PTS Update 22 - Feedback Thread for Class Balance

Jabbs_Giggity

Daus wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

My experience so far with med armor Nb: I'm squishy, have no pressure and my burst is nerfed. And on top of that I don't have a snare outside of Ambush now in a meta in which everyone will have Major Exp and a snare removal on demand. Medium armor loses it's identity completely and this game will be ruled by magsorcs, heavy armor snb builds and necros.
You "promised" to listen to community feedback and I really hoped that you start trying to finally balance this game. But guess what, I was wrong. Don't come up with some reasoning like long term vision when you're game isn't balanced nor is it "perfectly imbalanced", it's more like people are working on the changes who have no idea about their own game.

Stamblades will be nonexistent next update, but I'm quite confident that's what a lot of the community wants. Most people don't want a good fight (one that's competitive where both contestants have an equal shot at winning) they just want to win so the less competitive classes the better in their eyes, and since the magsorc community is quite large and vocal you can only imagine how happy some magsorcs are knowing they don't have to worry about stamblades or Dk wings anymore.

But don't worry, now they're going to have Stam Necros to worry about. Enjoy fighting a class that's actually OP.

I disagree in the aspect of "most of the community doesn't want Stamblades". Sure, they can be annoying. I actually would rather play against a cloaking gankblade or a decent player on a brawler Stamblade any day over the Meta Stamdens with Sub, DB, S2W...
IMO, ZOS seems to be trading in the idea of skillfull players in PVP for mindless AOE zerging...which is the complete opposite of what the PVP community wants. Nothing wrong with running a full group in PVP and raiding, but there is no skill-based counterplay anymore in PVP.

Now, Cloak+Snipe on repeat is annoying and no one wants it. Nothing more irritating than a decent 1v1 or 1vX coming to an end because of that one guy who comes in late to the party to sit back 30+ meters spamming Snipe on you...

Jabbs_Giggity

Just wanted to leave this here, as it almost severely contradicts every class identity vs Live.

Templar
"These traveling knights call upon the powers of light and the burning sun to deal massive damage to their enemies while restoring health, magicka, and stamina to their allies."
―In-game description
The Templar is the most Versatile class in the game that excels in every role in combat. Not true.
This class with great defensive passives, damage-absorbing skills and shield-based abilities and anti-undead skills allows building classic Paladin type characters which, arguably, have the highest survivability in the game with excellent defense and self-healing abilities. Not ture
The Templar can also be great Blademaster type characters. Their mastery of all types of physical weapons is best amongst all classes. As such two-handed weapon wielding Blademaster type characters has insane physical damage dealing power second to only dual-wielding Assassin type Nightblades by a small margin but have significantly higher survivability than Assassin type Nightblades. Not ture
The Templar can also be good Rangers as well, due to their increased damage with the bow. Not ture
The Templar class makes excellent Cleric type characters. They are, undoubtedly, the best healers in the game. Not ture
The Templar's only real weakness is their low mobility. This, however, does not matter too much as the Templar is great at holding its ground. Not ture
The Templar class is recommended for all players new to the game. Not ture

Zer0oo

Please change both shattering prison and rune cage to deal the damage when they hit an enemy.
Right now both kills are fairly useless. Since they either do no damage at all because the target can not be rooted. Or only when the effect last the full duration which should not happen since everyone breaks free asap and if not the short duration saved him. Compared to other skills they also seem expensive and underwhelming in terms of effect if you look at dk fossilize and talons.

Prutton

The three critical points that should be changed to make the stamina sorcerers happy are the following, in my opinion:
1. Change the active of Bound Armor to something useful, like Minor Protection. Make it count as a pet, similar to Betty Netch, so it counts for Expert Summoner passive.
2. Change one of the redundant abilities from Dark Magic (Encase, Rune Prison, Daedric Mines) to a spammable, so we can make use of Blood Magic passive.
3. Summon Air Atronach, Suppression Field or Power Overload dealing physical damage, scaling with stamina, weapon damage, cp...

As bonus point, not as important as the other three, I would add:
1. Change Endless Fury to stamina morph.

RaddlemanNumber7

The range of melee attack skills is still inconsistent. Weapon skill close-in attacks nearly all have 7m range. DK Ardent Flame abilities like whip and burning embers have 7m range. NB skills like soul harvest, assassin's blade and concealed weapon have only a 5m range.

This is very noticeable on my Mag Blade when using dual wield swords. When I use Lotus Fan to close with target and then go for a light weave Concealed Attack it is sometimes the case that the light attack will hit the target but the Concealed Weapon is out of range and doesn't go off. This is a bit annoying.

I can see no rhyme or reason why some of these melee skills still have 5m range while most are now 7m.

Icarus42

The nerf to the gold food is unacceptable, and I stand in protest ZoS. If you stick to this change, will you make roe and mother of pearl etc.easier to acquire?

Also overload heavy attack is broken, and everything about it actually, is unappealing. Perhaps you should delete and load over? If you have ever died during the heavy attack you will know what I mean

Light/heavy attack weave is still broken, the one where light or heavy staff attack weaves don't fire? (hopefully that global cooldown thingy will fix?) If not please fix it!!

Thank you for not nerfing sorc into the ground again, and for speeding up our crystal frags!

That about does it.. I appreciate your time, and have a nice day!

GrumpyDuckling

ZOS, I 100% applaud that you are changing more skills to scale off highest stats:

Dragonknight - Inferno
Nightblade - Summon Shade
Sorcerer - Streak
Templar - Cleansing Ritual
Warden - Nature's Grasp

But why did you settle on Streak? A good chunk of the Dadedric Summoning skill line isn't even a consideration for stamina sorcerer. Why not make sorcerer pets scale with highest stats?

DarkPicture

Buff deadric pray to 45% dmg for pets, because u decreased from 55% to 40% and also decreased dmg by 3.3% so its a huge nerf and instead we got 300 cheaper cost and auto target on cursed enemy where we already have button combination to tracking pet or heavy attack so it isnt a good deal at the end.

Gnortranermara

It'd be pretty cool if you change Cleansing Ritual to 8 seconds (to match pretty much everything else).

And the damage to the closest target of Puncturing Sweeps should count as a single target damage, otherwise our main spammable is completely useless in PvP.

ccmedaddy

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

It'd be pretty cool if you change Cleansing Ritual to 8 seconds (to match pretty much everything else).

Why?

twing1_

Nightblade got weaker (inherent in replacing berserk with vulnerability). And to be honest, this doesnt hurt the class too much.

What does hurt the class is the application of vulnerability. Tying vulnerability to a gap closer pigeon holes the class into playing melee. It also makes reapplication of the debuff (particularly when switching targets) extremely difficult. The class now feels very clumsy to play in PvP and its lost its fluidity.

Additionally, mark target is still a very underwhelming skill. Grim Focus is also very underwhelming, claiming the title of the only skill in the entire game that gives nothing back on initial cast and instead is 100% reliant on 2 GCDs and 2 separate resource costs. To use this ability, it must be first casted (for resource cost), and then the conditional must be activated, and then the ability must be cast again (again for resource cost). It feels hollow.

Complete thoughts found in this thread:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/470378/nb-changes-v5-0-1-problem-areas-and-potential-solutions#latest

Prutton

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

ZOS, I 100% applaud that you are changing more skills to scale off highest stats:

Dragonknight - Inferno
Nightblade - Summon Shade
Sorcerer - Streak
Templar - Cleansing Ritual
Warden - Nature's Grasp

But why did you settle on Streak? A good chunk of the Dadedric Summoning skill line isn't even a consideration for stamina sorcerer. Why not make sorcerer pets scale with highest stats?

Why would stamina sorcerers want pets? That is ridiculous.

vesselwiththepestle

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

The range of melee attack skills is still inconsistent. Weapon skill close-in attacks nearly all have 7m range. DK Ardent Flame abilities like whip and burning embers have 7m range. NB skills like soul harvest, assassin's blade and concealed weapon have only a 5m range.

That is just plain wrong. Twin Slashes, Low Slash, Puncture - those are 5m range abilities. Have a look at Rearming Trap, too! DK got a few patches back a buff to Elder Dragon, increasing the range of non-channeling melee skills (so Flurry, which has 7m range, is not buffed). However, if they are utilizing their range at full, they would lose Rearming Trap (so they would need to get closer at least to recast Trap). Every other DW wielding Stamina DPS than DK has to get in 5m range. So your assumption is wrong. You are comparing with a class, which has the unique ability of a higher melee range for instant-cast skills and are saying that "Weapon skill close-in attacks nearly all have 7m range", while in truth this is a specialty of DK's (and 2H wielding).

2H has for some reasons 7m range on Cleave and Uppercut, I guess it's supposed to be a minor advantage to 2H. Additionally Uppercut shouldn't be buffed by Elder Dragon, but Cleave should be (I haven't tested it).

Checkmath

Prutton wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

ZOS, I 100% applaud that you are changing more skills to scale off highest stats:

Dragonknight - Inferno
Nightblade - Summon Shade
Sorcerer - Streak
Templar - Cleansing Ritual
Warden - Nature's Grasp

But why did you settle on Streak? A good chunk of the Dadedric Summoning skill line isn't even a consideration for stamina sorcerer. Why not make sorcerer pets scale with highest stats?

Why would stamina sorcerers want pets? That is ridiculous.

It mostly would be broken....

Frudu

For (Stam) NBs:
Imo cloak and incap should be adjusted before making any hard-hitting changes to nbs in general. For stamblades in Pvp its cloak that makes them pull off their stuff.
It's extremely easy to play stamblade with cloak and incap.
Yes cloak is an expensive skill and people say "I can just cloak 4 times in a row." I can also just spam cloak 4 times in a row. But combined with dodging I can cloak 16 times without even scratching my stamina at all.
Cloak + dodging makes the hit window soo small and sustain soo easy and allows nbs to put all stuff into damage and dont have to care about healing and defense. This makes them pull of their easy playstyles and makes them op. If cloak would not be a hardcounter to rely on nearly everything nbs would be way less strong.
Without cloak they can't sustain without having to sacrifice dmg. All they could do is get a lucky incap off. And without incap they cant perform that serious bursts.
Incap+ and both cloaks should be adjusted first before making other changes.
But the way the balance is going atm is more like forcing everyone to play cloakdodging runaway nb and everything else becomes useless to make one broken playstyle now balacned.

Try to play med armor no cloak, no incap nb. It's fun but nowhere as easy as with cloak and incap.
I would like to see more playstyles being possible and not being forced to run a cloak morph or incap.

Jabbs_Giggity

Prutton wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

ZOS, I 100% applaud that you are changing more skills to scale off highest stats:

Dragonknight - Inferno
Nightblade - Summon Shade
Sorcerer - Streak
Templar - Cleansing Ritual
Warden - Nature's Grasp

But why did you settle on Streak? A good chunk of the Dadedric Summoning skill line isn't even a consideration for stamina sorcerer. Why not make sorcerer pets scale with highest stats?

Why would stamina sorcerers want pets? That is ridiculous.

So they can hide behind them in BG's.

ExistingRug61

Regarding Nightblade:
(Please note I am am console so my reply is based off the patch notes description)

Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class? / Do you have any other general feedback?

I have a specific concern with nightblade's shadow cloak/shadowy disguise and the changes to the dark veil passive:

Dark Veil: Adjusted this passive to grant a flat 1 and 2 second duration increase to Shadow abilities, rather than 8 and 15% duration extensions. The duration of these abilities before allocating this passive have been adjusted to ensure the total duration remains relatively the same to their current Live values.

From what I can tell in other threads this has meant Shadow Cloak/Shadowy Disguise has had its base duration lowered to 1 sec (down from 2.5 sec) so that the final duration once two points are put in Dark Veil will be 3 sec (was 2.9 sec).

To me this leads to several issues for either new players who are playing nightblade, existing players levelling nightblades, or those playing nightblades in Kyne, because until you get shadow 39/50 to unlock the Dark Veil passive, Shadow Cloak/Shadowy Disguise is effectively useless due to the 1 sec duration. This is because due to the GCD it will be very difficult to either use it as a defence mechanism (ie: may not be able to get off successive cloaks quick enough to stay invisible) or to set up offensive abilities like the veiled strike stun (ie: cloak will expire before the ability hits)
This seems against the spirit of the class as one of the nightblades signature skills is effectively useless on unlock until much later in level progression, and anyone using the class for the first time may see it as a useless skill not realising it only would only become effective much later.

A potential (simple) solution would be to give Shadow Cloak/Shadowy Diguise a fixed duration (ie 3sec) and make it unaffected by the Dark Veil passive.

KatySpirit

Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?
In this and other patches recently, I do feel like you have been moving away from Nightblade's "living shadow" and "blood magus" personas and even hurting the "deathweaver" magic DPS, limiting it to strictly a stamina assassin. Sure, this is the stereotype this class already has, but I find it to be the least creative or interesting iteration of what the Nightblade can be and I loved that you were trying to make the class more versatile. Please don't go back on that.

Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?
No change.

Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?
Nightblade Tank: The removal of the so called burst heal on Dark Cloak weakens NB tanks, they don't need another heal over time they need to be able to recover from a hard hit or they will struggle or fail in hard veteran content. Taking away a burst tank heal isn't standardizing at all. If you want a heal over time, then increase the amount of the very first tick significantly and have it trickle in after that.
I do like that NB will have a sort of AOE stun, however.

Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?
Nightblade Healer: No, I do not feel you addressed any of the issues faced by Nightblade healers. Funnel Health is under performing--it is worse than mutagen because ticks less often, and doesn't do enough damage to assist the DPS which it used to do and used to make NB healers a damage dealing healer class, giving them identity. Because it is damage based, on enemies with high magic resistance it is totally useless. Increase the damage a little and consider making the heal a set amount (such as if it does 5000 damage, which will vary depending on resistance, and heals you and one ally for a number like 3000 every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, not a percentage of the damage done). Refreshing Path is also under performing--its heal is okay, but it is a very small area and has no additional effects, which makes it weak in comparison to other aoe healing skills. I think it should deal a small amount of damage to enemies that are standing in it again, and then the non-healing morph should do more damage than it currently does since it is also a very weak damage skill. Finally, please considering increasing the advantage of using Malevolent Offering and its morphs. I like the concept, but as the healer I need to not be distracted by my own health draining, and to heal one target that I have to aim at and then lose health for doing so...I just don't bother with this skill. I would like it if it would automatically go to the lowest health ally so that the health cost is not lost and recasting isn't needed when it heals the wrong person (or a pet).
As a nightblade healer or tank or DPS I feel that Mark Target could use a different debuff than what it currently offers to make it worth using since it is repetitive to what the main tank taunt does. I suppose a tank could use it instead of pierce armor, but I don't know any tanks who seriously don't use Sword and Shield in endgame content.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I would like one of Nightblade's regular non-ultimate abilities to offer a synergy. These are becoming a big part of group gameplay and our lack of them hurts what we offer to a team. There are many skills that could do this: Path, Mark Target, Summon Shade, Debilitate... please think about it.
I would also like for Nightblade to offer another group buff of some kind. It has a lot of self buffs but very few buffs that can easily help the team, and you are picking away its debuffs which is the main way it has helped over the years. Perhaps reconsider the buff that Path gives to make it more valuable for group content, something like damage mitigation or increased healing received while on the path.

Jabbs_Giggity

@ZOS_GinaBruno Regarding General Feedback.

I would LOVE to play PTS. However, I am an Xbox Console player pleb. Would it be possible to entertain the idea of adding PTS to consoles via Server Selection Screen?

Not to nitpick, but I don't really want to spend the money on a new PC version AND wait for the download just to be able to participate in PTS.

TeIvanni

Magicka Nightblade is in a pretty bad spot now.

On live this patch the three Classes: Magicka Nightblade, Magicka Sorcerer, and Magicka Templar were all pretty much performing at the same level.

On PTS: Magicka Nightblade has had their Minor Berserk removed.
Magicka Sorcerer has had their Lightning Flood AoE buffed.
Magicka Templar has had their Shards AoE buffed.

Please buff Nightblade's path of darkness again.
Originally you guys nerfed it because "It was over performing"
It currently does less damage than either Lightning Flood or Blazing Shards, and doesn't offer a synergy.

In their current state, no one is going to run a magicka nightblade.
Which is such a shame after the beautiful balance we had found in the Wrathstone DLC for trial magicka dps.

bardx86

Prutton wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

ZOS, I 100% applaud that you are changing more skills to scale off highest stats:

Dragonknight - Inferno
Nightblade - Summon Shade
Sorcerer - Streak
Templar - Cleansing Ritual
Warden - Nature's Grasp

But why did you settle on Streak? A good chunk of the Dadedric Summoning skill line isn't even a consideration for stamina sorcerer. Why not make sorcerer pets scale with highest stats?

Why would stamina sorcerers want pets? That is ridiculous.

Why would any Sorc want pets? That is ridiculous.

EnOeZ

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

After testing my stamnb on PTS I have no words to describe how disappointed I am. Fear costs 4k magicka and is just a CC now with no extra effect on it. Mark Target costs a lot of magicka as well and has basically no useful effect on it other than fracture. I don't have defile anymore and so I can't kill tanky builds, meanwhile it's fine that Necro and sword and board builds have major defile on non ults. Grim focus is kinda trash now as well. I
You're forcing us to slot garbage skills just to get access to important buffs by nerfing our good skills. You don't even put any effort into making Mark Target or Fear attractive, you just trash Surprise Attack (a skill that wasn't an issue during 4 years). I don't know if you are aware that we only have 10 skill slots available, how the hell am I supposed to slot all the skills that you want me to use?

Good that you nerf "overloaded" skills which were the reason for build diversity and flexibility. When do we nerf Elemental Drain (just compare this weapon skill with the class skill Mark Target for a good laugh), Heroic Slash, Race Against Time (compare again with Shuffle for a good lol) and Reverb Bash since they're overloaded as hell too?

Another thing is how medium armor isn't allowed to have good sets. Fury and Legion somehow aren't nerfed (because whatever), spell strat isn't nerfed either, magicka gets a copy version from every stamina set and medium armor gets taken away it's indendity by handing out a snare removal and major expedition to everyone. Med armor just gets blatantly ignored since years and for some reason heavy armor builds are meta since 3 years now.

You are aware that all other classes do have to make drastic decisions too with only the same 10 slots, right? As a Stam DK I really receive your post as an overly privileged kid which OP toys have been slightly removed. You do not get how OP the nerfed abilities deserved it. And I do have a NB alt.

John_Falstaff

EnOeZ wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

After testing my stamnb on PTS I have no words to describe how disappointed I am. Fear costs 4k magicka and is just a CC now with no extra effect on it. Mark Target costs a lot of magicka as well and has basically no useful effect on it other than fracture. I don't have defile anymore and so I can't kill tanky builds, meanwhile it's fine that Necro and sword and board builds have major defile on non ults. Grim focus is kinda trash now as well. I
You're forcing us to slot garbage skills just to get access to important buffs by nerfing our good skills. You don't even put any effort into making Mark Target or Fear attractive, you just trash Surprise Attack (a skill that wasn't an issue during 4 years). I don't know if you are aware that we only have 10 skill slots available, how the hell am I supposed to slot all the skills that you want me to use?

Good that you nerf "overloaded" skills which were the reason for build diversity and flexibility. When do we nerf Elemental Drain (just compare this weapon skill with the class skill Mark Target for a good laugh), Heroic Slash, Race Against Time (compare again with Shuffle for a good lol) and Reverb Bash since they're overloaded as hell too?

Another thing is how medium armor isn't allowed to have good sets. Fury and Legion somehow aren't nerfed (because whatever), spell strat isn't nerfed either, magicka gets a copy version from every stamina set and medium armor gets taken away it's indendity by handing out a snare removal and major expedition to everyone. Med armor just gets blatantly ignored since years and for some reason heavy armor builds are meta since 3 years now.

You are aware that all other classes do have to make drastic decisions too with only the same 10 slots, right? As a Stam DK I really receive your post as an overly privileged kid which OP toys have been slightly removed. You do not get how OP the nerfed abilities deserved it. And I do have a NB alt.

Frankly, as a stamina DK main (and I also have a stamblade too), I sort of agree with @Ragnaroek93 here. Stamblade's bars are more rigid and with many functions fractured into many mandatory skills. Sustain? Separate skill. (DK gets sustain just by using ultimate, automatically.) Spammable? Separate skill. (DK's spammable so far doubled down as DoT - Claw, Rending, even Noxious this upcoming patch.) Execute? Separate skill. (DKs simply don't have it, but then stamblades do less damage than stam DK in pre-execute, execute is what pulls damage up.) Relentless is also practically mandatory on the bar. The rest - trap, rending, and trio on bow bar - are must have for any stamina damage setup. My first negative impression from trying stamblade was that I don't have a flex spot unlike with stamDK. So no, there's no spot to put Mark Target on, everything's stuffed there.

Ellyhan

Soooooooo... Stamsorc ? Did you going to change anything with our feedback ?

Deathlord92

Please zos I’m begging you to buff magblade survivability 🙏

Joosef_Kivikilpi

Daus wrote: »

Okay, I understand the removal of Surprise Attack in respect to the redundancy that it created with Mark Target, but I have two issues with the change.

1) It's a weak amount. 5% armor reduction against a target with 20k physical resistance equates to 1k penetration which is kinda meh honestly.

2) It only supports one style of combat which is the cowardly attack from the shadows that I'm sure a lot of people enjoy, but not all of us want to play that way. Some of us enjoy the class for its aggressiveness, and this change does nothing for that play style. It's bad enough as it is that the assassination passive supports gankers; now you're making the main spammable do this too?

Suggestion:

Simple. Give the ability Minor Fracture. It's slightly more powerful than the 5% and its applicable to all play styles.

Their talk about redundancy... Then it feels like half the sets they come out with provide the same buffs as skills we use... Redundancy. The thing though with redundancy... It gives a person multiple paths to walk down in different ways to get similar results, whichever fits better for the circumstance. I am not a fan of them pigeon holing abilities to do one thing. There isn't enough bar space to be very effective then realistically speaking. Cool on paper, not in execution.

Demra

Joosef_Kivikilpi wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

Okay, I understand the removal of Surprise Attack in respect to the redundancy that it created with Mark Target, but I have two issues with the change.

1) It's a weak amount. 5% armor reduction against a target with 20k physical resistance equates to 1k penetration which is kinda meh honestly.

2) It only supports one style of combat which is the cowardly attack from the shadows that I'm sure a lot of people enjoy, but not all of us want to play that way. Some of us enjoy the class for its aggressiveness, and this change does nothing for that play style. It's bad enough as it is that the assassination passive supports gankers; now you're making the main spammable do this too?

Suggestion:

Simple. Give the ability Minor Fracture. It's slightly more powerful than the 5% and its applicable to all play styles.

Their talk about redundancy... Then it feels like half the sets they come out with provide the same buffs as skills we use... Redundancy. The thing though with redundancy... It gives a person multiple paths to walk down in different ways to get similar results, whichever fits better for the circumstance. I am not a fan of them pigeon holing abilities to do one thing. There isn't enough bar space to be very effective then realistically speaking. Cool on paper, not in execution.

This

twing1_

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

Removing major fracture (instead of major ward/resolve) from Surprise Attack is against the spirit of the NB class. Instead of removing major fracture from the skill, veiled strike and its morphs should have been removed from the shadow skill tree (to avoid procing major ward/resolve from the shadow barrier passive). Blur and it's morphs could take its place the shadow tree as compensation.

Surprise attack was admittedly stacked (giving major ward/resolve, major fracture, and also very strong burst damage), but limiting the offensive capabilities of this skill was the wrong way to go about it (and goes completely against the class's identity). It limits the damage potential of the class in favor of sustained defense, which directly contradicts not only NB being emphasized as a high offense/low defense class, but also the NB's class identity as rogues/assassins (as opposed to brawlers).

Allowing surprise attack to proc major ward and resolve makes NB the only class that receives these buffs passively (and for free) inherent in spamming their class single target damage attack.

This encourages them to continually attack and pressure enemies, which tends to be more associated with the brawler style of gameplay rather than the rogue/assassin (which nightblades are most associated with).

Classic NB (rogue style of play) should be regarded as opportunistic, and should capitalize off of short durations of offense (burst, which is already their forte) followed by a short duration of going on the defensive to set up their next offensive burst (usually facilitated by cloaking, which also grants major ward/resolve).

If the defensive portion of the skill were removed (instead of fracture), it would be rewarding to the assassin/rogue playstyles and fit in nicely with the high risk/high reward theme of the class. It would also leave the less traditional NB brawler playstyles relatively unharmed. The brawler style of play for NB can still be achievable through the upkeep of other defensive buffs (specifically dark cloak for the sustained healing) that should be kept up at all times, and is further facilitated by major ward/resolve scaling positively with the number of pieces of heavy armor the user is wearing.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

To resolve the redundancy issue of major fracture being granted by both surprise attack and mark target, mark target could receive minor vulnerability and it could be removed from teleport strike. Concealed weapon could be the class source of major breach, to give an advantage to magicka characters willing to expose themselves in melee range.

Prutton

twing1_ wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

Removing major fracture (instead of major ward/resolve) from Surprise Attack is against the spirit of the NB class. Instead of removing major fracture from the skill, veiled strike and its morphs should have been removed from the shadow skill tree (to avoid procing major ward/resolve from the shadow barrier passive). Blur and it's morphs could take its place the shadow tree as compensation.

Surprise attack was admittedly stacked (giving major ward/resolve, major fracture, and also very strong burst damage), but limiting the offensive capabilities of this skill was the wrong way to go about it (and goes completely against the class's identity). It limits the damage potential of the class in favor of sustained defense, which directly contradicts not only NB being emphasized as a high offense/low defense class, but also the NB's class identity as rogues/assassins (as opposed to brawlers).

Allowing surprise attack to proc major ward and resolve makes NB the only class that receives these buffs passively (and for free) inherent in spamming their class single target damage attack.

This encourages them to continually attack and pressure enemies, which tends to be more associated with the brawler style of gameplay rather than the rogue/assassin (which nightblades are most associated with).

Classic NB (rogue style of play) should be regarded as opportunistic, and should capitalize off of short durations of offense (burst, which is already their forte) followed by a short duration of going on the defensive to set up their next offensive burst (usually facilitated by cloaking, which also grants major ward/resolve).

If the defensive portion of the skill were removed (instead of fracture), it would be rewarding to the assassin/rogue playstyles and fit in nicely with the high risk/high reward theme of the class. It would also leave the less traditional NB brawler playstyles relatively unharmed. The brawler style of play for NB can still be achievable through the upkeep of other defensive buffs (specifically dark cloak for the sustained healing) that should be kept up at all times, and is further facilitated by major ward/resolve scaling positively with the number of pieces of heavy armor the user is wearing.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

To resolve the redundancy issue of major fracture being granted by both surprise attack and mark target, mark target could receive minor vulnerability and it could be removed from teleport strike. Concealed weapon could be the class source of major breach, to give an advantage to magicka characters willing to expose themselves in melee range.

Stamina nightblades can use Weapon skills, just like sorcerers and dragon knights have been doing for years. Anyone that think this is *** should support more those classes when they ask for spammables and better skills.

EnOeZ

usmcjdking wrote: »

Corrosive Armor needs to be reworked for the sake of PVP and PVE.

Suggestion (only Corrosive Armor):
Reduce ultimate cost to 100.
Reduce duration to 6 seconds.

The skill is quite honestly the biggest cheese skill in dueling, sometimes accounting for a damage gain of over 30% for 11 seconds while crippling incoming damage. An increase to 12 seconds is absolutely ridiculous for a skill that already overperforms massively in PVP. The only answer to a corrosive'd DK is to simply run away for 12 seconds.

In PVE this skill is potent but too expensive. DK DPS is already hampered by the fact that it's source of Major Ward/Resolve is generally trash, and Stam DK is hit exceptionally hard by this. Much like Stamplar, Stam DK needs staying power, the ability to otherwise ignore mechanics and maintain damage on target through tough mechanics designed to force melee to disengage.

For Templar:
New Radiant Ward is super good. Perhaps increase the AOE check for targets to 8m for PVP's sake.

Corrosive is strong but defeated by dots and bleeds. Against those small numerous overtime effects, it is just decent for an ult