Are Nightblades Finally Dead?

Vahrokh

The more they nerf the NB intended "prey class", the more they have to nerf NBs keep the PvP encounters "balanced".

It's ironic: calling nerfs for years on others, ended up nerfing who demanded the nerfs.

Ri_Khan

kollege14a5 wrote: »

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.

L2p issue? More like a reading comprehension issue on your part. OP's referring to the "kill 50 enemy Nightblade's" achievement and their inability to progress with it due to not encountering any NB's to kill because barely anyone's playing them anymore.

TheFM

Omnipresent wrote: »

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

Nightblades are still everywhere in cyro on pc eu, and are performing quite well. The problem right now is that tank builds are just way way way overtuned. stamnecro, warden in general, and templar are just absurd atm.

Valykc

I will consider them “dead” when I stop getting snipe spammed from the shadows in BGs lol

Nevasca

Well you can get kills on NB. Doesn't mean the class is in a good spot though. There's a few reasons why NB is kind of bad atm:

1. In small group they have no place to take, all other classes work better in BGs in all roles. They were never the best in BGs but with the nerfs it's even worse.

2. You will rarely kill someone with equal skill as yours on NB. Killing new players or non-pvp players is easy but you can do that with any class. Killing experienced players is hard though. Your burst is too easy to read and takes too long, so most people will never take your full combo (fear->incap->bow proc), hell the only way to even hit incap is if you weapon swap cancel fear, because it hides the VFX and can take people by surprise. Man it's 3gcds as well, there's space for break free, healing, and blocking all your combo. How do you even kill experienced players like this when you don't have the dps pressure to outlast their healing?

3. The meta. NB was never good on tank meta besides the dark cloak fiasco. You have poor dps and depends on burst damage to kill anyone, and in fact if I recall they were nerfed in a glass cannon meta and were balanced, but then we transitioned to tank meta and got ***.

So yeah you guys can pretend OP needs to l2p (maybe he does l, idk) but NB is weak, yes. It's not unplayable, just not competitive, which is still bad.

PizzaCat82

Ah look, the NBs are coming to say they don't suck. Sure. Templars eat you for lunch. DKs eat you for lunch. Sorcerors with a shield eat you for lunch.

Devs said they didn't like that people would die before they had a chance to react. NBs looked around nervously at all their skills, mostly spamables and CCs that would frontload damage.

NBs got shafted, Everyone else got "retuned" but still had anti-nightblade builds.. and thats pretty much it. Sure, you'll find the occasional Nightblade out there, sometimes a Magicka bomber, or a snipe spammer.. or even someone who thinks they can still frontload enough to kill someone not paying attention. But most are gone.

Nightblades are PVE class now, and not a great one even at that.

TheFM

Littlebluelizard wrote: »

Well you can get kills on NB. Doesn't mean the class is in a good spot though. There's a few reasons why NB is kind of bad atm:

1. In small group they have no place to take, all other classes work better in BGs in all roles. They were never the best in BGs but with the nerfs it's even worse.

2. You will rarely kill someone with equal skill as yours on NB. Killing new players or non-pvp players is easy but you can do that with any class. Killing experienced players is hard though. Your burst is too easy to read and takes too long, so most people will never take your full combo (fear->incap->bow proc), hell the only way to even hit incap is if you weapon swap cancel fear, because it hides the VFX and can take people by surprise. Man it's 3gcds as well, there's space for break free, healing, and blocking all your combo. How do you even kill experienced players like this when you don't have the dps pressure to outlast their healing?

3. The meta. NB was never good on tank meta besides the dark cloak fiasco. You have poor dps and depends on burst damage to kill anyone, and in fact if I recall they were nerfed in a glass cannon meta and were balanced, but then we transitioned to tank meta and got ***.

So yeah you guys can pretend OP needs to l2p (maybe he does l, idk) but NB is weak, yes. It's not unplayable, just not competitive, which is still bad.

Pretty much everyone except dk had to kill ppl with burst atm, that's what happens when dot builds got destroyed to uselessness

DUTCH_REAPER

Yup my mNB is shelved atm. Every now and then I’ll pull him out for a bomblade moment but those are few and far between due to its “lack luster” of current reliableness.

Shadowasrial

Been playing my stamblade since the beginning and the past 2 years have been a struggle. As players get tankier and healing gets stronger it is imperative that we get major defile back on incap and major fracture on surprise attack even if it’s only applied from stealth that would be great. The class went from a strong solo type pvp class to weak punching bag compared to the other classes. All because at some point you were by yourself and away from your friends and some nb got the jump on you. Here’s a tip for pvp if you find yourself alone chances are your not alone

zaria

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

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

A bit like naked and afraid there you start an dungeons without gear and only use that you pick up during the run
That could be an fun dlc zone main quest line, a bit like broken steel in Fallout 3,

Kawiki

I just started playing a month ago and before someone comes in and says I don't know what I am talking about I fully realize I may not have all the information currently.

My impressions so far.

1. It's blatantly obvious how much stronger some other classes are. My main is a a Stamblade. I have also messed around on a DK & Sorc. It's clear from a damage point of view that both will likely end up as good and probably better. I'd rate the burst good to very good but it certainly is not adequate based on the next point.

2. From a survival point it's not even really close. NBs seemingly are as squishy as it gets. This is inherently bad design. Middling at best damage and squishy.

3. It seems like every other class is so much easier to play and flows better. Really I was so board playing the other classes. Again, this is inherently bad design. Easily playable classes shouldn't also have better Damage/Survivability then more complex classes.

Commancho

We had everyone and his dog playing NB for the last 6 years. I'm glad this class is on pair with the other classes now. Couple of my guildmates are still playing exclusively NB and they are doing good, so its L2P issue.

OWLTHEMAD

Shadowasrial wrote: »

Been playing my stamblade since the beginning and the past 2 years have been a struggle. As players get tankier and healing gets stronger it is imperative that we get major defile back on incap and major fracture on surprise attack even if it’s only applied from stealth that would be great. The class went from a strong solo type pvp class to weak punching bag compared to the other classes. All because at some point you were by yourself and away from your friends and some nb got the jump on you. Here’s a tip for pvp if you find yourself alone chances are your not alone

That last bit is rather ominous.

Donny_Vito

The main thing I see in PvP is Templars spamming jabs, and everyone in heavy armor.

Galwylin

Why is this community so fond of saying l2p? Of course I need to learn to play. I think I should learn to play everyday. But there are differences in the game from what I saw yesterday. For one, two handers. Everywhere. Another, why are sorcerers still competitive? They have not once dropped out since, gosh was it before Morrowind? Granted I don't play for long stretches but I can't think of a single original class that has had the run those guys have (and its cool when I'm playing one). The last thing I'll mention was so many either have some tough armor or huge health pools or something. Oh and it was nice to see templars who I think had been trash seen sorcerers started their rise. Might as well mention dragonknights are also well represented.

Saying that, if those that want me to learn to play could perhaps l2r (that's learn to read) I did mention that I had one death that registered a single nightblade skill Surprise Attack. From the whole day I saw frags and lightning, the new leaping dragonknights (last I remembered they kept flexing wings as if to fly not hop) and the jabby jabby templars. But no nightblade skills. None except that single surprise attack. Maybe they were behind all that two hander spam (and there was a lot).

If our class skills aren't even on the table how is this class fine? Especially considering I thought they were looking at classes to make sure they didn't have to use non-class skills (or is that coming? It seems its been talked about 4ever!). That doesn't seem to be the case for other classes. Perhaps its possible I just never ran into them. I know a lot said nightblades are there but this forum also lies a lot. Specifically when representing what is happening to a class different than theirs. Its pretty typical that those that do play the class says there seems to be an issue and those that don't drowning them out.

I would simply play something else except my nightblade was my first so when I'm achievement hunting that's the class I use. I long ago would have used a class change token because its just not worth this cycle ZOS has put them in. I swear it feels like just after Morrowind when this started. Sure all classes have peaks and valleys. But ZOS does do weird things like going after templars healing way back in Morrowind for some reason (well, we suspect we know much like why necro can hit you with grave robber for 32k). I personally feel most of my classes have improved if not excelled while my nightblade just seems to not.

And just for context, I never used cloak for anything because that's busted and broken most of the time. Oh and stamina is my nightblade (no seriously that's his name) always fits to me because every mag using class in this game feels like a cheap knock off of a sorcerer to me (they seriously need to understand that magical weapons exist in lots of fantasy not just big sticks... if you were going with sticks how did you pass over wands?) Most of the skills I use have probably gotten changed or something so once day I just I will just have to read this whole class over again. Oh joy. I love when skills get completely changed. I blame WoW for this. If their last patch wasn't so buggy I wouldn't have even been here this month.

yRaven

I'm pretty fine with my MagBlade, but what ZoS did was make NBs choose between damage or defense, i go full damage and penetration ( ಠ ͜ʖಠ)

Strider__Roshin

Nightblades have achieved maximum class identity. They've disappeared entirely.

Iskiab

It’s the class. I took my caluurion and high speed magblade gear and tried it on a MagWarden.

NB is a good class to teach you how to play because you’re playing at a disadvantage. Take that same gear and tools and use them on another class and you’ll wreck people.

josh.lackey_ESO

Until the remove or substantially nerf Cloak in PvP, nightblade will be the most powerful class. That is all but a god mode ability that can be spammed endlessly.

I personally think nightblade should be a PvE-only class.

Coppes

Galwylin wrote: »

Why is this community so fond of saying l2p?

I’ve played several MMOs over the years and I’ve never seen anyone say L2P more than the players on this forum. It sometimes gets on my nerves when it’s used as an excuse instead of actual advice.

oXI_Viper_IXo

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

Until the remove or substantially nerf Cloak in PvP, nightblade will be the most powerful class. That is all but a god mode ability that can be spammed endlessly.

I personally think nightblade should be a PvE-only class.

😂

Vyvrhel

ATM I have 2 class skills equipped on my NB. Grim Resolve and Leeching Strikes. Nothing else. This way I do better than before.

barney2525

TheFM wrote: »

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

I think there may be a difference between over performing and competitive. Doesn't sound like they are currently even competitive. Which Would move them into the 'dead' basket.

IMHO

Rukia541

If you're good then you'll still reck face on stamblade, most certainly won't cry over some buffs tho .

Not being a faceroll fotm doesn't = dead.

Deathlord92

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

Until the remove or substantially nerf Cloak in PvP, nightblade will be the most powerful class. That is all but a god mode ability that can be spammed endlessly.

I personally think nightblade should be a PvE-only class.

This made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt lmfao next you will be saying stamcro and stamina wardens are balanced right? Lmao 😂😂 some players shouldn’t be allowed to comment

Kombinator

I don't pvp, but balancing PVP is next to impossible. In PVE however i always notice, that my Templar is so damn much more powerful for tanking, than my NB. Though it's pratly, because i refuse to give up my stealth for my NB for the sake of that self healing. I just love moving around with invisibility in world content. Ignoring every single NPC, and go straight for the objective.

Something also tells me, that for healing Templar also superior, but considering the class skills that is how it should be.

Galwylin

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

Until the remove or substantially nerf Cloak in PvP, nightblade will be the most powerful class. That is all but a god mode ability that can be spammed endlessly.

I personally think nightblade should be a PvE-only class.

Cloak is so easily countered. I mean everyone is practically given a skill to make it a non-issue before you're even level 10. I'd love for nightblades to get a skill that just makes another classes ability simply disappear. Imagine, hit a button and tank's armor simply falls off. Sorcerers lose their shields. Templars can't self heal. It would be glorious. I guess people never thought that cloak is the ngihtblades answer to armor and shields and they serve the same function. Keeping the character's health safe. And just like the others, some can attack behind it to great effect. I personally never use it since its countered so easily by so many skills its almost pointless to me. Do folks really think our evade is the same a shields? If only.

On a side note, I finished my achievement the day after my first post in battlegrounds where there were surprisingly fewer spell slinging heavy armor two hander spamming folks. Even saw a couple of nightblades using their skills. I am curious if ZOS removed all skills no one uses in pvp what the classes would look like. Maybe then they'd stop balancing around PvP and perhaps rethink why people choose the classes they do instead of trying to make us all the same.

Iskiab

Spaceroamer wrote: »

Galwylin wrote: »

Why is this community so fond of saying l2p?

I’ve played several MMOs over the years and I’ve never seen anyone say L2P more than the players on this forum. It sometimes gets on my nerves when it’s used as an excuse instead of actual advice.

Some of the stuff people say is just so ridiculous it’s the only answer that fits.

You’ll see people say every class in the game is crazy overpowered and needs to be nerfed, then another comment saying the class is terrible and unplayable. How else do you reply to obvious hyperbole?

It’s never ‘how do I improve?’. Sometimes L2P is just easy to write and telling the person they’re doing something wrong which is why their perspective is jacked.