need to L2B (learn to bomb)

Priyasekarssk

Dojohoda wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Dojohoda wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I have no problem with cloak. But NB damage and CC needs some serious nerf. Very serious . 35K dps within 2 seconds is ridiculous . NB can have builds up to 7K+ weapon or spell damage ,

PVP- I play magblade and I don't believe this claim. Show screenshots of this please.

Do you need build for NB 7K+ spell damage ? You can shot anyone in 2 seconds.

Yes, please.. except the build might get nerfed if it's made public. =( So, maybe not.

I promise ZOs wont nerf NB. EPs need it man. All noob *** streamers need it. Just stack up spell damage sets to fullest extent whatever sets possible in all ways possible including infused spell jewellery enchants and weapon enchants and nirnhoned weapons. Little bit of L2P to proc and escape. Its not rocket science. Dont worry about anything or crits. NBs have guaranteed crit , full debuffs, CCs and very good escape with shadow image and cloak.

Juhasow

Lucky28 wrote: »

they should restore swallow soul and refresing path to what it was an un-nerf mark. the mark change was probably the stupidest change ZOS has ever made and it still baffles me how they came to that conclusion.

Wrobel was marked and then killed on his stamblade...