Magblades on Elsweyr

HowlKimchi

EDIT: misread some changes, updated post.

I wanna know how you guys feel about the Magblade changes. Please leave stamblade discussion out of the thread.

Major changes that affect us listed below, but I may have missed a few:

1) All Immobilizes from player abilities and item sets will now apply Immobilization Immunity once applied, to prevent multiple Immobilizes from applying on the same target. Once an Immobilize from these abilities ends, you gain immunity to Immobilizes for 3 seconds after, similar to the Dodge Roll mechanic.

2) DK reflect changed.

3)Grim Focus:
Removed the Minor Berserk buff from this ability and its morphs.
The spectral bow now heals for 33% of the damage dealt if you are within 7 meters of the target when firing it.
Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs would continue to persist after logging off.
Merciless Resolve (morph): Now increases healing done to 50%.

4) Race Against Time (morph): This morph no longer reduces the cost of sprinting by 50% for 4 seconds. Instead, it now grants immunity to Snares and Immobilizations for 4 seconds.

I'm keen to see how my magblade's defenses are now with the 50% heal from merciless resolve. Hitting it will still be an issue because of how long the attack hits after launching it though. I wish it gave something while we're still building up the 5 light attacks though. Like, I pay magicka for it to do nothing, then pay again to deal the actual damage.

As for the reflect change, i'm sad I guess for our DK friends, but I cant help but be happy that I can now actually *hit* magDKs. Enchantments will now proc, I can now build my merciless, etc.

The psijic skill giving snare immunity is GREAT! I've always vouched for giving magblades snare removal.

Overall, i'm glad we get more on the defensive department where I feel we've been lacking for a while now. For the offensive changes, it remains to be seen if we lost too much damage.

GaunterODim

My feeling about this are about similar to yours. Im sure the missing 8% from berserk will be felt heavily, but it generally looks like good changes.
Ive actually put my magblade aside for a while now because I couldnt bear being snared permanently. The immobility gives me some hope on enjoyable gameplay outside of bombing.

The soul harvest morph of death stroke remains untouched btw, you should read that one again clearly.

GaunterODim

Also definitely agree on the thing about the cost for the bow buff. If it doesnt give any buff to begin with, the activation of the buff should be free and only the shooting the bow proc should cost magicka /stamina.

HowlKimchi

GaunterODim wrote: »

The soul harvest morph of death stroke remains untouched btw, you should read that one again clearly.

Oof thanks I didnt notice that. Updated my post. Still having major defile over our stamblade counterparts is a big niche for us!

HowlKimchi

GaunterODim wrote: »

Also definitely agree on the thing about the cost for the bow buff. If it doesnt give any buff to begin with, the activation of the buff should be free and only the shooting the bow proc should cost magicka /stamina.

Yes, and the heal only applying at 7m range makes it a bit unreliable. It looks like I will be sticking with my high recovery build next patch.

The bad part of it not giving a passive effect on first activation is that I can't imagine not running merciless resolve. magblade offense revolves around the skill. So using it just to build 5 light attacks doesnt feel good. It should really provide a passive, or make the first cast free.

HowlKimchi

I might make a destro/resto melee magblade with a gap closer. our gap closer now debuffs the enemy with minor vulnerability. I might combo that with merciless resolve, since merciless now also heals at melee range.

DokThor90

I Play a melee destro/restro magblade with caluurion and wont use merciless resolve anymore, since I didnt use the bow very often to begin with (and If, it did miss most of the time).

The snare removal is great though. Thats all I wished for .

HowlKimchi

DokThor90 wrote: »

I Play a melee destro/restro magblade with caluurion and wont use merciless resolve anymore, since I didnt use the bow very often to begin with (and If, it did miss most of the time).

The snare removal is great though. Thats all I wished for .

Yep that's all I wished for actually too. (see my sig below)

I dunno if im dropping merciless since I dont have a better alternative for it. It's so central for the magblade burst imo.

darkblue5

I love the healing on a bow proc that'll miss. Like the biggest pain point is that unlike frags/DBoS/Shalks etc there's no way to guarantee a bow proc hit. No amount of expending your own resources or jukes will do it. The timing isn't right to set it up before hand with a CC, and it misses before you can cast a CC after. If you're getting your procs to hit then you're already is fine shape just because you're doing some actual damage.

That said the psijic snare removal will really buff cloak and magblade elusiveness so... maybe that'll be enough? Sort of feels like magblade will still need a defensive buff that works when things aren't going 100% smoothly. Still feel like magblade will be pretty bad and limited to Caluurion ganks, bombing, and healing.

DokThor90

HaruKamui wrote: »

DokThor90 wrote: »

I Play a melee destro/restro magblade with caluurion and wont use merciless resolve anymore, since I didnt use the bow very often to begin with (and If, it did miss most of the time).

The snare removal is great though. Thats all I wished for .

Yep that's all I wished for actually too. (see my sig below)

I dunno if im dropping merciless since I dont have a better alternative for it. It's so central for the magblade burst imo.

Im playing
5x caluurion
5x amberplasm
2x pirate skeleton
1x vSMA resto

I only Play No CP and can burst people with


cloak - concealed - light attack - soul harvest (+caluurion) + x (good players will be able to react at this time).

pretty easily. Im very tanky + very mobile, the buff to rat (dont forget, also Major Expedition) will complement MY PERSONAL playstyle perfectly.

I play with huge frontloaded burst and mostly only used mr for the 8% buff, now its gone I'll slot something else.

HowlKimchi

DokThor90 wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

DokThor90 wrote: »

I Play a melee destro/restro magblade with caluurion and wont use merciless resolve anymore, since I didnt use the bow very often to begin with (and If, it did miss most of the time).

The snare removal is great though. Thats all I wished for .

Yep that's all I wished for actually too. (see my sig below)

I dunno if im dropping merciless since I dont have a better alternative for it. It's so central for the magblade burst imo.

Im playing
5x caluurion
5x amberplasm
2x pirate skeleton
1x vSMA resto

I only Play No CP and can burst people with


cloak - concealed - light attack - soul harvest (+caluurion) + x (good players will be able to react at this time).

pretty easily. Im very tanky + very mobile, the buff to rat (dont forget, also Major Expedition) will complement MY PERSONAL playstyle perfectly.

I play with huge frontloaded burst and mostly only used mr for the 8% buff, now its gone I'll slot something else.

I think we're pretty similar.

I'm running torug's pact + spinners + trollking running protective jewelry and recovery drinks. So the damage, survivability, and recovery is there.

My initial burst is also enough to deal with people who arent that good while having decent sustained pressure via the enchantment proc.

I rely on the spectral bow to deal with good players who are built right that I *need* to do my full burst via soul harvest -> spectral bow+light attack+enchantment. I want to be able to kill ALL my targets, and not just those squishy enough for my upfront burst.

HowlKimchi

darkblue5 wrote: »

I love the healing on a bow proc that'll miss. Like the biggest pain point is that unlike frags/DBoS/Shalks etc there's no way to guarantee a bow proc hit. No amount of expending your own resources or jukes will do it. The timing isn't right to set it up before hand with a CC, and it misses before you can cast a CC after. If you're getting your procs to hit then you're already is fine shape just because you're doing some actual damage.

That said the psijic snare removal will really buff cloak and magblade elusiveness so... maybe that'll be enough? Sort of feels like magblade will still need a defensive buff that works when things aren't going 100% smoothly. Still feel like magblade will be pretty bad and limited to Caluurion ganks, bombing, and healing.

Yeah the added delay a few patches ago really hurt our bow proc. Now I tend to use it as the opener of my burst If I notice my opponent is pretty responsive. I surprise him with a bow proc, and THEN cast my hysteria and soul harvest. It's a big damage loss because of the wasted 20% additional damage but I find it more relieable. after soul harvest, I spam swallow soul weaves with light attacks to use the 20% additional damage.

With the buff to RAT, I think we will be able to reset more easily and line up bursts similar to how stamblades were able to do it before.

This is all on paper though, we still have to see how it works out there on the field.

LordTareq

I really hate how they did nothing to address melee magblades physical weapons doing crap. In fact, currently the only reason to use a greatweapon over a staff is the snare removal from forward momentum.
With Elsweyr, that advantage is gone and using a melee weapon means handicapping yourself over using a staff even with a melee build, which really sucks for us 'spellblade' kind of players.

Tommy_The_Gun

Honestly ? I was hoping to see some mag blade & nb healer and tanking buffs.

I am a fool....

Iskiab

I’m downloading the PTS now. Have you guys logged on to PTS to test any of the changes?

From looking at magblade changes in isolation they aren’t too bad. High recovery could work and every magblade spec will use destruction staves.

I’m mostly worried about the environment changes for pvp, with aoe abilities being buffed across the board people will spam them making cloak impractical. DW and bow (basicly all stam) look like they got a buff.

YOB

With all the DK buffs & templar buffs, honestly nightblades in genral got sh!t on. Their burst heal taken away ( while coagulting blood got 19% heal buff).
Their minor berserk got taken away (while wardens still maintain his), for an Assassin skill getting a very low heal and loosing it's minor berserk buff is a no no, better change the skill line to NotReallyThatAssassin.
Not gonna mention stamblades major fracture rip and wardens still maintain theirs from scorch. *just saying*

A 7k spectral bow will return around 3.5k HP or 2.3k HP without battle spirit, which is very low for the buildup (5 light attacks and mag/stam cost) .

SO yeah just take off the skill from your bar if that makes it to live server...

Neloth

YOB wrote: »

SO yeah just take off the skill from your bar if that makes it to live server...

look at the bright side - you will have a skill slot for new psijic snare removal

Nerftheforums

Removal of berserker is a stupid change.
1) Does not affect pve
2) Does not affect stamnbs (since they get it vulnerability from ambush, while buffing also other people's damage against you, yaaay, more zerging!)
3) you pay mag to get what? The possibility to build a bow proc that will be dodged/blocked 70% if the time and that you will pay a second time to cast? Such a zos thing to do (note: zos thing is TOTALLY NOT a positive thing).
4) Race against time is dope af, but I would have rather seen a buff to our heals or damage tbh.

Basically we are left with a class that now deals a minimum of 8% less damage overall, is squishy af, has the worse heals in the game, and with the most hard and soft countered damage type (projectiles and slow ass bow proc) in the game.

Why should I play a magnb over a sorc if my plan is to kill stuff?
Magnb is a dead spec, it was the worse open world class and they managed to make it worse. Gg, I didn't think that could be possible.

Ps:
ZoS, if you are reading this, don't nerf sorc because I compared those two classes. Nerfing something to make something else more appealing is not the way to go, if you haven't noticed from the feedback you got in the last 2 years.

Mayrael

RAT is what ALL magicka classes have been waiting for far to long. Vampire population is decreasing my lord.

Leaving Grim Focus and morphs with nothing is lazy design. Initialisation of the skill needs to add something or needs to be free/passive. Projectile speed/delay needs to go. Otherwise skill won't be used at all.

Fear change is ok, nothing amazing but still it's something at least, especially the part where targets are not running away.

Dark cloak changes - total crap, won't use that morph for sure.

Shadow image - would like to test scaling and damage done. But what the most important we still don't have any news about fixing it! Same goes to Undo and morphs(Psijic ult). Both skills are bugged and we have no news about them! That's outrageous!

Shield Breaker and Oblivion enchant glyph nerf. One of the best parts of this patch. Good news for us and our brothers magsorcs.

DK wings change - at least it's something, though personally I'd prefer wings not working at all vs projectiles fired closer than 10m and reflecting 4 projectiles PER PLAYER from further distance.

Steel tornado nerf is also good change.

Overall I'm glad that many cancerous mechanics has been reworked. Minor nerfs of magblades, though unjustified, are something we will work around. We are magblades, the most creative and stubborn players out there

Crispen_Longbow

HaruKamui wrote: »

EDIT: misread some changes, updated post.

I wanna know how you guys feel about the Magblade changes. Please leave stamblade discussion out of the thread.

Major changes that affect us listed below, but I may have missed a few:

1) All Immobilizes from player abilities and item sets will now apply Immobilization Immunity once applied, to prevent multiple Immobilizes from applying on the same target. Once an Immobilize from these abilities ends, you gain immunity to Immobilizes for 3 seconds after, similar to the Dodge Roll mechanic.

2) DK reflect changed.

3)Grim Focus:
Removed the Minor Berserk buff from this ability and its morphs.
The spectral bow now heals for 33% of the damage dealt if you are within 7 meters of the target when firing it.
Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs would continue to persist after logging off.
Merciless Resolve (morph): Now increases healing done to 50%.

4) Race Against Time (morph): This morph no longer reduces the cost of sprinting by 50% for 4 seconds. Instead, it now grants immunity to Snares and Immobilizations for 4 seconds.

I'm keen to see how my magblade's defenses are now with the 50% heal from merciless resolve. Hitting it will still be an issue because of how long the attack hits after launching it though. I wish it gave something while we're still building up the 5 light attacks though. Like, I pay magicka for it to do nothing, then pay again to deal the actual damage.

As for the reflect change, i'm sad I guess for our DK friends, but I cant help but be happy that I can now actually *hit* magDKs. Enchantments will now proc, I can now build my merciless, etc.

The psijic skill giving snare immunity is GREAT! I've always vouched for giving magblades snare removal.

Overall, i'm glad we get more on the defensive department where I feel we've been lacking for a while now. For the offensive changes, it remains to be seen if we lost too much damage.

You are missing the changes to Mass hysteria and Fear mechanic. Fearing 6 people outnumbered is awesome, stacked with snare immunity & shade Magblades will be extremely hard to take down.

Aspect of Terror: This ability and its morphs no longer snare the target after the fear ends. Aspect of Terror now fears up to 3 enemies, up from 2.

• Mass Hysteria (morph): This morph no longer applies Minor Maim to the targets affected. Also increased the number of feared targets to 6 enemies from 2.
• Player abilities that fear targets will no longer cause them to flee in terror. Instead, they will now cower in terror, unable to move while feared. Note that this does not affect abilities that monsters can cast.

We can also lock them down instead of them running out of our AOE damage.

Datthaw

OK boys I back. I got suspended for raising hell about shadow image. It's worthless they will never fix it, zos is incompetent, and Kena has failed js

kaithuzar

Key points:
1) Traded berserk for vulnerability
remove assassin’s will for lotus fan

2)Can still get berserk from combat prayer; also burst heal

3) I was already alternating between refreshing path & race against time, now I’ll just stick to RAT

4) remove forward momentum & put on impale to secure kills

5) swap from 2h sword to Destro staff for inc 8% dmg from inferno passive
(I tried frost first, they nerfed wall of elements snare so didn’t work well)

Notes:
Use concealed instead of swallow soul, imo concealed sucks slightly less as you can stun from stealth.

Junkogen

I dont understand the need to remove berserk as if magblade would be overpowered with a heal. There's so much healing that a magblade gets elsewhere that I wish they would do something else like add a knockdown component to it. I mean it takes time to proc, unlike crystal frags. It just feels like not enough.

Magblade needs something like a shield, but different to stay alive so they're not just a cheap sorc knock off. Would be nice to see cloak buffed so that a restoration staff isnt needed. I long for the day I can drop a resto staff.

Insco851

Make merciless a burst heal on cast- but the catch is it resets the proc. Boom. Balanced

InvictusApollo

Burst selfhealing nerf
We lost burst heal from Dark Cloak - this is horrible. It was the only magicka ability that could compare to Vigor.
And don't tell me about Merciless Resolve like a burst heal because it will give you up to 1,5k healing once in five seconds.
Assuming that your tooltip says 16k damagem, you get:
16000*30%*50%*50% = 1200 healing once in 5 seconds (assuming perfect weaving). This is just 240hps - less than a half of what you get from Rapid Regeneration.
In comparison Dark Cloak was giving:
25000*33%/3,4*50% = 1213,2353 hps
for anyone with 25k health.
Now it's going to give just:
25000*4,5%*50% = 562,5hps which is half of what we had.
Instead of good burst heal we are getting another buff to maintain. And we all know that maintaining buffs is not very entertaining.


Ranged combat nerf
Due to the lack of Minor Berserk magblades either have to switch to melee with Teleport Strike or their damage output is decreased by 8%.


Overall this idea of butchering class abilities decreases build variety. You can't chose which ability will suit you best among all that give specific buff/debuff. Why? Buffs don't stack so I see no reason to let multiple abilities provide the same buff.

brandonv516

Remove initial cost or secondary cost, or make the heal for 50% of max HP, or make it a HoT while building up, or keep Minor Berserk on magicka morph only, or etc. etc.

Basically there are better options that we could've got...

MassiveFumes

HaruKamui wrote: »

GaunterODim wrote: »

Also definitely agree on the thing about the cost for the bow buff. If it doesnt give any buff to begin with, the activation of the buff should be free and only the shooting the bow proc should cost magicka /stamina.

Overall I'm glad that many cancerous mechanics has been reworked. Minor nerfs of magblades, though unjustified, are something we will work around. We are magblades, the most creative and stubborn players out there

the minor nerf to

Junkogen wrote: »

I dont understand the need to remove berserk as if magblade would be overpowered with a heal. There's so much healing that a magblade gets elsewhere that I wish they would do something else like add a knockdown component to it. I mean it takes time to proc, unlike crystal frags. It just feels like not enough.

Magblade needs something like a shield, but different to stay alive so they're not just a cheap sorc knock off. Would be nice to see cloak buffed so that a restoration staff isnt needed. I long for the day I can drop a resto staff.

Nah mblade doesn't need a shield.. we not trying to be sorcs. something else

MassiveFumes

MassiveFumes wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

GaunterODim wrote: »

Also definitely agree on the thing about the cost for the bow buff. If it doesnt give any buff to begin with, the activation of the buff should be free and only the shooting the bow proc should cost magicka /stamina.

Overall I'm glad that many cancerous mechanics has been reworked. Minor nerfs of magblades, though unjustified, are something we will work around. We are magblades, the most creative and stubborn players out there

the minor nerf to

Junkogen wrote: »

I dont understand the need to remove berserk as if magblade would be overpowered with a heal. There's so much healing that a magblade gets elsewhere that I wish they would do something else like add a knockdown component to it. I mean it takes time to proc, unlike crystal frags. It just feels like not enough.

Magblade needs something like a shield, but different to stay alive so they're not just a cheap sorc knock off. Would be nice to see cloak buffed so that a restoration staff isnt needed. I long for the day I can drop a resto staff.

Nah mblade doesn't need a shield.. we not trying to be sorcs. something else

lmao im *** didnt even read the rest my b

psychotic13

Heals on build up skills like this are counter intuitive imo, the heal will always be unreliable, its going to be rare you have the bow active when you actually need that heal cause youll likely be on the defensive when you need to heal... plus its a pain to land these days.

All in all, bad change.

Mayrael

psychotic13 wrote: »

Heals on build up skills like this are counter intuitive imo, the heal will always be unreliable, its going to be rare you have the bow active when you actually need that heal cause youll likely be on the defensive when you need to heal... plus its a pain to land these days.

All in all, bad change.

Unreliable heal, delay, travel speed, initial cost for nothing, double GCD - this is why you shouldn't use this skill anymore.

ninjaguyman

I'm not gonna say no to more heals so a heal on merciless is fine by me. When getting locked into defense it could be a good way to bounce back in health a little, after casting healing ward with BRP resto. Its more of a problem with the previous travel time nerf at close range letting most people dodge a lot of will procs, even if firing directly after fearing. As for losing minor berserk, I'm sure most magblades are wondering why they got hit by a nerf probably intended for stamblades.

The 25% damage buff to sap essence sounds good too, since I still try to use it in the current patch anyway. But I'm rather sad that sap essence lost major brutality. See, I'm a 2h mnb for forward momentum and I've been building to make up for the lost light attack damage, atleast partially, by using things that buff both magicka skills and my stamina based light attacks (dark elf, olorime, mark target, lover stone etc). Anyway, sap losing major brutality means I'm locked into 2h if I want to get that buff into my build. Meaning I can't use say duel wield or s&b to the same effect(if I slot RAT instead of FM) and it kinda sucks bc their reasoning was somewhere along the lines of it just makes more sense that way. I'm not sure why I don't like the feeling of destro staff, but regardless RAT change is still an overwhelming buff to mag classes so they don't have to constantly experience the jankness of not having snare/root immunity.

dark cloak heal nerf is a rather poor way to give us more bar space as it's barely a 1k heal tooltip outside of cyrodiil now (forgot what it was inside).

minor vulnerability on lotus fan is nice and all but probably wont make it onto my bar even with dark cloak gone. but if shade keeps bugging on me who knows.

soul tether getting 2m extra range buff is pretty cool. It happens more often than I'd like that someone running away from me seems like their in range of my ult and they avoid it completely.

Fear no longer making enemies run away? Absolutely beautiful.