What Does Magblade Need?

NyassaV

In a recent live stream I was talking to a few different players. Both really good and mediocre ones who play magbalde and we all came to agree on a certain statement I made:

"Magbalde does not need mitigation or more damage. What it needs to fix it's issues are sustain and healing."

Here are some solutions and suggestions. Anything in italics is the name of an ability or an effect. Bolded statements are thing I wish you take away from this. Each paragraph covers a different skill or effect.

There are many ways to fix these issues. One way is to move the proposed effect on Incap called: Reave, to the soul harvest skill. Soul Harvest has been "bad" for about 2 years ever since it was made dodgable. That is the only thing the skill had going for it as the ult gen event in PvP is very useless at times (it can even be useless in PvE becuase in trials you might be missing killing blows which is how you gain the ult). With Reave it would encourage diversity in skill choice but also give magblades a reason to use Soul Harvest over incap. To be honest I'm under the opinion that all magicka skills are a little too expensive and I feel as if a 5% or 10% global cost reduction is in order (Stamina skills are 20% cheaper so I don't think it'd be a huge issue) but that's a different issue. Reave would also help magblade's ability to sustain it's stamina which is very important in all forms on PvP and even in some PvE content.

The merciless change to where it has more mitigation is nice I suppose but it's largely unnecessary. Many people agree on this. In no-cp this change will be noticeable and make nightblades harder to kill than they need to be and in CP PvP it won't do a whole lot. The fact that it heals if you are within 7 meters is cool but if you are within 7 meters you are doing something very wrong or making a very specific combo. I propose the heal condition range be increased to 10-12 meters so that you'll have to be close but you won't be putting yourself in blatant danger. Also the heal from merciless double dips when it comes to battle spirit so when you do the math a merciless heal in Cyrodiil might be around 6k, it will in fact be around 3k (Thanks to TheeDarkShady for helping me test and come up with this conclusion). Instead of mitigation you could simply have The magicka morph of Grim Focus give Minor intellect and the stamina morph give Minor Endurance (like it does on live for stam)

As it is magblade doesn't really have anything to use to bring people out of cloak. The best skill we have is Sap Essence. Now Sap does very little damage and the damage buff it's getting next patch may not really be enough so I'd like to suggest a bit more damage be put onto it but that part isn't 100% necessary if it had it's healing done increased. The skill works interestingly and is a very unique skill. As one of the class's more unique skills I'd like to see it made more useful in PvP. The skill works by having a base heal amount that is increased but up to 20% for every enemy hit for the ability. So you can hit no one with the skill and it will heal you however it won't be a very good heal unless you hit someone. Even after you hit 1 enemy the heal isn't very high. I think if the heal was made bigger this could serve as a pseudo burst heal to replace pre-Murkmire Healing Ward. It also has Major Sorcery attached to it which I find not 100% necessary (though for bombers with immovability pots it is needed. However I feel that'd be a legit trade off to think about when making your build). I'm not going to propose how big to make the heal as that should be up to ZOS but I'd say maybe 20% (akin to the damage increase) would be nice? Maybe less or maybe more I don't know.

Swallow Soul healing increased to 40% of damage would be nice just saying. Maybe make the healing crit? Nightblade literally has a tree called Siphoning and yet for some reason a DK has better self healing despite them being all fire focused. Doesn't make a ton of sense. I'm not complaining about DK per-say but I am merely using them to make a point.

My idea for Malevolent Offering is very simple. Make it castable on yourself. Magblade lasts a burst heal for itself and this is a great way to fix it whilst adding some flavor to the class because of how this skill works with it's cost. And maybe make it a little bit cheaper? I'd also say adding healing absorption on yourself of 500 ever 8 seconds after casting it would be a more user friendly way if making the skill but that's just a idea.

Shadow Image needs some sort of damage absorption (Like how Sorc's Ball of Lightning ability works) to it because as funny as it is I'm tired of porting 20 meters away from a melee person but somehow still dying 20 meters away from them at the hands of a melee spammable. This is not as essential of an issue but I'll list it so it's out there.

Now this particular change probably won't come this patch as this where ZOS is focusing on abilities. But the Dark Vigor passive in the Shadow skill line is kinda annoying. If you have 1 shadow ability on 1 bar and 2 on another you will have an uneven amount of health on both bars which means you can barswap into a sorc execute. If ZOS wants to keep the requirement that a ability be slotted then just make it 5% health increase similar how Entropy works. Or they could make the passive like how the Necro's passive and make it give you a flat 1250 health no matter what you have slotted.

NyassaV

Oh I should probably tag someone so they see this @ZOS_Gilliam

Deathlord92

I agree with everything you said here except one thing some of us magblades love to play melee now like I said I agree with all these changes you said I even done a post about the malevolent offering morphs giving a burst heal near start of pts but you forget concealed weapon this skill is absolutely nothing like surprise attack since concealed weapon obviously 4 magblade perhaps give it a heal when you strike someone with it or minor breach 🙏

NyassaV

Deathlord92 wrote: »

I agree with everything you said here except one thing some of us magblades love to play melee now like I said I agree with all these changes you said I even done a post about the malevolent offering morphs giving a burst heal near start of pts but you forget concealed weapon this skill is absolutely nothing like surprise attack since concealed weapon obviously 4 magblade perhaps give it a heal when you strike someone with it or minor breach 🙏

I love melee too, Kena was my mentor and he was probably the best melee magblades on the NA server but it’s apparent ZOS doesn’t want to go that way thus I havent given much input on it.

Deathlord92

NyassaV wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

I agree with everything you said here except one thing some of us magblades love to play melee now like I said I agree with all these changes you said I even done a post about the malevolent offering morphs giving a burst heal near start of pts but you forget concealed weapon this skill is absolutely nothing like surprise attack since concealed weapon obviously 4 magblade perhaps give it a heal when you strike someone with it or minor breach 🙏

I love melee too, Kena was my mentor and he was probably the best melee magblades on the NA server but it’s apparent ZOS doesn’t want to go that way thus I havent given much input on it.

All we can do is keep asking m8 and just hope someone at zos takes notice 👍

Iskiab

I don’t agree with your premise:
Magblade sustain is fine.
Magblades have weak self healing, but not weak overall healing
Mitigation is one of the biggest issues for Nightblades

What magblade needs is:

Swallow Soul/Funnel health’s healing amount to not be tied to damage done

Look at tweaking Refreshing Path

NyassaV

@Iskiab

MagBlade has worse sustain than stamplar. I’ll just leave you with that as it’s not a game breaking issue.

As for the mitigation. Having little mitigation is a purposeful short coming of the class. Much like how a mDK might have issue in full out open world fights, magblade may lack mitigation.

So while what you say is correct in that they don’t have a ton of mitigation, that is not an issue for the class.

Jeezye

Thx for summing up the classes pain points, I actually wanted to write a similar thread but was lacking motivation. A few things:

Considering healing, it would be more than sufficient to change swallow soul to a stationairy hot like power lash provides to increase its reliability and overall healing in pvp. Also turn sap healing into a tanking tool to heal more than inhale, since inhale is way more cost efficient skill with lots more damage as well. Finally increase healing path HOT duration to a minimum of 4 seconds so you still get some benefit when having to move out.

Actually magblade sustain is kinda strong, not to say op, on pts due to magickasteal and incap. No need to change anything here.

Damage mitigation is sufficient as well on the live version if you ask me, enough access to % mitigation buffs, especially with the new grim focus change.

Iskiab

NyassaV wrote: »

@Iskiab

MagBlade has worse sustain than stamplar. I’ll just leave you with that as it’s not a game breaking issue.

As for the mitigation. Having little mitigation is a purposeful short coming of the class. Much like how a mDK might have issue in full out open world fights, magblade may lack mitigation.

So while what you say is correct in that they don’t have a ton of mitigation, that is not an issue for the class.

Thing is you guys are asking for the class to be a dead end spec that doesn’t work.

Right now sure there are newer pvpers who don’t run defense so you can gank people, but in the more experienced ranks magblades are seen as absolutely terrible. I’ve only been successfully ganked once in the past 3-4 months by any NB, and that’s when I was testing out a new spec. When you’re up against people with enough mitigation ganking just doesn’t work.

Adding more sustain will do little for your playstyle. Adding self healing will do very little for your playstyle if you don’t pair it enough defense that you survive longer then two GCDs, and magblade gankers generally don’t and are glass canons.

Mitigation will allow magblades to survive long enough for self healing to take effect. If you’re a glass canon with essentially 0 mitigation 15% is substantial and will help a ton more then anything else.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

I main a melee MagBlade and I think Concealed Weapon needs a complete overhaul.

I would eagerly trade in the stealthed speed boost for Minor Breach, a cost reduction, or a small DoT that applies Minor Stamina Steal while it ticks.

Don't get me wrong, the changes to Lotus Fan are a nice buff for melee MagBlades, but we need our single-target spammable to mesh with our kit better.

NyassaV

Iskiab wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

@Iskiab

MagBlade has worse sustain than stamplar. I’ll just leave you with that as it’s not a game breaking issue.

As for the mitigation. Having little mitigation is a purposeful short coming of the class. Much like how a mDK might have issue in full out open world fights, magblade may lack mitigation.

So while what you say is correct in that they don’t have a ton of mitigation, that is not an issue for the class.

Thing is you guys are asking for the class to be a dead end spec that doesn’t work.

Right now sure there are newer pvpers who don’t run defense so you can gank people, but in the more experienced ranks magblades are seen as absolutely terrible. I’ve only been successfully ganked once in the past 3-4 months by any NB, and that’s when I was testing out a new spec. When you’re up against people with enough mitigation ganking just doesn’t work.

Adding more sustain will do little for your playstyle. Adding self healing will do very little for your playstyle if you don’t pair it enough defense that you survive longer then two GCDs, and magblade gankers generally don’t and are glass canons.

Mitigation will allow magblades to survive long enough for self healing to take effect. If you’re a glass canon with essentially 0 mitigation 15% is substantial and will help a ton more then anything else.

There are other ways to get mitigation other than class skills. It’s a purposeful short coming of the class that it lacks easy access to mitigation

Iskiab

Yea, the devs mentioned they’ll be looking at passives next after abilities.

Is the reason people don’t like the mitigation passive because they’d prefer damage instead? I think one of the goals of the update is to reduce Nightblade dps. More mitigation is never a bad thing, what I think merciless is meant to do is equalize survivability because like it or not dps is going to be equalized.

Jhalin

Have all their heals scale off tooltips, not damage done

Return the previous damage to Path and Funnel

Add Reave to Soul Harvest along with the base ability

Those changes alone would put magblades in a much better spot to be the melee mag class that they’re apparently meant to be (despite their main defense in Cloak being basically nonexistent once in melee with all the AoEs)

Deathlord92

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I main a melee MagBlade and I think Concealed Weapon needs a complete overhaul.

I would eagerly trade in the stealthed speed boost for Minor Breach, a cost reduction, or a small DoT that applies Minor Stamina Steal while it ticks.

Don't get me wrong, the changes to Lotus Fan are a nice buff for melee MagBlades, but we need our single-target spammable to mesh with our kit better.

I completely agree I want this to.

kokoandshinb14a_ESO

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I main a melee MagBlade and I think Concealed Weapon needs a complete overhaul.

I would eagerly trade in the stealthed speed boost for Minor Breach, a cost reduction, or a small DoT that applies Minor Stamina Steal while it ticks.

Don't get me wrong, the changes to Lotus Fan are a nice buff for melee MagBlades, but we need our single-target spammable to mesh with our kit better.

change its damage type to bleed so it ignore all resists. No Dot-- just labled as bleed damage.

kypranb14_ESO

kokoandshinb14a_ESO wrote: »

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I main a melee MagBlade and I think Concealed Weapon needs a complete overhaul.

I would eagerly trade in the stealthed speed boost for Minor Breach, a cost reduction, or a small DoT that applies Minor Stamina Steal while it ticks.

Don't get me wrong, the changes to Lotus Fan are a nice buff for melee MagBlades, but we need our single-target spammable to mesh with our kit better.

change its damage type to bleed so it ignore all resists. No Dot-- just labled as bleed damage.

I'd like to see the return of the old Mark Target too. lolol

NyassaV

Deathlord92 wrote: »

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I main a melee MagBlade and I think Concealed Weapon needs a complete overhaul.

I would eagerly trade in the stealthed speed boost for Minor Breach, a cost reduction, or a small DoT that applies Minor Stamina Steal while it ticks.

Don't get me wrong, the changes to Lotus Fan are a nice buff for melee MagBlades, but we need our single-target spammable to mesh with our kit better.

I completely agree I want this to.

I personally think I should stay because the speed as flavor and helps you stay on your opponent if they try and move around a lot.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

NyassaV wrote: »

I personally think I should stay because the speed as flavor and helps you stay on your opponent if they try and move around a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a nice buff on certain builds, particularly if you have a lot of room to move around.

But I feel like this was overlooked when they were normalizing speed buffs a few patches ago. And this bonus loses its shine if you're in close quarters or dueling, and becomes completely useless if you decide to run Dark Cloak over Shadowy Disguise.

In my opinion, there are better ways to pick up speed bonuses. Melee Magblades only really have 3 melee skills available in our class lines: Lotus Fan, Sap Essence, and Concealed Weapon. I'd like to see Concealed Weapon lose the utility, and pick up something more in line with what it is - a single-target primary damage ability.

That's my two Septims. YMMV.

Rikumaru

The main problems with magicka nb. The kit has barely any synergy with itself at all. Melee magicka nb is dead. The healing you gain from the abilities you cast such as swallow soul / sap is laughable.

1: Turn soul harvest into a 28m or 15m ranged ultimate similar to how impale functions. Why? Because a melee ultimate does not synergise with magicka nb at all.
2: Increase swallow soul's healing significantly.
3: Increase the healing you get from getting per person for sap essence.
4: Give concealed weapon major breach and reduce it's cost so it's somewhat competitive with swallow soul / ranged mag nb.

lnigo

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

I agree. Now that Soul Harvest is the only morph with Major Defile, this potentially sets up MagBlades to build as healer killers. I like the idea of this being a niche thing for melee builds.

Iskiab

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

Isn’t it generally used for the passive ultimate generation? That’s how I use it at least, I’ve only used it by accident. Otherwise as a melee ability I think I’d prefer Incap for the silence.

Making the magicka version of the ultimate a ranged ability is a good idea I think, as long as it’s not a projectile. Projectiles are terrible in pvp, and I’m not sure if the PTS changes will change that.

I agree with others concealed weapon needs to be looked at too. With how things are on PTS the only reason I see for using it is passive speed in stealth and the stealth stun, otherwise Sap is a better spammable.

lnigo

The silence change won't go live. If it does, that would be bad. Even if, silence barely effects stam characters and I would most likely still use Soul Harvest over incap for the defile that makes it so much more diverse in open world, since it equally affects stamina and magicka classes all across the board, whereas the silence really only hurts magicka classes. I typically run into trouble fighting stam classes anyway.

Making Soul Harvest ranged...it could be nice but I don't see the point. It's already very good where it is. Making it ranged will just make ranged magblades even more dangerous (and annoying) with a flame clench > ranged Soul Harvest combo.

NyassaV

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

I put bad in quotes for a reason. It’s not exactly bad but because many other things are much better than it; one might be able to consider it as such.

Iskiab

Actually the main reason I think incap will be better then soul harvest is the silence. It’ll effect stam more then you’d think: DKs - no wings, Wardens - no projectile absorption, Sorcs - no streak, Templars - no ritual or breath of life, NBs - no cloak.

Most stam builds are stam in the sense they use stamina for their attacks, it’s usually magicka for utility. I may be wrong I’m no ganking expert, but I’d try both.

NyassaV

lnigo wrote: »

The silence change won't go live. If it does, that would be bad. Even if, silence barely effects stam characters and I would most likely still use Soul Harvest over incap for the defile that makes it so much more diverse in open world, since it equally affects stamina and magicka classes all across the board, whereas the silence really only hurts magicka classes. I typically run into trouble fighting stam classes anyway.

Making Soul Harvest ranged...it could be nice but I don't see the point. It's already very good where it is. Making it ranged will just make ranged magblades even more dangerous (and annoying) with a flame clench > ranged Soul Harvest combo.

Yeah I’d never suggest making soul harvest ranged. The debuffs that come with it shouldn’t be applied if it becomes a ranged ability

Rikumaru

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

Because it doesn't work well with the magblade kit. If you gave soul harvest to, lets say a mag dk or magplar it would be fantastic and everybody would use it. But for magblades who are effectively a purely ranged kit it just doesn't synergise well.

lnigo

Iskiab wrote: »

Actually the main reason I think incap will be better then soul harvest is the silence. It’ll effect stam more then you’d think: DKs - no wings, Wardens - no projectile absorption, Sorcs - no streak, Templars - no ritual or breath of life, NBs - no cloak.

Most stam builds are stam in the sense they use stamina for their attacks, it’s usually magicka for utility. I may be wrong I’m no ganking expert, but I’d try both.

While true, a decent stam character will know when they're silenced and will be able to easily outlast the 3 second silence. Instead of casting magicka-based abilities for mitigation, they'll simply cast vigor, rally, dodge roll, block, and LoS just long enough for the 3 second duration to finish. None of the magicka classes can do any of these things half as well as stamina classes.

Iskiab

Rikumaru wrote: »

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

Because it doesn't work well with the magblade kit. If you gave soul harvest to, lets say a mag dk or magplar it would be fantastic and everybody would use it. But for magblades who are effectively a purely ranged kit it just doesn't synergise well.

I don’t know if I’d say magblades are a pure ranged kit, at least not in pvp. Everything that’s ranged a magblade can do is a projectile so terrible in pvp. That’s why a lot of magblade pvpers move to melee.

Hybrid melee ranged might work post patch, I’m not sure.

I approached pvp at first as a dps, ended up in some weird crushing shock spamming spec. It was terrible, that’s when I dropped magblade damage for healing.

lnigo

Rikumaru wrote: »

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

Because it doesn't work well with the magblade kit. If you gave soul harvest to, lets say a mag dk or magplar it would be fantastic and everybody would use it. But for magblades who are effectively a purely ranged kit it just doesn't synergise well.

I main a melee magblade, but like I've said in other posts, even if I slotted a destro staff I would still be in melee range of my target. This makes not only Soul Harvest well suited for the class, but also Mass Hysteria (used in conjunction mostly). There are only four widely used ranged classes in the game: magblade, magsorc, magcro, and snipe spammers. And the way magsorcs are played now, you'd be at a disadvantage if both of you stay ranged, since they will sit behind their pets.

Every other class in the game is going to be on your ass: all stam characters, magdk, magplar, and magden. I find it very hard to believe you stay ranged in every single situation you come across in Cyrodiil.

And besides, if Soul Harvest doesn't work well in the nighblade toolkit, then neither does Soul Tether. So what ultimate ability do you use?

Rikumaru

lnigo wrote: »

Rikumaru wrote: »

lnigo wrote: »

How is Soul Harvest bad? lt hits like a truck, applies major defile, increases damage done by 20%, and is one of the very few ultimates not mitigated by evasion. When it wasn't able to be dodged, it was severely overpowered. It's used across the board in all types of builds: bombing, open-world, and ganking. How could anyone be so unsatisfied with a skill?

Because it doesn't work well with the magblade kit. If you gave soul harvest to, lets say a mag dk or magplar it would be fantastic and everybody would use it. But for magblades who are effectively a purely ranged kit it just doesn't synergise well.

I main a melee magblade, but like I've said in other posts, even if I slotted a destro staff I would still be in melee range of my target. This makes not only Soul Harvest well suited for the class, but also Mass Hysteria (used in conjunction mostly). There are only four widely used ranged classes in the game: magblade, magsorc, magcro, and snipe spammers. And the way magsorcs are played now, you'd be at a disadvantage if both of you stay ranged, since they will sit behind their pets.

Every other class in the game is going to be on your ass: all stam characters, magdk, magplar, and magden. I find it very hard to believe you stay ranged in every single situation you come across in Cyrodiil.

And besides, if Soul Harvest doesn't work well in the nighblade toolkit, then neither does Soul Tether. So what ultimate ability do you use?

While it's true classes will get on to you, that isn't to say ranged isn't useful since it allows you to attack someone pretty much whenever you want given they aren't behind something, invisible or snared to death. Take mag sorc for an example, could you imagine how different and bad it would play if it could only cast most of it's abilities close range?

As for soul harvest being well suited for the class, it's well suited for an underperforming spec on an underperforming class. It being a 28m or 15m range would help make the ultimate actually work well with both melee and ranged magicka nb.