NB Changes v5.0.1: Problem Areas and Potential Solutions

Insco851

Iskiab wrote: »

No. All moving this ability will do is push NBs further towards the ganking playstyle.

I’ve never seen a good brawler magblade or stamblade. Until I do I call shenanigans on it even being a concern. Survivability is everybody’s main concern unless you’re a ganker, asking for a dumb nerf is dumb.

A lot of NBs don’t pvp at a high level so are content being in cloak half the time. Those that do and fight against people who use detect pots, leash and aoes would be needlessly nerfed.

Brawler Stamblade was pretty OP. But similar to magblade, burst built around procing the bow. Hard to kill heavy armor stamblade with trollololol king. Orc when it had the health passives. Shade, Bruh lol

I built one of these - was not a NB main in the least, had a very good traditional stamblade friend that couldn’t bring it down from day 1. He was hella frustrated.

Iskiab

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hasn’t anyone seen it?

Melee without good aoe is like going to a gun fight carrying a knife. You can’t balance around dueling in the desert.

Insco851

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hadn’t anyone seen it?

I never ran that thing in BGs. And TTK was def lower than traditional stamblade.

Obviously this was more of an open world, group setup than for the AOEgrounds. Tank and spank setup when the proc was ready.

Iskiab

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hadn’t anyone seen it?

I never ran that thing in BGs. And TTK was def lower than traditional stamblade.

Obviously this was more of an open world, group setup than for the AOEgrounds.

That’s what I mean. Since half of other classes use aoes in a ST rotation how can it compete? It’s not through survivability. Self healing?

For stamblade to be balanced around 1v1 they’d have to make serious adjustments, or it would result in them being useless in every other facet of pvp. Arguably this is the case right now.

There’s a reason Stamblades don’t do well in BGs and are excluded from pvp guilds. They’re only effective solo.

The reason they’re not effective:
- No aoe (or never seen someone one use it except bombard)
- No group support abilities (or they don’t use them)
- No group cc abilities
- Bow projectiles are reflectable
- Low survivability

A lot of forum posts are full of hypocrisy:

Typical Pvper: ‘Stamblades are OP’. ‘Snipe is OP’ ‘Cloak is OP’.

Stamblade: ‘Can I join your premade or pvp guild?’

Typical pvper: ‘No, you suck’

Stamblade: ‘You said I was OP’

Typical pvper: ‘You are when I get ganked in all divines because I forgot to change into my pvp gear. Besides, I can safety dump my frustrations on this class because we have 0 in our guild, and rely/stack Sorcs and Wardens so don’t want them touched’.

mpicklesster

twing1_ wrote: »

1. Grim Focus and it's morphs should grant major brutality/sorcery. Providing these major buffs would distribute much needed functionality to this skill, while at the same time keeping the overall power of the NB class unchanged because they already have access to these through other skills. To resolve potential redundancy issues, major brutality/sorcery should be removed from drain power and its morphs (which provide enough functionality on their own without these buffs).
both work toward streamlining the buffing/debuffing process and put less pressure on NB to open up a fight with a specific moveset. By condensing their buffs and debuff into two skills outside of their spammable (grim focus and mark target), it allows for a shorter time and resource investment to reach max damage potential and makes it easier to retain that potential while switching targets. It would also eliminate the opportunity cost of opening up with a specific skill instead of another. I believe these changes would drastically help the flow of NB combat, while both increasing balance between the abilities in the NB toolkit and also maintaining balance between NB and other classes.

^^^^^THIS! The PTS version of Grim Focus feels a little underpowered, IMO. Making it a source of Major Sorcery/Brutality would be an excellent idea. Power Extraction and Sap Essence are used so seldom because their usefulness is highly situational. As such, they're not a reliable source of Major Brutality and Sorcery, respectively. The OP's suggested change would give NBs a much more reliable source of these buffs since Grim Focus is a pillar of a any NB DPS build. And we wouldn't need to use weapon/spell power pots so much! Corn Flower is way over-priced now...

Insco851

Iskiab wrote: »

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hadn’t anyone seen it?

I never ran that thing in BGs. And TTK was def lower than traditional stamblade.

Obviously this was more of an open world, group setup than for the AOEgrounds.

That’s what I mean. Since half of other classes use aoes in a ST rotation how can it compete? It’s not through survivability. Self healing?

For stamblade to be balanced around 1v1 they’d have to make serious adjustments, or it would result in them being useless in every other facet of pvp. Arguably this is the case right now.

There’s a reason Stamblades don’t do well in BGs and are excluded from pvp guilds. They’re only effective solo.

Well considering their solo damage was incredibly high - it makes sense they did not have much group utility. In BGs, it’s aoe or die... are we balancing for BGs? Cuz I’d argue that’s not the same game as CP pvp.

Insco851

mpicklesster wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

1. Grim Focus and it's morphs should grant major brutality/sorcery. Providing these major buffs would distribute much needed functionality to this skill, while at the same time keeping the overall power of the NB class unchanged because they already have access to these through other skills. To resolve potential redundancy issues, major brutality/sorcery should be removed from drain power and its morphs (which provide enough functionality on their own without these buffs).
both work toward streamlining the buffing/debuffing process and put less pressure on NB to open up a fight with a specific moveset. By condensing their buffs and debuff into two skills outside of their spammable (grim focus and mark target), it allows for a shorter time and resource investment to reach max damage potential and makes it easier to retain that potential while switching targets. It would also eliminate the opportunity cost of opening up with a specific skill instead of another. I believe these changes would drastically help the flow of NB combat, while both increasing balance between the abilities in the NB toolkit and also maintaining balance between NB and other classes.

^^^^^THIS! The PTS version of Grim Focus feels a little underpowered, IMO. Making it a source of Major Sorcery/Brutality would be an excellent idea. Power Extraction and Sap Essence are used so seldom because their usefulness is highly situational. As such, they're not a reliable source of Major Brutality and Sorcery, respectively. The OP's suggested change would give NBs a much more reliable source of these buffs since Grim Focus is a pillar of a any NB DPS build. And we wouldn't need to use weapon/spell power pots so much! Corn Flower is way over-priced now...

I’d love this personally. Would instantly help with survival by slotting other pots. Currently magblade is stuck running spell power pots or wasting a slot on entropy. Stamblade on the other hand....

Iskiab

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hadn’t anyone seen it?

I never ran that thing in BGs. And TTK was def lower than traditional stamblade.

Obviously this was more of an open world, group setup than for the AOEgrounds.

That’s what I mean. Since half of other classes use aoes in a ST rotation how can it compete? It’s not through survivability. Self healing?

For stamblade to be balanced around 1v1 they’d have to make serious adjustments, or it would result in them being useless in every other facet of pvp. Arguably this is the case right now.

There’s a reason Stamblades don’t do well in BGs and are excluded from pvp guilds. They’re only effective solo.

Well considering their solo damage was incredibly high - it makes sense they did not have much group utility. In BGs, it’s aoe or die... are we balancing for BGs? Cuz I’d argue that’s not the same game as CP pvp.

I don’t play CP, just no CP. What is PvP if not BGs and Cyrodiil?

Insco851

Iskiab wrote: »

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Insco851 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen one do well in BGs. If it was viable why hadn’t anyone seen it?

I never ran that thing in BGs. And TTK was def lower than traditional stamblade.

Obviously this was more of an open world, group setup than for the AOEgrounds.

That’s what I mean. Since half of other classes use aoes in a ST rotation how can it compete? It’s not through survivability. Self healing?

For stamblade to be balanced around 1v1 they’d have to make serious adjustments, or it would result in them being useless in every other facet of pvp. Arguably this is the case right now.

There’s a reason Stamblades don’t do well in BGs and are excluded from pvp guilds. They’re only effective solo.

Well considering their solo damage was incredibly high - it makes sense they did not have much group utility. In BGs, it’s aoe or die... are we balancing for BGs? Cuz I’d argue that’s not the same game as CP pvp.

I don’t play CP, just no CP. What is PvP if not BGs and Cyrodiil?

Cp pvp =/= no cp

Very hard to balance based on BGs imo.

I’m typically always speaking from a cp Cyrodiil pvp perspective fwiw

In cp pvp you don’t have small man groups spamming pve aoes like caltrops and wall of elements in a predetermined fighting arena. They just arnt as effective currently. So that “no group utility” stamblade does have an effective role at targeting high priority targets in small mans.

Which is completely thrown out in BGs cuz ground based aoes are everywhere and they can’t effectively get to the target without getting stepped on like a cockroach.

twing1_

Iskiab wrote: »

The reason they’re not effective:
- No aoe (or never seen someone one use it except bombard)
- No group support abilities (or they don’t use them)
- No group cc abilities
- Bow projectiles are reflectable
- Low survivability

On PTS, power extraction is hitting for ~95% of surprise attack's tooltip but as an AoE.

On PTS, teleport strike now offers minor vulnerability which is an extremely powerful group debuff (although it is wasted in the current application method)

On PTS, mass hysteria now fears 6 targets and they no longer cower, they stay in place to assist group AoE burn.

On PTS, dk wings no longer reflects.

While they do have relatively low survivability out in the open, cloak is arguably the strongest survivability tool in the game. When it works, it mitigates 100% damage, but it is also easy to counter. This reinforces the idea of NB being a high risk/high reward, all or nothing class.

The current change to surprise attack (favoring major resistances over major fracture) completely undermines this theme for the reasons I explained earlier.

If either major fracture or major ward/resolve must be removed from surprise attack, the resistances should be the casualty solely because it would adhere more to the NB class identity that way.

As it is now, PTS surprise attack is limiting the "high reward" of burst damage (by removing fracture) in favor of mitigating the "high risk" of making major resistances harder to sustain. That is not the NB way.

Insco851

twing1_ wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

The reason they’re not effective:
- No aoe (or never seen someone one use it except bombard)
- No group support abilities (or they don’t use them)
- No group cc abilities
- Bow projectiles are reflectable
- Low survivability

On PTS, power extraction is hitting for ~95% of surprise attack's tooltip but as an AoE.

On PTS, teleport strike now offers minor vulnerability which is an extremely powerful group debuff (although it is wasted in the current application method)

On PTS, mass hysteria now fears 6 targets and they no longer cower, they stay in place to assist group AoE burn.

On PTS, dk wings no longer reflects.

While they do have relatively low survivability out in the open, cloak is arguably the strongest survivability tool in the game. When it works, it mitigates 100% damage, but it is also easy to counter. This reinforces the idea of NB being a high risk/high reward, all or nothing class.

The current change to surprise attack (favoring major resistances over major fracture) completely undermines this theme for the reasons I explained earlier.

If either major fracture or major ward/resistance must be removed from surprise attack, the resistances should be the casualty solely because it would adhere more to the NB class identity that way.

As it is now, PTS surprise attack is limiting the "high reward" of burst damage (by removing fracture) in favor of mitigating the "high risk" of making major resistances harder to sustain. That is not the NB way.

Can’t see them letting the aimless aoe spammable go to live doing this much damage. Single target will be pointless.

twing1_

Insco851 wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

The reason they’re not effective:
- No aoe (or never seen someone one use it except bombard)
- No group support abilities (or they don’t use them)
- No group cc abilities
- Bow projectiles are reflectable
- Low survivability

On PTS, power extraction is hitting for ~95% of surprise attack's tooltip but as an AoE.

On PTS, teleport strike now offers minor vulnerability which is an extremely powerful group debuff (although it is wasted in the current application method)

On PTS, mass hysteria now fears 6 targets and they no longer cower, they stay in place to assist group AoE burn.

On PTS, dk wings no longer reflects.

While they do have relatively low survivability out in the open, cloak is arguably the strongest survivability tool in the game. When it works, it mitigates 100% damage, but it is also easy to counter. This reinforces the idea of NB being a high risk/high reward, all or nothing class.

The current change to surprise attack (favoring major resistances over major fracture) completely undermines this theme for the reasons I explained earlier.

If either major fracture or major ward/resistance must be removed from surprise attack, the resistances should be the casualty solely because it would adhere more to the NB class identity that way.

As it is now, PTS surprise attack is limiting the "high reward" of burst damage (by removing fracture) in favor of mitigating the "high risk" of making major resistances harder to sustain. That is not the NB way.

Can’t see them letting the aimless aoe spammable go to live doing this much damage. Single target will be pointless.

Unless they bring fracture back to surprise attack.

But yes, I agree. They should tone power extraction down to their AoE standard and instead have it increase in damage scaling on the amount of enemies it hits. That way it mirrors sap essence (which heals for 20% more based on the number of enemies hit, up to 6 enemies) and deals 20% more damage based on the number of enemies hit, up to 6 enemies.

This would reduce it's damage in single target scenarios (so surprise attack can retain its function) while at the same time providing great utility in multiple enemy scenarios.

Jagdkommando

Guys i also think NBs need minor Berserk back, cuz they are too squishy. Some say NBs ganking etc. The think is that not always its possible to nicely gank. And if they fail there will be no other chance... Necromanser can use their corpses...

kaithuzar

Iskiab wrote: »

I’ve never seen a good brawler magblade or stamblade.

Ouch dude...that hurts.

thankyourat

I'm upset so far in the direction they are taking magblade in. It seems like whenever they give the class a buff they Nerf a different area of the class. When a class is at the bottom of viability though you don't need to balance it that way. For instance there was no reason to take away minor berserk just to add minor vulnerability to lotus fan. They could've just added minor vulnerability to lotus fan and left merciless alone. The same with double take and cripple they could've left the major expedition on the skills while also adding the new effects that where added. The way that ZoS is changing magblade isn't making it better than on live all it's doing is changing the class while keeping it just as bad.

Jagdkommando

thankyourat wrote: »

I'm upset so far in the direction they are taking magblade in. It seems like whenever they give the class a buff they Nerf a different area of the class. When a class is at the bottom of viability though you don't need to balance it that way. For instance there was no reason to take away minor berserk just to add minor vulnerability to lotus fan. They could've just added minor vulnerability to lotus fan and left merciless alone. The same with double take and cripple they could've left the major expedition on the skills while also adding the new effects that where added. The way that ZoS is changing magblade isn't making it better than on live all it's doing is changing the class while keeping it just as bad.

Grim focus for example is a beautiful skill atm on live server, why they change it i cant understand...

Heimpai

Jagdkommando wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

I'm upset so far in the direction they are taking magblade in. It seems like whenever they give the class a buff they Nerf a different area of the class. When a class is at the bottom of viability though you don't need to balance it that way. For instance there was no reason to take away minor berserk just to add minor vulnerability to lotus fan. They could've just added minor vulnerability to lotus fan and left merciless alone. The same with double take and cripple they could've left the major expedition on the skills while also adding the new effects that where added. The way that ZoS is changing magblade isn't making it better than on live all it's doing is changing the class while keeping it just as bad.

Grim focus for example is a beautiful skill atm on live server, why they change it i cant understand...

Because it hits harder than frags and sorcs aren’t okay with that

Maulkin

Heimpai wrote: »

Jagdkommando wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

I'm upset so far in the direction they are taking magblade in. It seems like whenever they give the class a buff they Nerf a different area of the class. When a class is at the bottom of viability though you don't need to balance it that way. For instance there was no reason to take away minor berserk just to add minor vulnerability to lotus fan. They could've just added minor vulnerability to lotus fan and left merciless alone. The same with double take and cripple they could've left the major expedition on the skills while also adding the new effects that where added. The way that ZoS is changing magblade isn't making it better than on live all it's doing is changing the class while keeping it just as bad.

Grim focus for example is a beautiful skill atm on live server, why they change it i cant understand...

Because it hits harder than frags and sorcs aren’t okay with that

Interesting fantasy world you've built there in your head. Make it a movie maybe

Red_Feather

What if Grim Focus does a debuff on enemy where light attacks against them stack an effect like Arms of Relequen, and when you activate the skill a second time it detonates the stacks.

twing1_

Red_Feather wrote: »

What if Grim Focus does a debuff on enemy where light attacks against them stack an effect like Arms of Relequen, and when you activate the skill a second time it detonates the stacks.

Or just make it so that recasting the ability at any point fires the bow, the damage scaling off of how many light attack stacks are built up. Max damage would be 5 stacks, but it can be fired from only 1 stack for significantly less damage, or 2, or 3, etc.

That way some amount of burst damage is always there on demand, but it scales positively with how long you build it up for.

RavenSworn

I like your changes mostly op, but I disagree with Mark target gaining vulnerability. I still feel that ambush is a much better skill for vulnerability to be applied.

Veiled strike needs to swap places with mirage / double take. That helps with both nb tanks and alleviate the problem of having an offensive spammable that does defensive duties as well just by passive proxy. Taking major fracture from surprise attack was a bold but needed move from ZoS.

Dark cloak changes were unwarranted. It was fine as it is with max health scaling. I don't get the need for it to scale with magicka or spell power when it's intended target role for this skill is a tank.

Class identity has been taking a big hit since last year. ZoS needs to review these changes with a deft hand and not a bloody hammer.

Insco851

Just rename it Cuularions Class. Bunch of aimless changes that don’t fix anything, in fact it’s worse.

Kruwos

twing, I agree wholeheartedly on your proposed changes.

Although I would like to give some alternative ideas should ZOS be adamant about their current direction.

Grim Focus:
If it is going to lose all of its damage buffing potential than they might as well change it to a slotted passive that way it alleviates the up front cost, GCD and timer making it a much less clunky skill as it stands on live. This would increase the game flow of using the skill, retaining some semblance of identity and bring it line in terms of usability with crystal shards proc on Sorc.

Mark Target:
Honestly as a PVE skill this is useless. Most tanks and mag dps bring fracture and breach to a party. We shouldn't be wasting a GCD just to apply it. This skill has first and foremost been primarily a pvp skill in terms of style and use and it should remain that way as best as possible. IMO the core issues with mark target currently is that it can't effectively be used before engagement as it has a huge warning sign telegraphing to the enemy an attack is coming (that's not very assassin like). At least for me I only use it to shut down range NBs from cloaking.

To give this skill some new life it should be usable from stealth and not advertise to the enemy its on them other than their debuff bar OR ZOS could also make it so that mark target works sort of like Imbue weapon where its affects are applied on the next attack used in say 10 seconds.

twing1_

Kruwos wrote: »

twing, I agree wholeheartedly on your proposed changes.

Although I would like to give some alternative ideas should ZOS be adamant about their current direction.

Grim Focus:
If it is going to lose all of its damage buffing potential than they might as well change it to a slotted passive that way it alleviates the up front cost, GCD and timer making it a much less clunky skill as it stands on live. This would increase the game flow of using the skill, retaining some semblance of identity and bring it line in terms of usability with crystal shards proc on Sorc.

Mark Target:
Honestly as a PVE skill this is useless. Most tanks and mag dps bring fracture and breach to a party. We shouldn't be wasting a GCD just to apply it. This skill has first and foremost been primarily a pvp skill in terms of style and use and it should remain that way as best as possible. IMO the core issues with mark target currently is that it can't effectively be used before engagement as it has a huge warning sign telegraphing to the enemy an attack is coming (that's not very assassin like). At least for me I only use it to shut down range NBs from cloaking.

To give this skill some new life it should be usable from stealth and not advertise to the enemy its on them other than their debuff bar OR ZOS could also make it so that mark target works sort of like Imbue weapon where its affects are applied on the next attack used in say 10 seconds.

That's all good and well, but I fear that this is now a dead thread.

With the recent changes to grim focus and mark target, it appears that ZOS is taking the class in another direction (and away from NB class identity, if you ask both me and the the class description found at the character creation screen).