Are Nightblades Finally Dead?

Galwylin

Today I decided to participate in the Midyear Mayhem event. Played seven battlegrounds, hours in Cyrodiil and a couple hours in Imperial City. In all that time my death screen showed one single nightblade skill, Surprise Attack. Looking at everything that had hit me it was pretty funny how low that damage was. Mostly it was just sorcerers with two handers. In fact, except for some hopping dragonknight along with two templars that's all there was everywhere. If there were any nightblades playing with me they disguised themselves well.

Now maybe it was because I was playing nightblade and nighblade skills just don't register with the same class or something. Before a came back last month I know the topic was all the nerfs they were laying on nightlbades. And I remember about two years ago people moaning about them. Has ZOS succeeded? I know I went into today with 18 showing on kills from a couple days ago of the 50 needed for the achievement. I finished the night with 18 out of 50. So, pretty much no progress there. I just didn't seem to have a skill that offered something like that one necromancer who hit me with Grave Robber twice doing 18k each all at once. I know that must be broken but its one those classes you have to pay for so I'm sure it won't be fixed for a year at least.

Now I'm not focusing on the lackluster way nightblades have become compared to other classes. I like it fine and I rarely PvP anyways so whatever ZOS. But there used to be so much more of us. PvP was where some lived. Looking at guides to see what's changed on YouTube a lot of folks have done builds it some time compared to the awesome new sorcerer and dragonknight (now that's totally subjective since it just may have been those I pulled up). It just seems like we have exited PvP in this game. Which is weird considering the crying these forums used to overflow with. I didn't think I had been gone that long. If I'm not mistaken, I thought one of the devs had mention nightlbades were the highest played class as if the upcoming nerfs were because of that. I'd have to rewatch that episode of ESO Live to see what exactly was said. And you'd think we'd get some special treatment given a nightblade player became a dev. Just goes to show you numbers doesn't always translate to application in the game.

I would say I'm sad at this but its just par for the course. I'm almost numb to how this game goes. Cyrodiil is still as laggy as ever. It got so bad I went for a good half a minute riding my horse on the side because the animation got stuck during a mount. If you got an animation. Some times it would just skip it so the house just appeared under you. Fighting NPCs was even a challenge as they keep throwing the targeting off so a heavy swing would just not happen. Just got choppy right at peak time I think it was. This game just begs me to take off and play other stuff because they do something or can't fix something that its just why even bother to pay attention to how it plays. But this nightblade murder seems totally unneeded to the degree they've taken it if they don't even play PvP any more.

Galwylin

Oh I forgot to add half my battleground matches had one team start out with three and never increased. I had teams like that three times. Dunno if people somehow declined after it was pulling everyone in or what. Or maybe all those empty spots were just where the nightblades were supposed to be :shrug:

OWLTHEMAD

Bgs queue is still kind of wonky if someone crashes on queue it doesnt always replace them, and crashing on queue finder is fairly common.

Yeah nightblades do not seem to be doing well, however this is pretty widely acknowledged and it doesnt seem they have gotten their class audit, so we might see some minor improvements before this pts is up, and we should see some definite improvements by the next chapter me thinks. Right now we are kind of on the back burner. I dont think theyve just decided to kill the class.

In previous pts a roadmap of sorts was discussed for doing a class skill audit, for both balance and identity. Last patch started it for wardens, dks, and sorcs, i believe, but it was mentioned that it wasnt really complete, tommorows pts update should show what they have in mind for finishing it and hopefully be the start of what they will do for NB. Again though, i dont think we will see anything substantial till Greymoore.

I am giving zos till greymoore to sort things out with nightblade. When greymoore drops nightblades will have been in the weeds for a year at least (elsweyr is when community as a wjole seemed to decide nightblades were bad) its my main class and if the next chaper drops and i have to feel like my main is going to be subpar no matter how much work and practice i put into him, ill just find something else to play. Though i think they will come through. It takes them a while but when a class is lagging behind they usually come through.

Kaunas

They ganking in the shadows

Galwylin

Kaunas wrote: »

They ganking in the shadows

Didn't they do something with crit from sneak so I thinking ganking today means jumping out saying tadaa before dying from some armor set proc.

xXMeowMeowXx

Nope, NBs are not dead. Just the bad ones are being separated from the good ones that know the class much better.

There are plenty in Cyro and IC, Bgs I have seen less.

My friends that are much better than myself on the class have been having a blast. Maybe reach out to better players to get better yourself.

Kaunas

Galwylin wrote: »

Kaunas wrote: »

They ganking in the shadows

Didn't they do something with crit from sneak so I thinking ganking today means jumping out saying tadaa before dying from some armor set proc.

Thats literally what happens. Im a filthy sorc casual and my personal experiance in cyrodiil atm is that if you catch a nightblade with a magelight they get scared and confused and die in seconds.

Nemesis7884

Kaunas wrote: »

Galwylin wrote: »

Kaunas wrote: »

They ganking in the shadows

Didn't they do something with crit from sneak so I thinking ganking today means jumping out saying tadaa before dying from some armor set proc.

Thats literally what happens. Im a filthy sorc casual and my personal experiance in cyrodiil atm is that if you catch a nightblade with a magelight they get scared and confused and die in seconds.

"scared and confused" also describes the current state of ZOS combat development team

Shaloknir

Nightblades are at the moment pretty low in the food chain. I hope they buff the class somehow.

kollege14a5

Even tho nightblade is pretty weak at the moment it sounds like a l2p issue if you couldnt do a single kill in a whole day to finish your 50kill quest. Also I doubt you would do better on other classes.

Deathlord92

Nb are not dead it’s a difficult class to play now you really have to time your burst and utilise shade and cloak best you can. Imo nb needs a small buff because stam warden stamcro and templar has a much more reliable burst then nb which is very wrong as nb should be the king of single target damage.

Mayrael

TBH I prefer current state of NBs, in good hands it's still dangerous but it's not casual friendly anymore, so it won't be overnerfed.

Mitrenga

If you are talking about PvP, stamblades are on life support, Magblades are still rolling despite being the inferior class in many situations. However, there are still good players who get the most of the class.

Mayrael

Mitrenga wrote: »

If you are talking about PvP, stamblades are on life support, Magblades are still rolling despite being the inferior class in many situations. However, there are still good players who get the most of the class.

Magblades were always and still are inferior to stamblades. The only reason why magblades may feel better is that the ones who play magblades are usually the most hardcore and dedicated fans of this spec and they will roll it for life, while stamblade was usual choice of new players because it was easy to play spec.

dem0n1k

I still see a some of both stam & magicka NBs in Cyrodiil & they are both very dangerous when played well. I got hit with a 12k assassin's will today & i had around 18k resists & 5 impen.

Spartabunny08

Yeah marksman and spriggans is doing pretty well, definitely very fun tonight lol.

Bucky_13

I still play on my stamblade sniper, both in no CP Cyro and BGs. Not sure how effective a melee stamblade is at the moment, but snipers still work well, even in BGs. Gotten a lot of kills, and obviously a few deaths since it is a squishy build after all.
And NB bombers are around in no CP Cyro, racking up a ton of AP on new players who haven't learned to avoid standing in the same spot yet. Seen a lot more than usual, and it still looks glorious when 20 ppl die a few meters away from me at a flag.

And if you're not getting any kills, you're doing it wrong. Avoid attacking tanky players, there's so many players now with under 20k health that melt when you burst them.

Pauls

Assassins never die!

alainjbrennanb16_ESO

you hardly see nb's until they attack most can re-cloak under mage etc

biminirwb17_ESO

I played my magblade in Kaal today, 214 kills 31 deaths 918k ap. Its still a fun class.

Czekoludek

Galwylin wrote: »

And you'd think we'd get some special treatment given a nightblade player became a dev.

Since Gilliam joined combat team we see the worst time for NBs in this game history. I mean the amount of disappointment NB community (at least the part I know) feel because of that is huge. During CC NBs were too OP and needed nerfs but they butchered the class and kill all the fun of playing it.

Ilithyania

yea i think they nerfed NBs a bit too hard. still is the most fun class to play. and troll new players

Asys

xXMeowMeowXx wrote: »

Nope, NBs are not dead. Just the bad ones are being separated from the good ones that know the class much better.

There are plenty in Cyro and IC, Bgs I have seen less.

My friends that are much better than myself on the class have been having a blast. Maybe reach out to better players to get better yourself.

/Thread

drkfrontiers

There are no Nighblades. There be only rock-dodgerblades and bunny-hopperlades

TheFM

Nightblades are finally not over performing and they are suddenly dead. Oivay.

Shaloknir

TheFM wrote: »

Nightblades are finally not over performing and they are suddenly dead. Oivay.

Yes. They are definitely not overperforming. Now I actually feel sorry for the class in its current state.

My main is templar and the skills/combat feels so much better. And I been here since 2014. I would say the class has been overnerfed and definitely needs buffs. Big time.

Double cloak duration and buff incap damage and make it stun for example. Throw some additional minor buffs to skills as well. Nightblades need it. Seriously.

drkfrontiers

TheFM wrote: »

Nightblades are finally not over performing and they are suddenly dead. Oivay.

Rule of the jungle - 8-ball calls Templar next.

Czekoludek

TheFM wrote: »

Nightblades are finally not over performing and they are suddenly dead. Oivay.

TBH they were in good state in Summerset. Not overperforming, good damage class that was on the same level as templar and sorc (mag wise, stam they were high end dds that could get one or two small nerfs and everything would be gucci). But ZoS was still on their nerf train and continue nerfing them for next 4 patches. There are few players left that are able to perform great on this class and usually this players would perform do much better on other classes

Roztlin45

Czekoludek wrote: »

Galwylin wrote: »

And you'd think we'd get some special treatment given a nightblade player became a dev.

Since Gilliam joined combat team we see the worst time for NBs in this game history. I mean the amount of disappointment NB community (at least the part I know) feel because of that is huge. During CC NBs were too OP and needed nerfs but they butchered the class and kill all the fun of playing it.

This is correct. I always watched his youtube ch before. But it does seem that things do suck ALOT more since he started working on balance.
I have played a NB from day one , but now my NB is just a master crafter.

TheFM

Shaloknir wrote: »

TheFM wrote: »

Nightblades are finally not over performing and they are suddenly dead. Oivay.

Yes. They are definitely not overperforming. Now I actually feel sorry for the class in its current state.

My main is templar and the skills/combat feels so much better. And I been here since 2014. I would say the class has been overnerfed and definitely needs buffs. Big time.

Double cloak duration and buff incap damage and make it stun for example. Throw some additional minor buffs to skills as well. Nightblades need it. Seriously.

Thats because templar is the most op class in the game atm, so of course everything feels awful to them.

Roztlin45 wrote: »

Czekoludek wrote: »

Galwylin wrote: »

And you'd think we'd get some special treatment given a nightblade player became a dev.

Since Gilliam joined combat team we see the worst time for NBs in this game history. I mean the amount of disappointment NB community (at least the part I know) feel because of that is huge. During CC NBs were too OP and needed nerfs but they butchered the class and kill all the fun of playing it.

This is correct. I always watched his youtube ch before. But it does seem that things do suck ALOT more since he started working on balance.
I have played a NB from day one , but now my NB is just a master crafter.

Gilliam is on a mission to destroy non tank builds and make tank builds reign supreme over everyone, it was a mistake from the get go to let him get his fingers in the game.

Omnipresent

just started playing again after a close to a year break and NB getting @#*%ed on... excuse me if im not surprised