Playing a magblade is nothing but frustrating.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

This is from a PvP magblades perspective but some points can also be applied to stamblades or PvP in general.


Playing a magblade is frustrating as f****. Most of the time Im struggling what it feels like against the game itself instead of enemies/ other players skill. Im going to try to elaborate why I feel like that and what could be done, with gifs/images as examples.


First lets talk about travel time in PvP and lag.

Nothing hits. Its frustating as hell when an enemy is literally standing still on your screen but somehow "dodge" appears above their head.



You can clearly see that the guy Im fighting is standing still, so why am I getting "dodged"?

Thats because of the travel-time projectiles have, combined with PvP lag. Its especially worse on a magblade because every attack (except sap essence) can be hard countered/100% mitigated by just roll dodging. Thats not fun, its frustrating watching a guy with 5% HP just spam roll dodge and self heals and get back up to 100% HP.


Projectile speed

Now lets have a look at "Swallow Soul" - the main spammable of a magblade and compare it to "Concealed Weapon"- a melee spammable which also costs magicka and therefore used my some melee magblades.

Swallow Soul



Concealed Weapon



If we look at both we can clearly see that "Swallow Soul" (compared to "Concealed Weapon") hits with a delay, add PvP lag into the calculation and the chances of "Swallow Soul" hitting someone becomes very small. Which again is nothing else but frustrating.


Cloak

Cloak is messed up. I think I dont have to say anything regarding that.
I will just leave these here.






Merciless Resolve

"Merciless Resolve" - bow proc has a massive travel time which results in it not hitting 80% of the time when cast from range.
This is again a massive issue that was obviously overlooked.

This is "Merciless" cast from a 22m range.


This is "Merciless" cast from a melee range.



Lotus Fan





I mean do I have to say anything? Its clearly not "Instant", I can literally block-cancle it, same as "Soul Harvest" which has a 0,4sec cast time. Fix.It.


___________________________________

Conclusion:
The whole "magblade" identity feels and is clunky, which in return makes the gameplay frustrating as hell.

Solutions:
- Rework the whole class.
- Either make Swallow Soul undodgeable or let it have no travel time/projectile speed at all. "Steal an enemy's life force" would fit into the "undodgeable" part.
- Change Swallow Souls healing, it being a 10sec HoT which heals every 2secs makes no sense. Its a spammable. Make it either 1sec every 5secs or change it, so it saves the biggest heal and applies it over 10secs/every 2secs instead of refreshing it every cast.
- Speed up the Merciless Resolve proc, it having a massive travel time doesnt fit the "ranged" gameplay a magblade has.
- Fix Cloak.
- Make Lotus Fan actually an instant cast.
- Remove the cast time from Soul Harvest.
- Give the class "undodgable" attacks besides Sap Essence to counter roll dodge spammers.
- FIX CLOAK.

Iskiab

Good write up. Yea the class is ranged, but you have to get close up to kill anyone. Combined with *** self healing the class is at a pvp disadvantage.

BaiterOfZergs

Lol at getting hit while cloaked , that’s a common one.

Deathlord92

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

This is from a PvP magblades perspective but some points can also be applied to stamblades or PvP in general.


Playing a magblade is frustrating as f****. Most of the time Im struggling what it feels like against the game itself instead of enemies/ other players skill. Im going to try to elaborate why I feel like that and what could be done, with gifs/images as examples.


First lets talk about travel time in PvP and lag.

Nothing hits. Its frustating as hell when an enemy is literally standing still on your screen but somehow "dodge" appears above their head.



You can clearly see that the guy Im fighting is standing still, so why am I getting "dodged"?

Thats because of the travel-time projectiles have, combined with PvP lag. Its especially worse on a magblade because every attack (except sap essence) can be hard countered/100% mitigated by just roll dodging. Thats not fun, its frustrating watching a guy with 5% HP just spam roll dodge and self heals and get back up to 100% HP.


Projectile speed

Now lets have a look at "Swallow Soul" - the main spammable of a magblade and compare it to "Concealed Weapon"- a melee spammable which also costs magicka and therefore used my some melee magblades.

Swallow Soul



Concealed Weapon



If we look at both we can clearly see that "Swallow Soul" (compared to "Concealed Weapon") hits with a delay, add PvP lag into the calculation and the chances of "Swallow Soul" hitting someone becomes very small. Which again is nothing else but frustrating.


Cloak

Cloak is messed up. I think I dont have to say anything regarding that.
I will just leave these here.






Merciless Resolve

"Merciless Resolve" - bow proc has a massive travel time which results in it not hitting 80% of the time when cast from range.
This is again a massive issue that was obviously overlooked.

This is "Merciless" cast from a 22m range.


This is "Merciless" cast from a melee range.



Lotus Fan





I mean do I have to say anything? Its clearly not "Instant", I can literally block-cancle it, same as "Soul Harvest" which has a 0,4sec cast time. Fix.It.


___________________________________

Conclusion:
The whole "magblade" identity feels and is clunky, which in return makes the gameplay frustrating as hell.

Solutions:
- Rework the whole class.
- Either make Swallow Soul undodgeable or let it have no travel time/projectile speed at all. "Steal an enemy's life force" would fit into the "undodgeable" part.
- Change Swallow Souls healing, it being a 10sec HoT which heals every 2secs makes no sense. Its a spammable. Make it either 1sec every 5secs or change it, so it saves the biggest heal and applies it over 10secs/every 2secs instead of refreshing it every cast.
- Speed up the Merciless Resolve proc, it having a massive travel time doesnt fit the "ranged" gameplay a magblade has.
- Fix Cloak.
- Make Lotus Fan actually an instant cast.
- Remove the cast time from Soul Harvest.
- Give the class "undodgable" attacks besides Sap Essence to counter roll dodge spammers.
- FIX CLOAK.

You forgot 2 skills one is very important to melee magblades like myself concealed weapon needs a big buff it’s been left bare forever I want major or minor breach put on it or a hot or both and impale should start execute at 50% health and give us a class self heal. I’m glad more people are asking for nb buffs mainly magblade because though stamblade in bad spot magblade has it a lot worse in 1vx areas imo.

colossalvoids

Can only agree and smh about nightblade current spot.

tsaescishoeshiner

I play magblade in battlegrounds, and most of these examples aren't a problem there — except cloak and Teleport Strike, which I don't use anymore. But they all seem really exacerbated by the worsening Cyrodiil latency

I personally like the slight delay on Assassin's Will and Swallow Soul in battlegrounds, as it helps line up burst. Other than Cloak and Teleport Strike, I feel like skills are responsive enough in Battlegrounds & Duels

As far as Soul Harvest cast time, I do rely on the stun from Flame Clench to land it most of the time, which seems to keep people down longer than it should be ...

Greek_Hellspawn

I also think that mass hysteria need a buff as well, its the only stun that just stuns, every other stun has also a secondary effect, i think a minor debuff would fit the skill.It could stun/affect less enemies to balance it out.

Somers23

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

The whole class needs a rework/buffed. My post was just to highlight the biggest issues that are not necessarily connected to underperfoming skills/abilities but rather the class mechanics.

Nightblade as a whole is just bad, PvP and PvE wise. Im not sure which direction they are taking the class but I honestly hope that we will get a buff with greymoor, because if we dont the class will be pretty much "deleted". Giving invis to other classes, nerfing Light Attacks which yield the most DPS in a rotation and leaving the class clunky will just be the end of the class for good. And if that happens I really hope they will introduce a class change token because enough is enough.

I completly agree that concealed needs a buff, mass hysteria was also stripped of any identity. They NEED to rework the whole class, I just dont see another way around.

Most NB skills do 1 thing, so you have to slot every skill possible, meanwhile other classes do several things all at the same time while proccing a passive which also does several things. Nightblade balance just isnt comparable atm.
Its imo the worst class overall.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

Iskiab

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

They changed it, if someone uses a detect pot they can hit you with anything even single target abilities. It’s always hard to tell when someone else is using one, but my gut says something about it is off and a pot isn’t required.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

Iskiab wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

They changed it, if someone uses a detect pot they can hit you with anything even single target abilities. It’s always hard to tell when someone else is using one, but my gut says something about it is off and a pot isn’t required.

I know, but thats not whats happening atm, cloak is bugged since Harrowstorm and you can hit people in cloak with single target abilities without using detect pots.

Crash427

Cloak is totally broken. Single target abilities from anyone can break it. The other night in Cyro even DOTs were pulling me out of it. I don't think the devs have acknowledged it either. Maybe it was a stealth nerf?

So now if you're a magblade with shadowy disguise you have no burst self heal, a burst combo that has both audible warnings and a cast time, one defensive option is broken and the other (shadow image) got a nerf recently.

On top of all that i'm constantly desynced, even in small scale/bgs, and get the 'target out of range' message or no message at all when i try to fire single target skills.

Moonsorrow

Crash427 wrote: »

Cloak is totally broken. Single target abilities from anyone can break it. The other night in Cyro even DOTs were pulling me out of it. I don't think the devs have acknowledged it either. Maybe it was a stealth nerf?

So now if you're a magblade with shadowy disguise you have no burst self heal, a burst combo that has both audible warnings and a cast time, one defensive option is broken and the other (shadow image) got a nerf recently.

On top of all that i'm constantly desynced, even in small scale/bgs, and get the 'target out of range' message or no message at all when i try to fire single target skills.

This.

Feels so bad to play NB currently when remembers how things used to be before this epic success/s Performance Update..

everything is just frustrating to the point that not even play that much at all since the game is a mess to play with NB, well - same with other classes, but they have some skills atleast that work (a bit) better on this laggy update.

MashmalloMan

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

They changed it, if someone uses a detect pot they can hit you with anything even single target abilities. It’s always hard to tell when someone else is using one, but my gut says something about it is off and a pot isn’t required.

I know, but thats not whats happening atm, cloak is bugged since Harrowstorm and you can hit people in cloak with single target abilities without using detect pots.

The OP is well made and illustrates a lot of the issues, but in this example I think you failed to show what you're trying to illustrate. In the actual gifs, both your stealth and his ult seem to activate at practically the same time on YOUR screen. The gifs seem to show there is only about 0-100ms between your stealth and his ultimate which is around the amount of ping time I average at for about 70-90ms. On his screen, you were not in stealth when he pressed Leap.

To me, this example just shows your playing on an online game. You can make this same example in any online game.

ESO does have overwhelmingly negative performance recently in U25, even with a low ping like 77ms, abilities I fire always seem to fire off 100-200ms later or NOT at all due to the input delay.

I don't mean to discredit you, I'm sure this is a problem for you, but the example provided just doesn't illustrate it enough in my opinion and it lacks information like your ping and their ping at the time. They're so close that the gif just seems par for the course in terms of online twitch combat oriented gaming.

olsborg

Stamblade isnt in a much better spot either in this meta. Everyone heals af, stamblade has to build *** for selfheals to actually reach "ok" levels, and then u loose so much else.

Lord-Otto

This isn't exclusive to Nightblades, although certainly worst on them. Almost all magicka skills, especially ranged ones, just aren't as snappy and responsive as typical stamina (melee) skills.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

MashmalloMan wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

They changed it, if someone uses a detect pot they can hit you with anything even single target abilities. It’s always hard to tell when someone else is using one, but my gut says something about it is off and a pot isn’t required.

I know, but thats not whats happening atm, cloak is bugged since Harrowstorm and you can hit people in cloak with single target abilities without using detect pots.

The OP is well made and illustrates a lot of the issues, but in this example I think you failed to show what you're trying to illustrate. In the actual gifs, both your stealth and his ult seem to activate at practically the same time on YOUR screen. The gifs seem to show there is only about 0-100ms between your stealth and his ultimate which is around the amount of ping time I average at for about 70-90ms. On his screen, you were not in stealth when he pressed Leap.

To me, this example just shows your playing on an online game. You can make this same example in any online game.

ESO does have overwhelmingly negative performance recently in U25, even with a low ping like 77ms, abilities I fire always seem to fire off 100-200ms later or NOT at all due to the input delay.

I don't mean to discredit you, I'm sure this is a problem for you, but the example provided just doesn't illustrate it enough in my opinion and it lacks information like your ping and their ping at the time. They're so close that the gif just seems par for the course in terms of online twitch combat oriented gaming.

I can see where youre coming from, I will try to get better clips. I had a bunch few weeks ago but deleted them. Ill try to get a few clips and post them here.

Lord-Otto wrote: »

This isn't exclusive to Nightblades, although certainly worst on them. Almost all magicka skills, especially ranged ones, just aren't as snappy and responsive as typical stamina (melee) skills.

The lag/projectile speed its not exclusive to nightblades, I never said that. However the whole nightblade toolkit can be dodged/mitigated completly besides Sap Essence and Soul Tether so its especially worse on the NB class.

MashmalloMan

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

The lag/projectile speed its not exclusive to nightblades, I never said that. However the whole nightblade toolkit can be dodged/mitigated completly besides Sap Essence and Soul Tether so its especially worse on the NB class.

Yeah thanks for that 1 ZOS. Not sure I've seen any Stam Sorc asking for Class Identity in the past 5+ years mention they wanted a worse version of Grim Focus as a copy/paste. Trust me, I feel your pain, imagine your shot was spread out over 4 ticks 0.3s apart, plus the frustation of some travel time (probably shorter).

A big issue with projectile abilities in this game is dodge mechanics. If you fire a projectile when your target is in the process of a dodge roll animation or they have dodged after you've cast your projectile, the ability is completely dodged, despite any potential travel time that would actually guaranteed a hit had the target dodged too early. In other games that have invincibility frame mechanics, the frame is very rigid, punishing players who react too early.

Look at this example:

Lets say a dodge roll animation is 0.8s and a projectile fired at them takes 1.5 seconds to reach them. A dodge timed at any point during the 1.5s cancels the hit. Even if the enemy dodged too early at the 0.0s/1.5s mark meaning there would be 0.7s remaining for the projectile to hit them, it will be dodged.

Now add to the fact that they could of dodged 0.7s before YOU cast your projectile, since there is 0.1s left on the dodge roll, your projectile that still has 1.4s remaining in travel time to hit your target will also be 100% dodged.

Finally, add 100-200ms due to ESO's server lag, then add your ping. Now you get the full picture as to why projectiles feel so awful to use in ESO. I can't imagine relying on most of my kit as projectile based.

Dojohoda

I play magblade, so I can relate. It'd be nice to get some 100% positive attention from the team.

.. And get fixed!
Shadowy Disguise is broken in a few ways: Light attacks break the stealth; gap-closers "find" us (find might be the wrong word) and; it does not suppress dots anymore which is painful since we have no easy way to heal ourselves. I know it did this before the update.

In pvp, unsure about overland because things die so fast there, our spectral bow stacks drop off. This is easiest to reproduce fighting resource guards. Once you kill one, the stacks disappear even if you just got the sound effect that it's ready and you are obviously still in combat. I've not tested this thoroughly.

? Others have said that dark cloak is not giving the damage reduction. I'm using dark cloak on a magblade that I play everyday, but I have not tested it.

My very short wish list, along with having a fully functioning class:
PVE- I'd like to have the requirement of being invisible removed from our passive damage buff-- that would help in PVE. No one uses shadowy disguise in trials and some other classes have their damage buff and we get squat.

PVP- It'd be great if Swallow Soul was undodgeable because if the skill is dodged we get no heals from it. That's probably asking too much, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Iskiab

Dojohoda wrote: »

I play magblade, so I can relate. It'd be nice to get some 100% positive attention from the team.

.. And get fixed!
Shadowy Disguise is broken in a few ways: Light attacks break the stealth; gap-closers "find" us (find might be the wrong word) and; it does not suppress dots anymore which is painful since we have no easy way to heal ourselves. I know it did this before the update.

In pvp, unsure about overland because things die so fast there, our spectral bow stacks drop off. This is easiest to reproduce fighting resource guards. Once you kill one, the stacks disappear even if you just got the sound effect that it's ready and you are obviously still in combat. I've not tested this thoroughly.

? Others have said that dark cloak is not giving the damage reduction. I'm using dark cloak on a magblade that I play everyday, but I have not tested it.

My very short wish list, along with having a fully functioning class:
PVE- I'd like to have the requirement of being invisible removed from our passive damage buff-- that would help in PVE. No one uses shadowy disguise in trials and some other classes have their damage buff and we get squat.

PVP- It'd be great if Swallow Soul was undodgeable because if the skill is dodged we get no heals from it. That's probably asking too much, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

One thing I’ve noticed is pets break stealth/cloak. It’s really annoying to a free sorc flappy pet can counter cloak so easily.

MashmalloMan

@xI_The_Owl_Ix It's also worth noting, both Grim Focus and Bound Armaments rely on landing 4/5 light/heavy attacks to proc as their "mini game" mechanic. While this is easy to do in pve because enemies don't usually dodge attacks, this is beyond frustrating in pvp forcing you to sometimes spend 6-10 seconds just working on stack build up, now try being 100% melee and this gets more difficult.

Add any scenario where your target is moving quickly out of range (server delays), using LOS, dodging, you dipping out of combat for rebuffs, and good luck getting a proc you're capable of using frequently in the theoretical 4-5 seconds that's possible. In reality, you're lucky to fire one off every 10-20 seconds. Since it deals with projectile travel time and takes longer to build, you end up holding on to them so you can time them properly and actually hit your target. Heavy attacks also require a longer animation and are highly telegraghed, yet don't offer 2 stacks like you would assume.

Compare these mini game/delayed burst mechanics to other classes:

Sorc Crystal Frags/Curse, Templar Backlash, Warden Shalks, Necro BB, DK Whip.

All of these abilities are strong or weak in their own ways, thats valid, however, all of the mini game mechanics above aren't tied to landing attacks first to even get a chance at firing the actual ability. It's not like you can walk around spamming light attacks on the air, you need to be hitting a target to get a proc.

Crystal Frags is the closest comparison in that it's a projectile with similar damage/cost, however, you can expect to use Frags every 3-4 GCD's where as you can't guarantee that amount of uptime with NB/Stam Sorc. This feels less punishing when a player dodges your attack because you know it didn't take long to proc in the first place, just fire again when it's ready.

Missing a Grim Focus or Bound Armamentts cast just feels like a complete waste of time, further highlighting that these abilities are best used for passives, not the active. With this type of mini game, you would expect better risk vs reward. Maybe a lot of damage or a strong debuff to compensate.

In reality, Bound Armaments does less damage than Crystal Frags and only slightly more damage than Dizzy Swing, so why use it in the first place? It's not like you can time it as a delayed burst skill like you can with Curse. Crystal Frags does about the same damage as Relentless Focus without a difficult mini game. The only morph that does more tooltip damage than Crystal Frags is Merciless Resolve and it still feels extremely underwhelming with Mag NB's being one of the weakest classes right now.

The kicker? These abilities are attached to buffs you need to recast every 40-60 seconds. Sounds minor, but it's just another GCD wasted. To be clear, I'd trade the passive power of these skills for an active ability that is more reliable any day. The argument that they're so crap to use because the passive power is strong is backwards. The passives should be weak because the active is so strong to use.

Everyone has their opinion, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people who think Bound Armaments is a good design are the people who have only used it in pve and never actually directly compared how much damage it does to something like Wrecking Blow. It saves stamina to cast because it's half cost, thats about it.

TLDR: Not sure why ZOS gave Stam Sorcs a Grim Focus copy/paste when sorcs have 2 mini game damage skills built in, but they both leave a lot to be desired. Grim Focus is one of the worst and more complicated, yet less rewarding mini game damage burst skills in the game and I'd love to see these abilities get some attention to make them more viable to use.

MashmalloMan

Greek_Hellspawn wrote: »

I also think that mass hysteria need a buff as well, its the only stun that just stuns, every other stun has also a secondary effect, i think a minor debuff would fit the skill.It could stun/affect less enemies to balance it out.

Funny you mention that because...

Elsweyr Patch:

• Aspect of Terror: This ability and its morphs no longer snare the target after the fear ends. Aspect of Terror now fears up to 3 enemies, up from 2.
  • Mass Hysteria (morph): This morph no longer applies Minor Maim to the targets affected. Also increased the number of feared targets to 6 enemies from 2.

Crash427

I'll have to look and see if i kept the vid but i had a merciless proc that took a full 6 seconds to hit someone in Cyro last week. An enemy can do a lot of self healing in 6 seconds. I probably shouldn't complain because it was so long after the sound that the guy took the full brunt of it and didn't dodge roll.

I haven't tested it since U25 but I did before and while Dark Cloak doesn't give the named minor protection buff, it did give the proper amount of damage mitigation. I didn't think to test if it stacks with minor protection. Maybe I should have kept that to myself xD

Guess i'll just stick to bombing since at least my AOE skills still kind of go off. Timing proxy det is hard though when sometimes it takes 8 seconds, sometimes it takes as much as 13. Nothing like a little lag based RNG to spice up combat

GRXRG

I don't wanna create a flame text or anything, but yesterday I was fighting a 5star nightblade in cyro and cloak was working fine, maybe even too much, this guy was perma cloaking all fight and even using detect pots I just couldn't see him, all my hits where stopped miscast after he cloaked. Then other people joined and was able to dodge roll and cloak and vanish among 5 people plenty of aoes, why that happens? Just because he is 5star he has zero lags and skills works as intended? I really don't understand this game. He was a stamblade btw.
Then few minutes later i fought a magblade and the fight lasted 2 minutes, i was full hp with all buff and heals going, and suddendly from 28k hp to 0 oneshotted, he asked me why i didn't heal myself, and i told him why? I was full lol and he said i was 30% health.
Magblade skills desyncs are crazy your health especially after mass hysteria, all those projectiles connect weirdly and they get casted all at once when server lags, same as Elemental weapon plus overload or snipe spammed.
They should rework projectiles which seem are the major cause of desyncs and class not working as intended.
When i use cloak on my night blade i get hit even hy hardcasted frags, so this is notan attack against nightblades because i play them too, but really dunno what to think.

Czekoludek

GRXRG wrote: »

I don't wanna create a flame text or anything, but yesterday I was fighting a 5star nightblade in cyro and cloak was working fine, maybe even too much, this guy was perma cloaking all fight and even using detect pots I just couldn't see him, all my hits where stopped miscast after he cloaked. Then other people joined and was able to dodge roll and cloak and vanish among 5 people plenty of aoes, why that happens? Just because he is 5star he has zero lags and skills works as intended? I really don't understand this game. He was a stamblade btw.
Then few minutes later i fought a magblade and the fight lasted 2 minutes, i was full hp with all buff and heals going, and suddendly from 28k hp to 0 oneshotted, he asked me why i didn't heal myself, and i told him why? I was full lol and he said i was 30% health.
Magblade skills desyncs are crazy your health especially after mass hysteria, all those projectiles connect weirdly and they get casted all at once when server lags, same as Elemental weapon plus overload or snipe spammed.
They should rework projectiles which seem are the major cause of desyncs and class not working as intended.
When i use cloak on my night blade i get hit even hy hardcasted frags, so this is notan attack against nightblades because i play them too, but really dunno what to think.

I know 5 star players who can fight with a lot more enemies at the same time and still gain nice kills. Yeah, if you are fighting against good 5 star, you should expect that fight will be hard.
And about your magblade fight, desyncs are pretty common this patch, not exactly tied to magblade toolkit.

Qbiken

Good write up definitely deserves some attention. One if the things that needs to be reverted is the cast time on deathstroke (and both morphs) and soulsiphon/soultether.

I don't even main the class but whenever I jump on either my magblade (or stamblade) I just get frustrated because none of my damage combos hit due to traval time and cast times, it really gimps this class more than others.

Langeston

Iskiab

MashmalloMan wrote: »

@xI_The_Owl_Ix It's also worth noting, both Grim Focus and Bound Armaments rely on landing 4/5 light/heavy attacks to proc as their "mini game" mechanic. While this is easy to do in pve because enemies don't usually dodge attacks, this is beyond frustrating in pvp forcing you to sometimes spend 6-10 seconds just working on stack build up, now try being 100% melee and this gets more difficult.

Add any scenario where your target is moving quickly out of range (server delays), using LOS, dodging, you dipping out of combat for rebuffs, and good luck getting a proc you're capable of using frequently in the theoretical 4-5 seconds that's possible. In reality, you're lucky to fire one off every 10-20 seconds. Since it deals with projectile travel time and takes longer to build, you end up holding on to them so you can time them properly and actually hit your target. Heavy attacks also require a longer animation and are highly telegraghed, yet don't offer 2 stacks like you would assume.

Compare these mini game/delayed burst mechanics to other classes:

Sorc Crystal Frags/Curse, Templar Backlash, Warden Shalks, Necro BB, DK Whip.

All of these abilities are strong or weak in their own ways, thats valid, however, all of the mini game mechanics above aren't tied to landing attacks first to even get a chance at firing the actual ability. It's not like you can walk around spamming light attacks on the air, you need to be hitting a target to get a proc.

Crystal Frags is the closest comparison in that it's a projectile with similar damage/cost, however, you can expect to use Frags every 3-4 GCD's where as you can't guarantee that amount of uptime with NB/Stam Sorc. This feels less punishing when a player dodges your attack because you know it didn't take long to proc in the first place, just fire again when it's ready.

Missing a Grim Focus or Bound Armamentts cast just feels like a complete waste of time, further highlighting that these abilities are best used for passives, not the active. With this type of mini game, you would expect better risk vs reward. Maybe a lot of damage or a strong debuff to compensate.

In reality, Bound Armaments does less damage than Crystal Frags and only slightly more damage than Dizzy Swing, so why use it in the first place? It's not like you can time it as a delayed burst skill like you can with Curse. Crystal Frags does about the same damage as Relentless Focus without a difficult mini game. The only morph that does more tooltip damage than Crystal Frags is Merciless Resolve and it still feels extremely underwhelming with Mag NB's being one of the weakest classes right now.

The kicker? These abilities are attached to buffs you need to recast every 40-60 seconds. Sounds minor, but it's just another GCD wasted. To be clear, I'd trade the passive power of these skills for an active ability that is more reliable any day. The argument that they're so crap to use because the passive power is strong is backwards. The passives should be weak because the active is so strong to use.

Everyone has their opinion, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of people who think Bound Armaments is a good design are the people who have only used it in pve and never actually directly compared how much damage it does to something like Wrecking Blow. It saves stamina to cast because it's half cost, thats about it.

TLDR: Not sure why ZOS gave Stam Sorcs a Grim Focus copy/paste when sorcs have 2 mini game damage skills built in, but they both leave a lot to be desired. Grim Focus is one of the worst and more complicated, yet less rewarding mini game damage burst skills in the game and I'd love to see these abilities get some attention to make them more viable to use.

Very good summary and absolutely true, I use fear traps and meteor just to get my bow proc to land.

I have a feeling they gave bound armaments to sorcs because so many said merciless was an awesome ability. Thinking was, ‘if it’s so great here you go’.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

MashmalloMan wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@Somers23

Somers23 wrote: »

That dragon leap is a aoe. That's why you still got hit.

Thats not how it works. Leap is a single target ability which does AoE damage. You dont aim it on the ground and it leaps, it leaps to one/single person. And I shouldnt have been hit while cloaked. Cloak is even more useless since the Harrowstorm update, because you get hit by single target abilities even light or heavy attacks.

They changed it, if someone uses a detect pot they can hit you with anything even single target abilities. It’s always hard to tell when someone else is using one, but my gut says something about it is off and a pot isn’t required.

I know, but thats not whats happening atm, cloak is bugged since Harrowstorm and you can hit people in cloak with single target abilities without using detect pots.

The OP is well made and illustrates a lot of the issues, but in this example I think you failed to show what you're trying to illustrate. In the actual gifs, both your stealth and his ult seem to activate at practically the same time on YOUR screen. The gifs seem to show there is only about 0-100ms between your stealth and his ultimate which is around the amount of ping time I average at for about 70-90ms. On his screen, you were not in stealth when he pressed Leap.

To me, this example just shows your playing on an online game. You can make this same example in any online game.

ESO does have overwhelmingly negative performance recently in U25, even with a low ping like 77ms, abilities I fire always seem to fire off 100-200ms later or NOT at all due to the input delay.

I don't mean to discredit you, I'm sure this is a problem for you, but the example provided just doesn't illustrate it enough in my opinion and it lacks information like your ping and their ping at the time. They're so close that the gif just seems par for the course in terms of online twitch combat oriented gaming.

Stuff like this has been happening since Harrowstorm and ZoS doesnt seem to aknowledge it, I hope it gets fixed with Greymoor but I dont have my hopes up. He also didnt have detect pots because later after I recloaked he couldnt find me.

Grianasteri

Some reasonable points have been made by the OP.

But I did notice that the claimed issue with cloak, in the example shown, seems wrong. Clearly the opponent has initiated their skill BEFORE cloak was fully engaged, to me I can even see this on the video replay.

But as I say, some valid issues highlighted. The main one being lag, which renders a great deal of time in pvp utterly pointless.