Patch 5.2.5 PvP Tierlist

Kalante

Stam nb is between A and S tier. I've mained it for three years and although it has been nerfed its still is pretty strong open world. You have to be more methodical when it comes to playing it now because you can't simply apply major fracture anymore target to target by simply swiping them with a surprise attack, or get minor berserker unless you sacrifice a skill slot for camo hunter or run slimecrawl. You would have to be lying to say the stamblade got easier to play. It takes way more skill to play it now than ever before and this could be a positive or a negative depending on the player and how skilled they are with the nightblade. The only thing that truly grinds me gears is the incap delay, any ult delay for that matter. It's just a terrible change in my opinion.

BaiterOfZergs

I don’t think the list is the same for no cp, cp definitely changes things.

Ragnarock41

BaiterOfZergs wrote: »

I don’t think the list is the same for no cp, cp definitely changes things.

That is a good point, yes. CP and no-CP are almost like two different games.

Goregrinder

StaticWave wrote: »

Royalthought wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Royalthought wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Royalthought wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Royalthought wrote: »

BohnT2 wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

BohnT2 wrote: »

As we got some great feedback on the forums, on Discord and in game we plan to make such a list for the following updates as well, with better explanations and more details.

If you have any ideas how to make the list better or just general suggestions feel free to reach out to us.

@HankTwo

I think that once you have a list for solo tier, you should try some 1v1 or duels of an "S" tier vs "A" tier.
Because a class can look good on paper, but if for example class at tier "A" will win in most cases vs class in "S" tier, then something is wrong I guess...

Solo implies solo ow, not duels (which greatly differ from random 1v1s in cyro). Dueling is a whole different issue, too situational to be statistically relevant, which is the reason why it was removed from the list (the first 4/5 iterations had dueling as a section).

Yes, I understand that. But on the other hand we have weird paradoxes like stam NB in "S" tier and mag Sorc in "A" tier. And we all know how such a 1v1 in Cyro usually ends. The scenarios in which sNB wins vs mSorc are very rare. Maybe only when ganking from stealth, using some ultra glass cannon build with 0 sutain & defense and hoping to catch sorc of guard.

I have to intervene here because that matchup favors the stamnb more than the sorc, especially this patch.
As the list was created around playing the class at its full potential a magsorc won't be able to ever kill the stamnb as frags are still delayed by at least 450ms (with absolutely no lag at point blank range) and the NB having a much higher and more reliable burst potential against the sorc who has to play around meteor to secure kills which the NB can counter by using cloak and shade to avoid being hit by the whole combo.

I don’t mean to intervene but I must correct 1 thing.

Nightblades DO NOT have higher burst potential than sorcs. A sorc can stack frag, curse, wrath and an ult of your choice, to all hit simultaneously. When a nightblade lands a bow proc or an incap, that’s all that’s landing. The sorc actually has much more burst potential along with some other classes.

The misconception that nightblades have higher burst potential often comes from comparing tooltips and ignoring delayed effects that add to other abilities. Whether burst from one class is easier to land or not comes down to the player. But in a discussion of high end, nightblades lack burst potential. They just have a high tooltip value.

I dueled a cp 768 stamblade that regularly kills me with 16k onslaught, 9k surprise attacks. I was in heavy armor. No magsorc can even come close to that burst damage.

And?

Completely irrelevant, but you lost to a better player who was probably on a better build. Perhaps roll dodge?

The point was about burst damage. Any class that can stack damage has more burst potential than nightblades. You literally are making the point. Here it is again for those that missed it:

“The misconception that nightblades have higher burst potential often comes from comparing tooltips and ignoring delayed effects that add to other abilities.”

You responded to that with tooltips. Lol

You don't need to tell me about skill level, or how to play the game, it's irrelevant. Did you completely miss the 16k onslaught mention? I was using the most damage set up in the game, but i still did considerably less damage compared to his. The class just has passives and skills that make them the best at dealing burst damage. Why did I respond with tooltips? Because NB are the best at dealing critical damage. No class in the game has access to that 10% more crit damage, and crits are what kills people, not normal damage.

What did you say that you feel changes the originally point?

What does more damage:

A nightblades onslaught, with whatever sets you prefer?

Or

Onslaught and backlash/sub assault, etc combined?

You’re focusing on nightblades achieving a high tooltip value on a single ability. But the point is, that ability can be combined with other abilities on other classes in a single gcd. That results in combined abilities having higher “burst potential.”

The extra damage a nightblade can achieve on a single ability will not outweigh the extra damage an ability like backlash or sub assault will add.

The tooltip was just a demonstration. My point was the 16k onslaught was possible because of the extra passives and buffs that a stamblade has but other classes don't. These extra advantages complement other skills as well, not just Onslaught.

If you want to compare combinations of skills, then a NB following an ultimate with a spectral bow will still deal considerably more damage than ultimate + sub assault or ultimate + backlash, or ultimate + haunting curse + frag for that matter. This is because Spectral Bow's tooltip is significantly higher than most burst skills in the game, and can be even further amplified by Incap's 20% extra damage, Onslaught's 85% penetration, and 10% more critical damage from a NB passive. Furthermore, a spectral bow or onslaught/incap from stealth is a guaranteed critical strike, which is a huge advantage compared to other classes that have to stack a lot of critical chance in order to reliably crit their attacks.

You’re making a claim that nightblades achieve a higher onslaught than any other class.

Of course we aren’t about making baseless claims, so what is the highest onslaught possible by each class?

(I’m assuming you know, otherwise you wouldn’t claim nightblades have the highest)

Yes, I'm making a claim that Nightblades achieve a higher Onslaught than any other class. I'd figured you'd want the numbers, so here's a more detailed post. It's going to be long, so if you skip any part then it's on you.

First, let's look at all the class passives and skills that maximizes damage of each stamina class, while ignoring CP passives that could potentially boost damage, such as Exploiter, and skills that increase penetration since Onslaught ignores resistance. Also ignore Minor Berserk, because it is accessible by all classes. We only want passives/buffs that only a few classes can have.

Nightblade:
1/ Master Assassin - Increases your weapon damage by 10% while in stealth
2/ Ambush - Afflicts Minor Vulnerability on your target, increasing their damage taken by 8%
3/ Hemorrhage - Increases your critical damage by 10%

Sorcerer:
1/ Energized - Increases your physical damage by 5%
2/ Amplitude - Increases your damage done against enemies by 1% for every 10% current health they have, up to 10% at 100% health
3/ Expert Mage - Increases your weapon damage by 2% per Sorcerer ability slotted
4/ Bound Armaments - Increases your max stamina by 8% while slotted

Templar:
1/ Piercing Spear - Increases your critical damage by 10%
2/ Balanced Warrior - Increases your weapon damage by 6%

Warden:
1/ Growing Swarm - Afflicts Minor Vulnerability on your target, increasing their damage taken by 8%
2/ Advanced Species - Increases your damage done by 2% for each Animal Companion ability slotted

Necromancer:
1/ Agony Totem - Afflicts Minor Vulnerability on your target, increasing their damage taken by 8%
2/ Detonating Siphon - Increases your damage done by 3% while slotted

Dragonknight:
1/ Mountain's Blessing - Gain Major Brutality, increasing your weapon damage by 10%
2/ Stone Giant - Increases damage taken by 45 for each stack of Stagger, up to 135 damage

Now that we've listed every single damage amplifier for each class, let's calculate how the tooltip would look. For demonstration purposes, let's assume we are using Fury + Briarheart, 5 medium 2 heavy, all impenetrable, all max stam glyphs, all infused jewelries, nirnhoned 2 handed weapon front bar, infused weapon damage glyph back bar, warrior mundus, orc race, and lava foot soup food on each class. Also assume that classes that have passives amplifying weapon damage by slotting a class skill will be slotting 5 class skills on their bar. Thus, the maximum WD and stamina for each of these classes will be:

Nightblade:
6910 WD and 34965 stamina

Sorcerer:
6910 WD and 37221 stamina

Templar:
6720 WD and 34965 stamina

Warden:
6434 WD and 34965 stamina

Necromancer:
6434 WD and 34965 stamina

Dragonknight:
6910 WD and 34695 stamina

To keep things simpler, let's ignore CPs that boost tooltip value such as Mighty and Master At Arms. Factor in every passive and skills that increases damage done, the Onslaught tooltip for each class will be:

Nightblade:
19570 damage

Sorcerer:
22818 damage

Templar:
19074 damage

Warden:
20384 damage

Necromancer:
19087 damage

Dragonknight:
19570 damage

From this list, we can see that at base damage, Sorcerer has the highest tooltip. However, we must also factor in critical damage tooltip. The base critical damage multiplier is 50%, and Nightblade and Templar get an extra 10%. Assuming that our target has zero critical resistance, then our new tooltip values will be:

Nightblade:
31312 damage

Sorcerer:
34227 damage

Templar:
30518.4 damage

Warden:
30576 damage

Necromancer:
28630.5 damage

Dragonknight:
29355 damage

Sorcerer still has the highest tooltip, but we have not taken into account of Minor Vulnerability, which increases damage taken by your target. This requires using this formula:

DamageTaken = (1 + CP.DamageTaken)*(1 + Skill.DamageTaken)*(1 + Buff.DamageTaken)*(1 + Item.DamageTaken)*(1 + Set.DamageTaken) + Buff.Vulnerability - 1

Since Battle Spirit reduces a target''s damage taken by 50%, the actual Onslaught tooltip will be halved. Factor in Minor Vulnerability however, a target affected by this debuff will take 42% less damage instead of 50%. In other words, Minor Vulnerability makes an affected target take 58% of the base damage instead of 50%.

DamageTaken = (1 + 0)*(1 + 0)*(1 - 0.5)*(1 + 0)*(1 + 0) + 0.08 - 1 = -0.42 or -42% damage taken

Thus, our new tooltip will be:

Nightblade:
18160.96 damage

Sorcerer:
17113.5 damage

Templar:
15259.2 damage

Warden:
17734.08 damage

Necromancer:
16605.69 damage

Dragonknight:
14677.5 damage

What do we take from these calculations? Well, against a full Health target, Sorcerer's onslaught does the most critical damage, but when you factor in Minor Vulnerability, Nightblade comes out on top. Keep in mind, we're using an unrealistic skill setup by having Sorcerer and Warden slot 5 class skills on their bar to maximize their damage. If we use a practical setup for both classes, which involves using 2 weapon skills for Sorcerer and Warden, then their Onslaught tooltip would be 16803 and 17089.41, respectively. Hence, the ranking for these tooltips should be:

Without Minor Vulnerability:
Sorcerer > Nightblade > Templar > Warden > Dragonknight > Necromancer

With Minor Vulnerability:
Nightblade > Warden > Sorcerer > Necromancer > Templar > Dragonknight

Minor vulnerability is incredibly strong, and when combined with a Nightblade's passives, you can slot any ultimate in the game and have your Nightblade deal unparalleled damage. We haven't even take into account of Spectral Bow and Surprise Attack, which also benefit tremendously from this debuff. That's why NB currently has the best burst in the game. If we use the WD and stamina stats above, a Warden using Sub Assault + Onslaught will only do a total of 30707.52 damage, compared to 36632.35 damage of a Nightblade's Onslaught from stealth + Spectral Bow (Spectral Bow loses the 10% weapon damage after using Onslaught because the player is no longer in stealth).

If you've made it this far, then I expect you to not have anymore questions.

Cheers

EDIT: I intentionally left out Minor Berserk from the calculations because as of current patch, all classes can access that buff. A Warden can either choose to use Camo Hunter or Bird of Prey, and that will slightly alter the final tooltip, but not significantly

You just took this kid to school, savage lol

MentalxHammer

My mag necro is one of my strongest classes solo, there are a lot of skills that should be avoided. Maybe you're building yours incorrectly.

In fact mag necro is one of the few classes that can reliably turn and solo a group of 4 players and sweep them all with one ult.

BohnT2

MentalxHammer wrote: »

My mag necro is one of my strongest classes solo, there are a lot of skills that should be avoided. Maybe you're building yours incorrectly.

In fact mag necro is one of the few classes that can reliably turn and solo a group of 4 players and sweep them all with one ult.

I guess you are talking about a magnecro build using 3 harmony and then using grave robber+ colossus on the enemy.
Which is with no doubt a very hard hitting combo.
However, this requires playing around a 225cost ult and a 20 seconds synergy cooldown.
It also requires your enemies to die to it as magnecro fail to keep up pressure afterwards.
It's also reliant on having each and every enemy stand in the same circle for you to hit them.

That's many requirements for something to work.
What makes things worse is magnecro is one of the least mobile specs out there which is a death sentence especially when the rest of the toolkit is lets say controversial for solo play to avoid calling it a big pile of poo.

Every other spec can kill those 4 players and more without having to rely on luck and huge mistakes from the enemy.
As OW duels are also a metric for the solo category magnecro has yet another reason to be called a bad spec, it's just not lethal even to mediocre players because it lacks pressure, reliable ults, a reliable stun and blastbones are just a wasted gcd vs other specs like magsorc, magnb etc.

D-Tier doesn't mean it's impossible to do 1vX on a magnecro (one example being Lysers channel found in the spoiler in the first post), it just means that everything a class can do can be done better by others.

Berenhir

Good job, summarizing development for those that are taking a break

Iskiab

Still set on the list as is?

I think it’s safe to say magsorc is the only S tier for solo this patch.

Shanehere

Iskiab wrote: »

Still set on the list as is?

I think it’s safe to say magsorc is the only S tier for solo this patch.

I agree that Mag Sorc should be S-tier for solo, alongside Stamden and Stamblade. However, I would not leave Mag Sorc up there alone.

One of the earlier posts cited the reasoning for putting Magsorc A-tier was dependent on platform. Most NA players agreed that Magsorc was S-tier but with the tank meta in EU apparently and the changes to status effects, they felt that Magsorc was more A-tier.

susmitds

Iskiab wrote: »

Still set on the list as is?

I think it’s safe to say magsorc is the only S tier for solo this patch.

StamNB is stronger than magsorc solo. There are certain situations where magsorc is definitely easier to play, but a skilled stamblade should be pretty decent too in those situations. However, there are some things like going head on against 30+ people solo is a situation only stamblade can pull off where neither a magsorc nor stamden will survive.

Tommy_The_Gun

susmitds wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Still set on the list as is?

I think it’s safe to say magsorc is the only S tier for solo this patch.

StamNB is stronger than magsorc solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

Glory

Iskiab wrote: »

Still set on the list as is?

I think it’s safe to say magsorc is the only S tier for solo this patch.

I think the list is in flux, and you won't necessarily see graphics updates to reflect the changing perspectives that different players see. Even in developing this list, there were numerous graphics developed as the individuals contributing discussed and tried to settle each spec on the tier ladder. In the end the tier lists are built on the perspectives (and is why we see a lot of... disagreement here).

The meta is also a huge component of the tier list, which definitely varies by server. For example, there is a lot of disagreement about the tier placement for nightblades. In a meta where people are all using detect potions and other detect measures nightblade falls down the tier list, but in a meta where detect pots/etc. aren't as frequently used they have very high potential due to misdirection and mobility. Every tier list tries to consider meta and how the spec functions in the meta.

In the end, tier lists are community based which is pretty cool because if someone disagrees they can just as easily modify that to better frame their personal perspective.

MentalxHammer

I need to disagree with stamden as S tier for solo play. I do agree that it performs well for open world, and is great for packing up groups of unorganized players; my disagreement stems from the fact that in high tier duels stam warden falls short, as their burst combo is predictable and easily countered. An S tier solo play class must also be an S tier dueling class.

Ragnarock41

MentalxHammer wrote: »

I need to disagree with stamden as S tier for solo play. I do agree that it performs well for open world, and is great for packing up groups of unorganized players; my disagreement stems from the fact that in high tier duels stam warden falls short, as their burst combo is predictable and easily countered. An S tier solo play class must also be an S tier dueling class.

Stamden's 1v1 has been greatly improved this patch. And your last sentence is just completely wrong because you think of solo play as killing everyone in your path, which is not how you do it.. An immobile class has to be an S tier duelist to be an S tier open world class, however a class with the option to escape from fights doesn't have to be a dueling god.

Despite this fact stamblade and magsorc are not bad dueling classes, they're just not the best.

Zer0oo

after playing more in this patch i would put mag warden for solo play at least in C tier if not higher.

auto purge, 6 sec speed, good sustain, auto cc, good healing, good burst at least against targets that do not have shuffle, vampire drain works really well with their toolkit


as for mag necro: this class is just unplayable solo imo. You can LoS your own skills and half of the time your main burst combo is just not doing working at all. That everyone has now also 25% aoe damage reduction does not help either.
put this class into a tier: only for masochists

MentalxHammer

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

I need to disagree with stamden as S tier for solo play. I do agree that it performs well for open world, and is great for packing up groups of unorganized players; my disagreement stems from the fact that in high tier duels stam warden falls short, as their burst combo is predictable and easily countered. An S tier solo play class must also be an S tier dueling class.

Stamden's 1v1 has been greatly improved this patch. And your last sentence is just completely wrong because you think of solo play as killing everyone in your path, which is not how you do it.. An immobile class has to be an S tier duelist to be an S tier open world class, however a class with the option to escape from fights doesn't have to be a dueling god.

Despite this fact stamblade and magsorc are not bad dueling classes, they're just not the best.

I see your point and agree that it has merit. In a 1vx you could easily kite out of the fight once the majority of the group has been bursted.

Personally most of my 1vx fights end similarly, I end up bursting down the weaker targets to minimize the size of the group, and after lots of kiting and burst I end up in a 1v1 or 1v2 with the strongest / tankiest player/s in the group. It is not in my nature to x a group and run away from the last remaining strong players. For this reason my personal 1vx classes must also be competent in duels.

khajiitNPC

While this list has merit — it’s sort of a “so what” for me. There are way too many variables to consider. Which makes it hard for me to take any sort of tier list seriously. Especially when so much depends on the skill of the player and it’s impossible to fight everyone in every composition. I do like how it’s package and as a “general” idea. I suppose there’s a very flimsy accuracy to it. But as a whole it’s more like ego-stroking from a small sample size.

idk

kalunte wrote: »

I'd like to know how does magblades get to A in 6+ groups from B to 6- groups?

You should remove the small/large categories and just talk solo and group utility.

Crossed specs aren't so needed in 8+ groups since the number itself does the job and you also have enough ppl dedicated to each task, even tanks sometimes.

Anyway, good job for the visual😊

You make a good point.

Adding to that. The NB goes from S in solo to B in small groups (2-6 players) then back up to A in large groups. The logic that could support such differences is lost on me.

Iskiab

idk wrote: »

kalunte wrote: »

I'd like to know how does magblades get to A in 6+ groups from B to 6- groups?

You should remove the small/large categories and just talk solo and group utility.

Crossed specs aren't so needed in 8+ groups since the number itself does the job and you also have enough ppl dedicated to each task, even tanks sometimes.

Anyway, good job for the visual😊

You make a good point.

Adding to that. The NB goes from S in solo to B in small groups (2-6 players) then back up to A in large groups. The logic that could support such differences is lost on me.

@idk

I played a magblade and am familiar with how they should be ranked and mostly agree with their ranking on this one. Setting makes a huge difference on the strengths of classes because there are different needs.

For magblade to be S in solo there could only be two reasons: caluurion gank blades and bombers. Even then I'd put them at A. For a good solo playstyle you only have one requirement: can you keep yourself alive, take others down, typical things you think about when making a build.

Small groups are different. Then it becomes the requirement of being solo plus what are you doing for your team mates? Sorcs and Magblades both drop in this regard (mostly due to how players play them), but even if they do spec for more group support with healing and whatnot their damage takes a hit so have to make sacrifices (magblade moreso then magsorc). In the same way Magsorcs are easily the strongest solo spec in the game, if you have 4 magsorcs in those same specs on one team of a battleground they get wrecked because they're doing nothing to support each other.

Large groups are a completely different animal. People play specialist roles so self healing isn't nearly as important. What wins large scale engagements are: Burst, AoE, Healing, Buffs. They're similar to trials in a sense. I disagree with their rankings in this area as well (stamwarden's too high) but each class brings something. Templar and Magnecro are high because of healing, good aoe, providing lots of synergies, and the harmony trait is OP in large scale. Synergies can hit for anywhere to 8k to 18k (Nova being the one that hits the hardest a templar synergy) with 3 harmony traits against players with 30k resists and stacked buffs. In a setting like this Magblades stops needing to slot 3+ abilities to keep itself alive and can focus on aoe: Sap, Prox det, 3x Harmony traits, Soul Tether so can use it's potential damage to full effect smashing people with aoe and bursting people with synergies.

That’s also why stamina is mostly ineffective in large scale. No group support, mostly single target, reliant on burst combos that don’t work with lag, etc... stamwarden’s higher because they have decent aoe and can stamheal through negates. Pit 12 mag against 12 stam and unless the 12 mag are bad they should win every time.