Nightblades got gutted

Shadowasrial

Why for the love of god are we always getting the nerfhammer? I mean it’s like zenimax doesn’t like having a rogue playstyle. Nightblades were meant to be single target killers. Meant to be able to quickly kill a SINGLE target. Not multiple. Not fight extended fights against multiple targets. They have steadily destroyed the rogue playstyle with each patch. Just because you get assassinated by one player doesn’t mean they are overpowered. The nightblade was meant to be able to go out into Cyrodil by yourself and be able to put the fear of the gods into whoever was running by themselves. Is that really so bad? I mean you have a nightblade fighting a group and it’s laughable because we can’t fight for extended periods and healing ourselves. Stop killing the rogue playstyle. Instead teach people to actually build to defend against it. Don’t expect to go into pvp and be able to survive every single player you come across. I don’t expect to kill every tank I cross paths with. But I definitely expect to be able to kill a player who I’ve taken by surprise and who is by themselves

If you were going to make any changes to the class I’m fine with the major defile nerf to a certain degree. Incap was my go to ulti. But when you really break down incap it’s a short range 5 meter ulti. It’s easily blocked and you can dodge it. Maybe you could have made it minor defile at the very least.

Next surprise attack. This skill was our spammable yes but it was one of my best ways to open up burst without alerting my target to my presence first. I used to buff up in stealth then run next to my target and surprise attack them shattering their resistance before incaping them followed by heavy attack weave with a steel tornado.(steel tornado needed the nerf it got) without the major fracture we need to use a mark target. Which instantly alerts our target to the fact they are about to be hit by some heavy damage. They buff up and block waiting for us to strike. This goes against the idea of surprise attack. Sometimes when I get marked I pop a stealth detect pot so I can detect them before they get that burst instantly countering 90% of every nb who tries to gank me. If you wanted to tone down our damage potential without fully stripping the skill you could have still given us major fracture when we flank the target or even flanking from stealth would have been fine. The whole point of nb burst is to quickly overwhelm a target. Hopefully kill them before they can recover and become so much harder to kill. Especially since now we have to deal with 35k+ heavy armor builds that already made fighting them hard.

Relentless focus. It doesn’t need a heal especially when your 7 meters away it completely defeats the purpose of many range builds. Your supposed to be far away to maximize damage. Also you took away a form of stamina sustain which honestly was one of the only way to have better sustain without being a vampire or running around in mutt form. That 10% recovery really enabled some quality nb’s fight for extended periods of our gank didn’t go to plan. Without it we will not be able to truly fight for long drawn out battles. The minor berserk I’m somewhat fine with since you traded it for minor vulnerability however we trade it for a single target debuff vs having 8% damage if we are fighting multiple opponents which was key if you had any hope to keep pressure on a group that had any heals whatsoever. You burst one person down and the others spam a heal and then they are at full health again and you have to start dodging like crazy now that they are all full health again and ready to wreck your world.

So if your going to revert anything. Give surprise attack it’s fracture back even if it means locking it behind flanking and stealth. Give relentless either both it’s buffs back or at the very least one. With all the new buffs to other classes it’s going to be very hard to put sufficient damage out if they aren’t taken by surprise

blkjag

Exactly

BooPerScOOper

To make Plars the top spot. Why else

Shadowasrial

While I will personally have to adapt my build a bit to compensate for the brutal gutting I received now my nightblade will have an even harder time trying to 1vx and single target while everyone else’s classes get 80% buffs and 200% buffs.

Jhalin

Every patch NB gets nerfs and yet some people seriously try to say NB is the “baby of ZOS”

TheTwistedRune

Sadly the inadequacies of some PVP players ruin the game for everybody, even those of us who only PVE. It is a strange mindset, to lose a battle and blame everything except yourself.

Clearly, these people have deep rooted real world issues.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

It's almost as if their design philosophy contains the idea that melee MagBlades should not exist in this game.

Ectheliontnacil

Yup it was overnerfed imo.
In duels I heard the heavy armour bleedblade playstyle was overpowered.
But other than that stamblades were in an ok spot, maybe some slight nerfs (like the incap defile).

But why for the love of God did you destroy magblades, which are on the lowest tier in pvp anyways?
Dark cloak nerfed into uselessness...how are you expected to heal now?
And don't tell me merciless resolve...
Also the minor brutality loss hurts a LOT on this class.

Really bad changes. Not because I'm biased and want nbs to be op (not denying that) but because the changes make no sense and show how little the devs understand of their game.

ApostateHobo

Please zos just leave nightblades alone!

Universe

The changes to Nightblade in PTS are fine.
Some aspects of the Nightblade were OP for far too long.
It's great that ZOS finally realized it and now take the appropriate action.

Shadowasrial

I mean they could have made it so minor mangle is for the duration of the extra damage you get against the target. Not duration of stun. Against any decent player that stun lasts half a second.

Second surprise attack they could have just given us major fracture if we use it from stealth. Instead of the 100% uptime for attacking out of stealth. I’m all for using the skill the way it was intended but 5% reduction to target is nothin. If you are against a 15,000 resistance player that only drops it by 550 which is nothing. Not only that but now we have to rely on a skill that absolutely defeats the purpose of assassinating. Mark target alerts your target to the fact that they are going to be attacked by you. They always buff up then block and then ulti dump you when you finally attack. If they were to make the mark visible only to us for one of the morphs then maybe I would use the skill.

Relentless focus is absolutely useless to a stam build now. No more extra stam recovery and no more minor berserk. The damage was negligible at best compared to the Magic morph for magic builds. I’d probably hit someone with a 5k arrow on my stamblade. They should have at least left the extra stamina recovery to give us some use for it.

Shadowasrial

Universe wrote: »

The changes to Nightblade in PTS are fine.
Some aspects of the Nightblade were OP for far too long.
It's great that ZOS finally realized it and now take the appropriate action.

These changes are not fine. They force a nightblade to actually give a target notice that they are about to be attacked if they want to debuff you. And the minor mangle is weak lasting only a half second at best against a decent player. And now surprise attack only reduces target resistance by 5% which is nothing. And only on hits from the side or the back. No other class has to directly maneuver just to get some extra damage

frostz417

Jhalin wrote: »

Every patch NB gets nerfs and yet some people seriously try to say NB is the “baby of ZOS”

I’m assuming you’re speaking on the behalf of magblades. Which i can somewhat agree. But if you’re speaking of stamblades.... you’re drunk

Shadowasrial

Universe wrote: »

The changes to Nightblade in PTS are fine.
Some aspects of the Nightblade were OP for far too long.
It's great that ZOS finally realized it and now take the appropriate action.

Also as I stated nightblade was meant for single target dps. And they insist on constantly reducing the damage we do to single target. If your fighting a nightblade 2-1 or 3-1 your going to either kill them half the time ( if they aren’t a skilled player) or they will run away. Now the only way to give major fracture is mark target which defeats the purpose of surprise. When you get marked I bet you buff up and probably block until we attack. So it defeats the purpose of the mark. Honestly I’m not mad about incap as much as I’m mad about surprise attack

Zavijah

As much as I've grown to despire NB's purely from PVP, and haven't read through the changes as yet. I can't have a sense of schadenfreude without hearing the above about 'but what makes NB unique'?

My first character was a NB and I was really disappointed that cloak wasn't a toggle, that could have had a toggle with a cooldown, that perhaps alternately with potions could have given them the ability to 'weave' in and out, and would have given the pve'rs the ability to have a perma cloak that they had to make a choice of exiting for combat and ride through the changes.

I agree high single target damage is what NB should be good at. As a MagDK, I am sorry that wings negated MagNB almost completely also.

I hope in the lead up to the expansion that some pragmatic and happy mediums are reached.

Jhalin

frostz417 wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Every patch NB gets nerfs and yet some people seriously try to say NB is the “baby of ZOS”

I’m assuming you’re speaking on the behalf of magblades. Which i can somewhat agree. But if you’re speaking of stamblades.... you’re drunk

Stamblade may not feel the brunt of nerfs, but they sure as hell haven’t gotten any buffs lately

All the things that made them comparatively stronger were class independent changes, from LA damage, to sustain nerfs, to Enchant adjustments (the change to proc’ing reliably), to resistance/vulnerability changes, to LA based sets

The class itself has not receive any meaningful buffs on live for about a year

On PTS maybe you could try to be a CC annoyance with the extra targets on the fear traps, maybe, if every enemy is a potato, and even then you probably die because your healing is mediocre and your shields barely existent.

Even magblade’s bombing potentional got nerfed with the DoT changes (delayed first ticks)

Banana

Good

Jhalin

Banana wrote: »

Good

If you were dying to a magblade in PvP, the weakest spec, you’re straight up bad

WrathOfInnos

In PVP Nightblades picked up easy access to Minor Vulnerability on their gap closer, which should outweigh the loss of Minor Berserk. They also gained a powerful self heal attached to their hardest hitting ability. Also stationary fear will work better when combined with ground based DoTs (like Meteor) or proc sets (like Zaan or Selenes), opponents won’t be forced out of damage sources. Not sure I would call this “gutted”.

In PVE they are definitely being killed off. I think the Magblade trial meta peaked at Summerset release and has been declining every patch since then.

Banana

Jhalin wrote: »

Banana wrote: »

Good

If you were dying to a magblade in PvP, the weakest spec, you’re straight up bad

Everyone kills me

Drako_Ei

PVE-WISE im happy, because i get minor berseker from my healer and major fracture from my tank anyway.. and now i get 5% penetration for my group.

They will no longer be top tier dummy killers.. but my dps is going up at trials for sure

Stamblade was overloaded in PVP i love incap changes

StormeReigns

5.0 didn't hit NBs hard enough...

BRogueNZ

BooPerScOOper wrote: »

To make Plars the top spot. Why else

what planet are you on?

tannips

Please be a troll.

Jhalin

BRogueNZ wrote: »

BooPerScOOper wrote: »

To make Plars the top spot. Why else

what planet are you on?

Magplars have been parsing equal to magNB in raid environments for a good while, with these changes they will surpass magNB and at that point, why bring a magblade?

1mirg

As a Single Target DPS NB Build. I pretty much might just have to re-roll my main into a Necromancer or something else when this patch hits.

Alucardo

Shadowasrial wrote: »

But I definitely expect to be able to kill a player who I’ve taken by surprise and who is by themselves

This right here is why Nightblades are god damn stupid. Any other class initiates a fight normally, and fairly. But no, not nightblades. They stalk in the shadows like cowards, hit you with a fat heal debuff, wiping out over half your health pool in one strike, while also increasing their damage against you by 20%, followed by their spammable which strips away your resistances and hits like a truck.
Before you have time to react you're almost dead, or in an unrecoverable state.
Stamblade is the most idiotic thing I've ever encountered

karekiz

Because its...its...its...

Templars time in the SUN.

It just DAWNED on me how good this is making templars look.

Its DARK DAYS for the NIGHT BLADES now.

TequilaFire

Alucardo wrote: »

Shadowasrial wrote: »

But I definitely expect to be able to kill a player who I’ve taken by surprise and who is by themselves

This right here is why Nightblades are god damn stupid. Any other class initiates a fight normally, and fairly. But no, not nightblades. They stalk in the shadows like cowards, hit you with a fat heal debuff, wiping out over half your health pool in one strike, while also increasing their damage against you by 20%, followed by their spammable which strips away your resistances and hits like a truck.
Before you have time to react you're almost dead in an unrecoverable state.
Stamblade is the most idiotic thing I've ever encountered

My buddy would like to have a word with you.

Kiralyn2000

Alucardo wrote: »

Shadowasrial wrote: »

But I definitely expect to be able to kill a player who I’ve taken by surprise and who is by themselves

This right here is why Nightblades are god damn stupid. Any other class initiates a fight normally, and fairly. But no, not nightblades. They stalk in the shadows like cowards, hit you with a fat heal debuff, wiping out over half your health pool in one strike, while also increasing their damage against you by 20%, followed by their spammable which strips away your resistances and hits like a truck.
Before you have time to react you're almost dead in an unrecoverable state.

Soooo.... a typical "rogue" in just about every MMO pvp situation I've ever heard of?

edit: I mean, I don't pvp because I hate it, but I'm just surprised at how offended some people get at single-target stealth assassin classes acting like single-target stealth assassins. Getting 'ganked' by some jackass griefer rogue #/&^!($ is a core part of the pvp experience.

Alucardo

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

Shadowasrial wrote: »

But I definitely expect to be able to kill a player who I’ve taken by surprise and who is by themselves

This right here is why Nightblades are god damn stupid. Any other class initiates a fight normally, and fairly. But no, not nightblades. They stalk in the shadows like cowards, hit you with a fat heal debuff, wiping out over half your health pool in one strike, while also increasing their damage against you by 20%, followed by their spammable which strips away your resistances and hits like a truck.
Before you have time to react you're almost dead in an unrecoverable state.

Soooo.... a typical "rogue" in just about every MMO pvp situation I've ever heard of?

Of course, nearly every MMO has a rogue type character. But not one that can wipe you out without giving you a chance to react, or have incredibly difficulty recovering from. They generally can't spam cloak either. Invisibility is not taken lightly.