Some Feedback and Suggestions on Nightblades

Izaki

Just wanting to say a few things about some of the Nightblade changes this patch. Most of it is just wishful thinking, but at least I'll feel like I've said my piece in a reasonably well constructed feedback post!

Relentless/Merciless just feel weird. Why slap a heal on this ability? Doesn't make much sense, especially since you'd need to be in a 7m radius from your target for it to work. Magblades are mostly ranged, why would you augment the heal on the magicka morph? My solution: scrap the heal entirely, then add extra 10 seconds duration to the base ability. And keep the Minor Endurance on Relentless and add Minor Intellect on Merciless. Now the ability would make some more sense, that way you don't do a completely empty cast on the first cast. Or another solution would be to make the ability "auto-refresh" upon firing off an Bow proc in the final 3 seconds of the ability (while keeping the duration at 20 seconds obviously).

The Surprise Attack change... Well, obviously, being a Stamblade main, I'm not happy! However, not so much fromAttacking from a flank or from behind is another one of those things that just pushes Stamblades to one playstyle in PvP, with lots of Cloaking and lots of ganking. Not many people enjoy facing those types of guys.
If ZOS REALLY don't want Surprise Attack to have Major Fracture, then they should just give it a 7.5-8% resistance debuff for 4-5 seconds upon use of the ability. Concealed Weapon should also have the same thing. On raid bosses that would mean a 1365 debuff, which is around what Sharpened and Minor Fracture give. Maces give you 20% just for being slotted and Destruction Staff has a passive where it ignores 10% damage on Destruction abilities. I'd say that its fair that an active ability that just lost Major Fracture would get 7.5% for a short duration.

Then comes the case of Mark Target. Its an absolutely uninteresting ability. It just debuffs ONE opponent. Outside of playing against ONE other Nightblade in PvP it does nothing until you kill that ONE person at which point it gives you a questionable heal. Wow. The other morph is the same, it has very limited uses. Maybe on the 3rd boss in vHoF where you'd put this on one of the adds or on the 3rd boss of vMA where you'd put this on the plant who will die in your AoEs. And then you'd get a pretty big heal and Major Berserk for a few seconds. Seriously, this is very limited. On top of that, no one has enough space on their bars to put this ability on. It just isn't worth sacrificing a skill on your bar for just Major Fracture and a heal when you kill something. Yes, only Major Fracture. Because Major Breach can be obtained through Elemental Drain which you can cast for free and get Minor Magickasteal on top and you can use it on MULTIPLE dudes. So yeah. The only thing interesting about this ability is the 2% Crit Chance you get from slotting it. I mean, it doesn't even proc Minor Savagery from the Hemorrhage passive! So whenever you use this ability, you're literally only gaining Major Resistance Debuffs and nothing else until the target dies.

What to do with this ability? All the other abilities that gives these debuffs are much more useful and less situational (Noxious Breath which is an AoE DoT, Subterranean Assault/Deep Fissure which is monster AoE burst, Puncture which is a taunt and of course Elemental Drain which is massive sustain).
If ZOS intend to keep the Major Resistance debuffs on Mark Target, then the Mark should be:
- Either dealing reasonable extra damage upon each attack against the marked target or buffing your Spell and Weapon Damage against the marked target by 5-7.5% (not stackable with other Nightblades)
- Having a Synergy
At that point, it would be less niche, would finally allow Nightblades to have a Synergy ability in their kit and it would be worth losing a slot for. Unlike the current Mark Target morphs which both require you to kill something for it to do anything, it will be usable on all enemies including bosses and it would offset the fact that you can only place it on one target at a time. The Mark should also put you in combat upon use.

My preferred solution would be the following however:
Swap Veiled Strike and Blur in their skill lines (while at the same time swapping Killer's Blade and Surprise Attack). That nerfs Surprise Attack in following ways: you lose 3% Max Health and you lose Major Resistance buffs on your spammable, since you won't be proccing Shadow Barrier anymore. It literally halves the utility of Surprise Attack and severely diminishes the survivability of Stamblades in PvP, which would force them to build less for damage, to focus a bit more on survivability and force them to use skills like Cloak, Blur and Shadow Image more which will all proc Shadow Barrier and which are also the main defense mechanics of the class. Then keep Major Fracture on Surprise Attack and also add Major Breach to Concealed Weapon while reducing the duration to 5-7 seconds (and also scrapping the extra speed in Cloak from Concealed Weapon which has no use at all in PvE and very limited uses in PvP). The duration of Blur would need to be adjusted to account for the Dark Veil passive.
At this point, you'd still have the issue of Mark Target and Veiled Strike morphs having the same debuffs. And from here on you can scrap all the current features on Mark Target (except the invisibility reveal which should be the base ability) and add all of the above suggestions while also reducing the target's armor by 5%. That would almost make the ability a necessity in raids and would still have many varied uses in PvP.

This is all just wishful thinking most likely, but I find my proposed changes to be much more logical and beneficial to the class overall: All Nightblades are nerfed pretty hard by losing Minor Berserk and by losing the snare on Fear morphs. Stamblades are nerfed by losing the strong defensive Shadow Barrier and Dark Vigor passives proccing on their spammable which reduces survivability and they also see their offensive potential decreased by drastically shortening the duration on Major Fracture from Surprise Attack (which won't be working with Dark Veil either). Magblades are buffed by having Major Breach added to Concealed Weapon which makes for a very strong melee spammable in PvP and in some PvE applications where ranged DPS isn't necessary and also buffed by getting 10% Magicka Recovery from Minor Intellect on Merciless to increase sustain. Mark Target is now a very useful and unique skill which would shine in group play but also have good performance in solo applications, without being mandatory or useless. Blur is moved to a more coherent skill line (since the intent is to have all classes have a Healing, Tanking and Damaging skill lines) and benefits from Shadow Passives which makes the skill more interesting in regard to Shuffle.

PS: About Teleport Strike having Minor Vulnerability: WHY? Its too strong and way too easy to get. 8% more damage upon gap closing is over the top compared to other gap closers.

actosh

@Izaki u forgot about dark cloak made completly useless.
Even 1 light attack with Siphoning heals for more then 1 tick of cloak does.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Move Surprise Attack lige suggeste by izaki to the assasination tree, or give us another burst/dot hybrid heal in the siphoning line.

Did enough good for nb tanks this patch, but took away what we got last year, just because of pvp idiots playing heavy armor blades that spam SA........

Strider__Roshin

Incap is a dead ult with the removal of major defile, and minor mangled is useless. It could occur by default (not having to wait until 120 ult) and it will still be useless.

Surprise Attack is very difficult to justify using over Power Extraction which is barely weaker, hits 360° and is undodgeable.

What needs to happen:

1) Incap needs major defile back or it needs something that makes it worth using over DBoS.

2) Surprise Attack needs to be far more superior to Power Extraction against a single target.

Izaki

Daus wrote: »

Incap is a dead ult with the removal of major defile, and minor mangled is useless. It could occur by default (not having to wait until 120 ult) and it will still be useless.

Surprise Attack is very difficult to justify using over Power Extraction which is barely weaker, hits 360° and is undodgeable.

What needs to happen:

1) Incap needs major defile back or it needs something that makes it worth using over DBoS.

2) Surprise Attack needs to be far more superior to Power Extraction against a single target.

I'd say Minor Defile would be good instead. The Major Defile doesn't really make THAT big of a difference considering Incap itself is Disease damage, the Spectral Bow is Disease damage and your enchant is most likely Disease damage, which all have a chance to proc Major Defile. Then again, some races have immunity to Disease status effect... I didn't want to touch on Incap because its a very tricky subject and I personally have no solutions.

As for Surprise Attack... well, half of my post is about that so yeah!

Joosef_Kivikilpi

Some people build off that speed boost of conceal weapon. It goes well with Mageblade as well since they can perma Cloak pretty much as well, increasing their overall speed and escape.

templesus

No.

Izaki

Joosef_Kivikilpi wrote: »

Some people build off that speed boost of conceal weapon. It goes well with Mageblade as well since they can perma Cloak pretty much as well, increasing their overall speed and escape.

Way too niche. Its just like Mark Target.

templesus wrote: »

No.

I'm not even going to respond to this.

Wycks

Maybe this will happen,

Replaced Incap with onslaught.
Replaced Surprise attack with Flurry
Grim focus will not be used.
Replace ambush with charge

So Stam NB will only have 3 useful abilities, fear, siphon, and cloak.

TheRealSniker

Updoot +++

stimpy986b14_ESO

I like the idea of swapping Blur and Veiled Strike but I think some other skills should be swapped to different trees as well.

Teleport Strike -> Shadow (and give the lotus fan morph an aoe snare but add a min 3.5m range to all morphs so it's no longer spammable)
Path -> Siphoning (and make the damage part of the base ability again)
Cripple -> Assassination (and make Debilitate a stamina morph)

Silver_Strider

Just gonna copy my other post from the Class Thread in relation to NB

1) I'm totally 100% fine with Surprise Attack losing Major Fracture (I don't feel it was overperforming at all but I'll make due). However, Concealed Weapon is still white hot trash even in comparison to this new version of Surprise Attack. While the speed buff is alright-ish, it always seemed off that it was attached to only 1 form of Veiled Strike instead of being a natural part of the skill. Move the speed buff to the base form of the skill and give Concealed Weapon Major Prophecy so that it might actually see some use. I'm not forgetting Magelight or Pots are easy sources of Major Prophecy but still, I felt it was a decent option to include into Magblade's toolkit naturally since they benefit the most from having more crit that having it naturally in their toolkit felt more organic.

2) Grim Focus without Minor buffs have destroyed the skill entirely. It's become a resource drain more than anything due to having no buff granted upon activation and a slow build up to an attack. I'd rather they give the skill Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect for each respective morph so that it has some tangible benefit of use outside of a resource heavy, slow moving projectile. Also, up the heal radius to the max; makes no sense that the ability that has a range of 28m has a 7m heal radius.

3) DARK CLOAK DID NOT NEED A NERF!!!! NB Tanks do not need to be kicked in the nads every single patch; We lost Sap Tanking, Tava Tanking, and now our only actually useful self heal is being gutted into the ground. Why? You already nerfed NB DPS so why was Dark Cloak also hit, especially so severely? Why are you making NB Tanks needlessly more difficult than it already is? I'd prefer reverting the change entirely because its just so poorly thought out that I can't take that change as anything but a drug fueled mistake but I'll meet you halfway. Remove the Minor Protection from Dark Cloak and reduce the Heal from 11% down to 8-9% over 4 seconds. This way, it heals within the range of 32-36% in a slightly longer duration and with the removal of Minor Protection, the skill doesn't cause as many problems in PvP. Move the Minor Protection to Refreshing Path so that NB Tanks can still benefit from it in a more reliable way while also limiting its PvP application.

4) Remove Major Berserk from Reaper's Mark and move the Minor Vulnerability from Teleport Strike to there instead. With the removal of Major Fracture from Surprise Attack, Mark Target is now the only method for NB to get it within class. However, because of how poorly Mark Target is in functionality, giving it something worthwhile is needed to actually make it a viable alternative to the old Surprise Attack. In the same vein of thought, having Teleport Strike provide Minor Vulnerability is a huge misstep as it creates a situation akin to the old Spambush meta, in which a Stamblade will be able to fully utilize the Minor Vulnerability of Teleport Strike, coupled with the Minor Berserk of Camo Hunter in order to inflict even stronger gank combos than previously possible. By giving Reaper's Mark the Minor Vulnerability debuff, not only do you increase NB's utility by having them provide Minor Vulnerability for a fairly reasonable duration, you also eliminate the potential PvP imbalance that will arise from having Minor Vulnerability on Teleport Strike as Marked Targets will have a chance to counter a ganking NB whereas Teleport Strike will now snare a Target for 60% on top of applying Minor Vulnerability while also granting Minor Berserk for the NB and leave the target almost completely without counter play in the time it'll take for a NB to kill you within that burst window. Lower the heal received from Mark Target if need be but if we need to nip this problem in the bud, now.

5) Cripple change has done nothing to improve the skill. Debilitate is still worse than Crippling Blast and making it snare more doesn't change that, especially since Race against Time will now be rampant as hell in PvP. Why not make it into a utility skill that provides Minor Lifesteal to the target so that it can be utilized by NB Healers and Tanks instead of remaining a dead skill?

I originally had no real feelings for the Minor Mangle on Incap but I do have some concerns about it now. In PvE, its a DPS loss to hold Incap til 120 Ultimate that it'll realistically be of little to no benefit there. In PvP, it might be useful for group play against High Health Builds but that has very limited applications as is and considering Dawnbreaker just got buffed, it seems unlikely to see any real play. Considering all that, Incap should just apply Minor Mangle as part of the skill without the whole 120 Ultimate Cost associated with it and last the full 6 seconds so that it sees actual usage in both PvE and PvP. It won't be of huge benefit but it'll be better than no benefit.

Strider__Roshin

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Just gonna copy my other post from the Class Thread in relation to NB

1) I'm totally 100% fine with Surprise Attack losing Major Fracture (I don't feel it was overperforming at all but I'll make due). However, Concealed Weapon is still white hot trash even in comparison to this new version of Surprise Attack. While the speed buff is alright-ish, it always seemed off that it was attached to only 1 form of Veiled Strike instead of being a natural part of the skill. Move the speed buff to the base form of the skill and give Concealed Weapon Major Prophecy so that it might actually see some use. I'm not forgetting Magelight or Pots are easy sources of Major Prophecy but still, I felt it was a decent option to include into Magblade's toolkit naturally since they benefit the most from having more crit that having it naturally in their toolkit felt more organic.

2) Grim Focus without Minor buffs have destroyed the skill entirely. It's become a resource drain more than anything due to having no buff granted upon activation and a slow build up to an attack. I'd rather they give the skill Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect for each respective morph so that it has some tangible benefit of use outside of a resource heavy, slow moving projectile. Also, up the heal radius to the max; makes no sense that the ability that has a range of 28m has a 7m heal radius.

3) DARK CLOAK DID NOT NEED A NERF!!!! NB Tanks do not need to be kicked in the nads every single patch; We lost Sap Tanking, Tava Tanking, and now our only actually useful self heal is being gutted into the ground. Why? You already nerfed NB DPS so why was Dark Cloak also hit, especially so severely? Why are you making NB Tanks needlessly more difficult than it already is? I'd prefer reverting the change entirely because its just so poorly thought out that I can't take that change as anything but a drug fueled mistake but I'll meet you halfway. Remove the Minor Protection from Dark Cloak and reduce the Heal from 11% down to 8-9% over 4 seconds. This way, it heals within the range of 32-36% in a slightly longer duration and with the removal of Minor Protection, the skill doesn't cause as many problems in PvP. Move the Minor Protection to Refreshing Path so that NB Tanks can still benefit from it in a more reliable way while also limiting its PvP application.

4) Remove Major Berserk from Reaper's Mark and move the Minor Vulnerability from Teleport Strike to there instead. With the removal of Major Fracture from Surprise Attack, Mark Target is now the only method for NB to get it within class. However, because of how poorly Mark Target is in functionality, giving it something worthwhile is needed to actually make it a viable alternative to the old Surprise Attack. In the same vein of thought, having Teleport Strike provide Minor Vulnerability is a huge misstep as it creates a situation akin to the old Spambush meta, in which a Stamblade will be able to fully utilize the Minor Vulnerability of Teleport Strike, coupled with the Minor Berserk of Camo Hunter in order to inflict even stronger gank combos than previously possible. By giving Reaper's Mark the Minor Vulnerability debuff, not only do you increase NB's utility by having them provide Minor Vulnerability for a fairly reasonable duration, you also eliminate the potential PvP imbalance that will arise from having Minor Vulnerability on Teleport Strike as Marked Targets will have a chance to counter a ganking NB whereas Teleport Strike will now snare a Target for 60% on top of applying Minor Vulnerability while also granting Minor Berserk for the NB and leave the target almost completely without counter play in the time it'll take for a NB to kill you within that burst window. Lower the heal received from Mark Target if need be but if we need to nip this problem in the bud, now.

5) Cripple change has done nothing to improve the skill. Debilitate is still worse than Crippling Blast and making it snare more doesn't change that, especially since Race against Time will now be rampant as hell in PvP. Why not make it into a utility skill that provides Minor Lifesteal to the target so that it can be utilized by NB Healers and Tanks instead of remaining a dead skill?

I originally had no real feelings for the Minor Mangle on Incap but I do have some concerns about it now. In PvE, its a DPS loss to hold Incap til 120 Ultimate that it'll realistically be of little to no benefit there. In PvP, it might be useful for group play against High Health Builds but that has very limited applications as is and considering Dawnbreaker just got buffed, it seems unlikely to see any real play. Considering all that, Incap should just apply Minor Mangle as part of the skill without the whole 120 Ultimate Cost associated with it and last the full 6 seconds so that it sees actual usage in both PvE and PvP. It won't be of huge benefit but it'll be better than no benefit.

It's useless since it gets applied after the damage done from Incap. This means 2 things:

1) It does literally nothing since the damage from Incap would bring them below 90% health anyways.

2) it actually works against you because now they're further from execute range than they would have been originally without minor mangled.

Long story short, just use DBoS now. Incap is pretty terrible.

Izaki

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Just gonna copy my other post from the Class Thread in relation to NB

1) I'm totally 100% fine with Surprise Attack losing Major Fracture (I don't feel it was overperforming at all but I'll make due). However, Concealed Weapon is still white hot trash even in comparison to this new version of Surprise Attack. While the speed buff is alright-ish, it always seemed off that it was attached to only 1 form of Veiled Strike instead of being a natural part of the skill. Move the speed buff to the base form of the skill and give Concealed Weapon Major Prophecy so that it might actually see some use. I'm not forgetting Magelight or Pots are easy sources of Major Prophecy but still, I felt it was a decent option to include into Magblade's toolkit naturally since they benefit the most from having more crit that having it naturally in their toolkit felt more organic.

2) Grim Focus without Minor buffs have destroyed the skill entirely. It's become a resource drain more than anything due to having no buff granted upon activation and a slow build up to an attack. I'd rather they give the skill Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect for each respective morph so that it has some tangible benefit of use outside of a resource heavy, slow moving projectile. Also, up the heal radius to the max; makes no sense that the ability that has a range of 28m has a 7m heal radius.

3) DARK CLOAK DID NOT NEED A NERF!!!! NB Tanks do not need to be kicked in the nads every single patch; We lost Sap Tanking, Tava Tanking, and now our only actually useful self heal is being gutted into the ground. Why? You already nerfed NB DPS so why was Dark Cloak also hit, especially so severely? Why are you making NB Tanks needlessly more difficult than it already is? I'd prefer reverting the change entirely because its just so poorly thought out that I can't take that change as anything but a drug fueled mistake but I'll meet you halfway. Remove the Minor Protection from Dark Cloak and reduce the Heal from 11% down to 8-9% over 4 seconds. This way, it heals within the range of 32-36% in a slightly longer duration and with the removal of Minor Protection, the skill doesn't cause as many problems in PvP. Move the Minor Protection to Refreshing Path so that NB Tanks can still benefit from it in a more reliable way while also limiting its PvP application.

4) Remove Major Berserk from Reaper's Mark and move the Minor Vulnerability from Teleport Strike to there instead. With the removal of Major Fracture from Surprise Attack, Mark Target is now the only method for NB to get it within class. However, because of how poorly Mark Target is in functionality, giving it something worthwhile is needed to actually make it a viable alternative to the old Surprise Attack. In the same vein of thought, having Teleport Strike provide Minor Vulnerability is a huge misstep as it creates a situation akin to the old Spambush meta, in which a Stamblade will be able to fully utilize the Minor Vulnerability of Teleport Strike, coupled with the Minor Berserk of Camo Hunter in order to inflict even stronger gank combos than previously possible. By giving Reaper's Mark the Minor Vulnerability debuff, not only do you increase NB's utility by having them provide Minor Vulnerability for a fairly reasonable duration, you also eliminate the potential PvP imbalance that will arise from having Minor Vulnerability on Teleport Strike as Marked Targets will have a chance to counter a ganking NB whereas Teleport Strike will now snare a Target for 60% on top of applying Minor Vulnerability while also granting Minor Berserk for the NB and leave the target almost completely without counter play in the time it'll take for a NB to kill you within that burst window. Lower the heal received from Mark Target if need be but if we need to nip this problem in the bud, now.

5) Cripple change has done nothing to improve the skill. Debilitate is still worse than Crippling Blast and making it snare more doesn't change that, especially since Race against Time will now be rampant as hell in PvP. Why not make it into a utility skill that provides Minor Lifesteal to the target so that it can be utilized by NB Healers and Tanks instead of remaining a dead skill?

I originally had no real feelings for the Minor Mangle on Incap but I do have some concerns about it now. In PvE, its a DPS loss to hold Incap til 120 Ultimate that it'll realistically be of little to no benefit there. In PvP, it might be useful for group play against High Health Builds but that has very limited applications as is and considering Dawnbreaker just got buffed, it seems unlikely to see any real play. Considering all that, Incap should just apply Minor Mangle as part of the skill without the whole 120 Ultimate Cost associated with it and last the full 6 seconds so that it sees actual usage in both PvE and PvP. It won't be of huge benefit but it'll be better than no benefit.

I still don't get the point of taking away Minor Berserk and giving us Minor Vulnerability instead. Its literally a vMA only nerf lol.
I'm really not on board with Major Fracture being taken away though (obviously) because its one of those situations where they nerf something just to make us use something else (Crystal Frags and Blast back in the day got the same treatment). Its not the right way to do things especially when the skill they want you to use instead is complete and utter crap. Surprise Attack did a lot of things, but at it's core, it's a spammable. So if you really want to nerf it, why nerf the offensive aspect of it? That being said, iirc, the whole idea behind Surprise Attack was to "steal" resistances.

Izaki

Daus wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Just gonna copy my other post from the Class Thread in relation to NB

1) I'm totally 100% fine with Surprise Attack losing Major Fracture (I don't feel it was overperforming at all but I'll make due). However, Concealed Weapon is still white hot trash even in comparison to this new version of Surprise Attack. While the speed buff is alright-ish, it always seemed off that it was attached to only 1 form of Veiled Strike instead of being a natural part of the skill. Move the speed buff to the base form of the skill and give Concealed Weapon Major Prophecy so that it might actually see some use. I'm not forgetting Magelight or Pots are easy sources of Major Prophecy but still, I felt it was a decent option to include into Magblade's toolkit naturally since they benefit the most from having more crit that having it naturally in their toolkit felt more organic.

2) Grim Focus without Minor buffs have destroyed the skill entirely. It's become a resource drain more than anything due to having no buff granted upon activation and a slow build up to an attack. I'd rather they give the skill Minor Endurance and Minor Intellect for each respective morph so that it has some tangible benefit of use outside of a resource heavy, slow moving projectile. Also, up the heal radius to the max; makes no sense that the ability that has a range of 28m has a 7m heal radius.

3) DARK CLOAK DID NOT NEED A NERF!!!! NB Tanks do not need to be kicked in the nads every single patch; We lost Sap Tanking, Tava Tanking, and now our only actually useful self heal is being gutted into the ground. Why? You already nerfed NB DPS so why was Dark Cloak also hit, especially so severely? Why are you making NB Tanks needlessly more difficult than it already is? I'd prefer reverting the change entirely because its just so poorly thought out that I can't take that change as anything but a drug fueled mistake but I'll meet you halfway. Remove the Minor Protection from Dark Cloak and reduce the Heal from 11% down to 8-9% over 4 seconds. This way, it heals within the range of 32-36% in a slightly longer duration and with the removal of Minor Protection, the skill doesn't cause as many problems in PvP. Move the Minor Protection to Refreshing Path so that NB Tanks can still benefit from it in a more reliable way while also limiting its PvP application.

4) Remove Major Berserk from Reaper's Mark and move the Minor Vulnerability from Teleport Strike to there instead. With the removal of Major Fracture from Surprise Attack, Mark Target is now the only method for NB to get it within class. However, because of how poorly Mark Target is in functionality, giving it something worthwhile is needed to actually make it a viable alternative to the old Surprise Attack. In the same vein of thought, having Teleport Strike provide Minor Vulnerability is a huge misstep as it creates a situation akin to the old Spambush meta, in which a Stamblade will be able to fully utilize the Minor Vulnerability of Teleport Strike, coupled with the Minor Berserk of Camo Hunter in order to inflict even stronger gank combos than previously possible. By giving Reaper's Mark the Minor Vulnerability debuff, not only do you increase NB's utility by having them provide Minor Vulnerability for a fairly reasonable duration, you also eliminate the potential PvP imbalance that will arise from having Minor Vulnerability on Teleport Strike as Marked Targets will have a chance to counter a ganking NB whereas Teleport Strike will now snare a Target for 60% on top of applying Minor Vulnerability while also granting Minor Berserk for the NB and leave the target almost completely without counter play in the time it'll take for a NB to kill you within that burst window. Lower the heal received from Mark Target if need be but if we need to nip this problem in the bud, now.

5) Cripple change has done nothing to improve the skill. Debilitate is still worse than Crippling Blast and making it snare more doesn't change that, especially since Race against Time will now be rampant as hell in PvP. Why not make it into a utility skill that provides Minor Lifesteal to the target so that it can be utilized by NB Healers and Tanks instead of remaining a dead skill?

I originally had no real feelings for the Minor Mangle on Incap but I do have some concerns about it now. In PvE, its a DPS loss to hold Incap til 120 Ultimate that it'll realistically be of little to no benefit there. In PvP, it might be useful for group play against High Health Builds but that has very limited applications as is and considering Dawnbreaker just got buffed, it seems unlikely to see any real play. Considering all that, Incap should just apply Minor Mangle as part of the skill without the whole 120 Ultimate Cost associated with it and last the full 6 seconds so that it sees actual usage in both PvE and PvP. It won't be of huge benefit but it'll be better than no benefit.

It's useless since it gets applied after the damage done from Incap. This means 2 things:

1) It does literally nothing since the damage from Incap would bring them below 90% health anyways.

2) it actually works against you because now they're further from execute range than they would have been originally without minor mangled.

Long story short, just use DBoS now. Incap is pretty terrible.

That second point is sooo true. I'd understand giving Minor Mangle to a class without an execute (DK or Warden basically). But this just doesn't make any sense.

The way that the skills are changed and the reasoning behind those changes is, to put it bluntly, dumb.

TheRealSniker

There is alot of reasoning in this Thread, hope it stays up

colossalvoids

Can agree completely so nothing more to add almost, bump.

ftballjj20

Some one on one of these thread said they should switch blur with surprise attack bc of the shadow barrier passive and give back surprise attacks major fracture. I like that fix!

The person saying they should switch minor vul to mark target is on to something there.

Mayrael

Surprise attack nerf is a good change. This skill is OP. Hits very hard, is spammable and provides one of the best debuffs.

Dark cloak nerf is bad - this skill was not even close to being OP.

Grim focus and morphs in current state is bad, with that change it's going to be dropped by any competent player, it needs some changes. Initialisation cost removal is... well a bad choice IMHO as it still uses GCD to do nothing. Some minor buff on activation would be nice.

Fear - awesome and fair changes. Best part is that targets don't run away anymore, also to use it's full potential NB needs to take a risk and get close to those 6 players not like with the trap morph.

Shade still not fixed which is for me the worst part of NB update.

Incap - well...TBH I think there is no reason to use it over DBoS with that change. IMHO leaving major defile only with the 120 cost version would be ok. But this... It's not worth a bar slot.

Nerftheforums

I don't like the random % changes, I'd rather have flat value, possibly in the major/minor system. For the rest, me agrees.

darkblue5

Magblade needs some healing that doesn't help endgame PVE dps run without healers.

Maybe Shrewd Offering could be swapped to Shrewd Self Dealing where it puts a minor DoT on the closest player in melee range or failing that on you and offers a burst heal. Costs some amount of magicka ofc as well.

What would be better would be giving a HoT to Merciless Resolve that somehow only functions in pvp.
Maybe whenever your opponent blocks, dodges or absorbs an attack of yours heal for some X.
Or maybe a X heal whenever you get damaged by an AOE ability. (Those mostly 1-shot in PVE anyways).
Maybe it heals you for X when you don't critically hit which would help low level PVE survivability and PvP survivability while poorly scaling with endgame PVE stats.

Jeezye

Agree with everything. Regarding mark target, a functionality similar to PotL where the target takes damage from "the inside" would be much appreciated. Maybe not as bursty as PotL, but sustained damage when you attack said target.

Magblade really struggle to kill any opponent with dodgerolls/block up and damage "from the inside" is exactly the type we need for more reliable pressure. Also it would play more into the feeling of "marking the target for death" and people would actually care if they see a huge shadow column over their heads

Nerftheforums

Jeezye wrote: »

Agree with everything. Regarding mark target, a functionality similar to PotL where the target takes damage from "the inside" would be much appreciated. Maybe not as bursty as PotL, but sustained damage when you attack said target.

Magblade really struggle to kill any opponent with dodgerolls/block up and damage "from the inside" is exactly the type we need for more reliable pressure. Also it would play more into the feeling of "marking the target for death" and people would actually care if they see a huge shadow column over their heads

I am sososososo against this. It waters the class down, makes it so much easier to kill and promotes multiple people attacking the same target, stealing the group role of templars in this regard.

Izaki

Mayrael wrote: »

Surprise attack nerf is a good change. This skill is OP. Hits very hard, is spammable and provides one of the best debuffs.

See I partially agree with you on this one. I do think that a 17 sec Major Fracture is much too strong for a spammable. However, if you reduce it to about 5 seconds AND take away the Shadow passives, I think it solves a lot of problems with Surprise Attack (which is indeed much stronger than other spammables). Plus, it would be great to have Major Breach on Concealed Weapon to give Magblades some love and allow them to have another spammable at their disposal for specific situations. Right now, the current 5% debuff is a bit pityful since it requires pretty tough conditions and since it most likely works much like Maces and Destruction staff passives.

Strider__Roshin

Izaki wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

Surprise attack nerf is a good change. This skill is OP. Hits very hard, is spammable and provides one of the best debuffs.

See I partially agree with you on this one. I do think that a 17 sec Major Fracture is much too strong for a spammable. However, if you reduce it to about 5 seconds AND take away the Shadow passives, I think it solves a lot of problems with Surprise Attack (which is indeed much stronger than other spammables). Plus, it would be great to have Major Breach on Concealed Weapon to give Magblades some love and allow them to have another spammable at their disposal for specific situations. Right now, the current 5% debuff is a bit pityful since it requires pretty tough conditions and since it most likely works much like Maces and Destruction staff passives.

I think Surprise should revert to its former form in order to justify using it over Power Extraction. The damage numbers are almost the same now; except power extraction hits 360° and is a massive AoE.