My personal suggestions for Magicka Nightblade`balance in PvP

Pr0Skygon

Ok straight to the point: Magicka Nightblade is a jack of all trait, but master of none (in PvP only, they're still demigod in PvE). Yes, bombblade is extremely effective, but only in specific situations, and they're utterly useless in any others. So let's think of a way to make Magblade somewhat competent in every situations (you know, like almost every other classes).

My suggestion is simple: Give Magblade more survivability. The new spectral bow heal is a welcome change, yet it is way too unreliable (you know, it's a heal that require 5 light attacks beforehand). There are 2 changes I can think of, and I'd be happy to see either of these changes happen (I don't think we'd need both them, however).
1. Make Dark Cloak scales to either health or magicka, whichever is higher. This change will possibly give magblade a reliable heal but still avoid them to spam it like an addict.
2. GIve a buff to the healing from Siphoning Attacks. Either increase the amount it heals, or make it heals for x% of the damage dealt with the light/heavy attack.

Personally I'm not a magblade player, but I've encountered so many magblade with various skill level, and almost every single one of them told me the same thing about how their survivability is almost none existence. This is just merely a suggestion, and I'd love to hear other opinions.

Chelo

How are MagBlades jack of all trades? Last time I checked, they don't have a burst heal, they don't have shields, they can barely roll dodge, they can barely block, they are not good in crowd control against numerous enemies.

Most of MagBlade defense come from strategy and out smart the enemy using a combination between cloak and shade.

And their offense is keeping pressure from range with snare, stuns and a timed burst to secure the kill shot...

Seems to me that they are a straight forward Damage Class, with not a lot of tools to survive getting focused by various people at once...

TumlinTheJolly

Magblade may not have the most potent class burst healing... but a good magblade, with good positional awareness has PLENTY of survivability. I personally don't think they need more healing... You can always use Blessing/Prayer if you want a burst heal, and you already have a ton of HoT.

kaithuzar

Yea I use Blessing of Resto, sucks that combat prayer does NOT heal for the same amount even though each morph has a unique buff; 1 w/offense, 1 w/defense.

The problem imo, is it’s too easy to stack 4-5k weapon damage & get hit with a 20k+ onslaught (2h ultimate) for 95% of your health bar. Bleeds apply so much pressure, that without having a purge mechanic you’re doomed; even with high health recovery.

But all of this could be avoided.
IF you can kill your opponent before their damage kicks in.
But when I’m “missing” 2/4 concealed strikes, it’s not going to happen & I’ll be almost out of resources. (Mostly from all those buffs I had to cast before my 4 concealed strikes).

I’ve really tried to stack high burst damage but it’s just not “reliable”.

darkblue5

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

Magblade may not have the most potent class burst healing... but a good magblade, with good positional awareness has PLENTY of survivability. I personally don't think they need more healing... You can always use Blessing/Prayer if you want a burst heal, and you already have a ton of HoT.

How many times were our HoTs nerfed? I'll wait while you check. Also, protective funnily enough is a Stealth Nerf to Swallow Soul which is pretty clever of ZOS. Hitting the stealth class with a stealth nerf.
What's that? More HoT nerfs for nightblade in this very patch???

Shadowy Disguise is pretty useless without ancillary defenses. Sure "positional awareness" is one of them, but it doesn't help you actually win the 1v1. It may help you get out of a 1v1 but again always running is hardly PvP. The better question is "Could any level of player do better on every other spec?" The answer right now is yes. Stamblade does everything magblade does solo and does it better. Ball group magblades have little to give outside of faster ultis. Which sometimes is useless when you're not using ultis on actual cooldown.

Maybe the best magblade gives is the speed from Path.... which RAT gives....

Eh, two magblades being in some ball groups for the speed from Path means that magblade as a class is totally fine and balanced! It can afford being the bottom of the heap in solo open world play because AOE major expedi- wait ball groups still run some rapids sometimes? NVM, being a major expedition option is enough.

Pr0Skygon

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

Magblade may not have the most potent class burst healing... but a good magblade, with good positional awareness has PLENTY of survivability. I personally don't think they need more healing... You can always use Blessing/Prayer if you want a burst heal, and you already have a ton of HoT.

"Good positional awareness" is not a feature of nightblade, it's player skill. Any competent pvper has good positional awareness. But while a magblade with good positional awareness, tons of mobility and great HOT from Surge, they also have a killer combo that can 1 shot any squishy target, and they also have 1 of best escape mechanic in this game. You can argue that magblade has all of these feature, but let's be real, magblade combos, HOT and escape mechanic are much worse magsorc.

I do not wish to see an change to magsorc, if there are changes, I'd even wish for some buff. But please, give magblade some love, if not a lot of love in pvp aspect.

Pr0Skygon

Chelo wrote: »

How are MagBlades jack of all trades? Last time I checked, they don't have a burst heal, they don't have shields, they can barely roll dodge, they can barely block, they are not good in crowd control against numerous enemies.

Most of MagBlade defense come from strategy and out smart the enemy using a combination between cloak and shade.

And their offense is keeping pressure from range with snare, stuns and a timed burst to secure the kill shot...

Seems to me that they are a straight forward Damage Class, with not a lot of tools to survive getting focused by various people at once...

When I said "jack of all traits", I meant the basic pvp mechanic, not ticking every boxes available in the game. Do they have shield? Yes, but not class ability, but tbh the only class with potent shield is magsorc. Can the roll dodge and block well? Of course not, they are mag, this is just a very glaring drawback of playing magicka toon.

So what do I mean when I said "jack of all traits"? It means they have DOT, burst damage potential, AOE damage, defense mechanic, escape mechanic, team support, single target CC, group CC, mobility and fun factor. They have every single thing that a pvp setup should get, but do they excel in any of them? Nope. Well not really, bombblade is still very strong in 1vX, but then so is magDK and magplar, and they are not 1 trick pony like magblade.

If considering in this perspective, I thing magblade do need some love from ZOS.

Mayrael

Magblades are most ignored class by devs. We are on our own, if you want to be viable, you need to work for it, don't count on buffs, especially when new class is coming. If anything pray that ZOS won't decide to take something else from our toolkit and give it to necro.