Playing a magblade is nothing but frustrating.

Moose_Scout

Czekoludek wrote: »

Moose_Scout wrote: »

Light attacks do significantly less damage now...so, yes this is another nerf to nightblades.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/517545/pts-patch-notes-testing-ideas-for-light-heavy-attacks-in-combat


Read above.

I suggest you should go to pts and test it by yourself. They already told us they won't introduce these changes (at least in this update). The changes to la and ha aren't even on pts right now.

You are right! My bad!

OWLTHEMAD

Moose_Scout wrote: »

Light attacks do significantly less damage now...so, yes this is another nerf to nightblades.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/517545/pts-patch-notes-testing-ideas-for-light-heavy-attacks-in-combat


Read above.

Indeed, you may have missed something. That was an off cycle pts run just to test a change to how light and heavy attacks work. After being universally panned by the player base, it was announced that those changes would not be going live.

Therefore light attacks and grim focus, still good.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

Could we get some kind of acknowledgment about these issues?

Chelo

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Czekoludek wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Yes, they do. Up to 10% from Merciless Resolve. I have trouble bursting a decent magicka nightblade. Other light armor classes drop very easily. But Nightblades just absorb everything somehow. And they have magicka major evasion with 1,3k resistences which is not considered minor resolve and ward. Nightblade is very passively tanky with little effort.

Only if they have a good healer. If you can't kill a nb who doesn't have healer support, your damage must be really low or blade is build for max defense and in that case, it will hit like mosquito. Mitigation is nothing if your healing is weak af.

I would not say that 64k magicka and 3,6k spell damage is a mosquito. Well yes, I still can't kill anybody on my own, but the stats are there in theory.

Trust me, a good nightblade who knows what they are doing, are very bulky. Many are trash, but some are near indomitable.

I'm having a difficult time believing you have 64k mag and 3.6k SD.

Ever heard of imperial physique?

Thats a bad argument, imp physique is niche and only works in ... well imp city. I could also argue that I can get up to 100k magicka through the buff in Elden Hollow. I honestly dont understand where this thread is going with its topic. NBs ARE clunky, NBs ARE the weakest class atm, theres no denying it.

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

Could we get some kind of acknowledgment about these issues?

Wait for the end of the year or probably the first quarter of the next one. They are not focused on class updates anymore, at least not for now...

Anyway, I think MagNB got 2 indirect buffs with the Vampire Rework. They are Dark Stalker Passive at Stage 1 and Strike From Shadows Passive at Stage 2. Stealth gameplay feels way more bursty than before, at least for me.

MindOfTheSwarm

Without dodge roll, the game would lose its 'action' aspect and would be just a straight up RPG. Dodging takes skill and it is not something that can be spammed outside of very dedicated skill reduction cost builds.

Stravokov

dodge shouldn't be tied to either magicka or stamina pools. it should be it's own resorce so everyone has the same amount to use in a fight.

other games have gotten that right, like Guild Wars 2. [snip]

[Edited to remove Bashing]

kaithuzar

Chelo wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Nick_Balza wrote: »

I have a magblade main character and it is the first one I've created on ESO. I love the class, running as a magicka nb and find my current experience quite frustrating. But I think, that's all my fault.
- Jumping into the group of enemies is almost 100% chance to die.
- Cloak grants very limited benefits as invisibility, but that's more than enough for ganking playstyle. Nightblade is an assassin and it must work like that. AOE damage, random single hits, pots and magelight - pretty fair tools to counter me.
- Low damage issue. Nb is very unbalanced at this point, but I find this interesting and challenging. You can have high damage or high survivability. Increasing spell damage boon, divines gear and high damage skills may take out DK or stamsorc in one combo. On the other hand surviving is an issue, so each move (especially retreat) must be perfectly planned.
- Combo. Nightblade relies on tactics and using combos for taking down enemies. I died many times because was trying to play like sorc or other mage class. And nb wasn't designed for that.

Yeah, there are some glitches and bugs with skills, which must be fixed. But playing magblade requires tactics, discipline, improvisation and planning, so I don't think that nb class must be reworked.

I don’t know if it needs a rework, but definitely a buff. The damage isn’t there, if you go all offense the defense isn’t there.

Someone else mentioned that if you use one gear set in the UESP editor and switch classes it’s pretty easy to see magblade has lower tooltips. If you spam swallow soul at someone repeatedly you’ll never kill someone in pvp, compare that to other classes and it’s easy to see the issue.

Yes. Because NBs have crit passives. Lower tooltips but more crits and more powerful ones.

The problem with that is crit damage is the weakest way to build damage in PvP. Everyone has around 3000 crit resist at minimum.

But crit benefits max resource and spell/weapon damage. A passive to boost spell damage is not that great on a max mag build.

In PvP a boost to spell damage will almost always be better than a boost to crit damage. Crits aren’t useless in PvP but spell damage overall is a more beneficial stat due to how prevalent impen and crit resist is in PvP.

Spell damage is also weakened by crit resist. Spell damage can crit, and you need the crits to kill, so crit resist effects spell damage a lot.

Crits are extremely good in pvp. Most people do not even get to 50% crit damage reduction with full impen and some CP into the crit resistence passive. For a Nightblade, it is totally easy to reach 100% crit damage in pvp. You are not really saying that 10% crit damage is weaker than 4-6% spell damage?

But building for crit is futile when you are no Nightblade or Templar, since you will never reach their crit damage potential. Maybe Necromancer too, provided you even get the enemy low enough. Next patch, Vampire Eviscerate for example. (Always crits when yourself is under 50% health) Why on earth would I play a dedicated build for this on anything other than a Nightblade or Templar? When I play Dragonknight or Sorcerer with it, I simply gimp myself.

I am not fond of homogenization. Yet giving 2 classes more potential than others, is not a good idea. On Nightblades, I could get my head around it. But why Templar of all things has it...

If you are a NB and you are at 50% HP, you are dead...

Agree, unless you’re wearing pariah

kaithuzar

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Yes, they do. Up to 10% from Merciless Resolve. I have trouble bursting a decent magicka nightblade. Other light armor classes drop very easily. But Nightblades just absorb everything somehow. And they have magicka major evasion with 1,3k resistences which is not considered minor resolve and ward. Nightblade is very passively tanky with little effort.

Its minor resolve.
I also wouldnt say magBlades are passively tanky. They are tanky as long as they play tanky, meaning dont fire merciless proc and keep dark cloak up with swallow soul HoT and use black rose prison resto staff. The tankyness doesnt come out of nowhere, you sacrifice offense for it. Other classes like magSorcs can have very good defense and offense. Streak, Dark Conversion, Shield stacking are still the best "tank/defense" options any mag class has in my opinion.

Don’t forget about pets!

Mayrael

Original post is exactly what makes magblades very very bad class, I'd just add cast times on 2 ultimates and here we go: slow, clunky, squishy assassin who can't kill anyone because all you need to do is roll once you hear assassin's will.

Delspite of all above it's hard for me to believe they will ever buff magblade, all we can count on are bug fixes.

It's also the least uniqe class. We used to have mass hysteria, now everyone has both stam and mag versions, we used have teleport gapcloser, everyone have access to it now, we used to have cloak, now everyone can have it, we used to have assassin's will, now stamsorcs have it. Only shadow image left uniqe for us, but I wouldn't be surprised if they would nerf it or gave it in random skill line.

Feizao

Stravokov wrote: »

dodge shouldn't be tied to either magicka or stamina pools. it should be it's own resorce so everyone has the same amount to use in a fight.

other games have gotten that right, like Guild Wars 2. [snip]

[Edited to remove Bashing]

i agree. its difficult to play as a mag build against stam imo. Then to top it off playing as a magblade trying to land light and direct attacks. it frustrates me to watch a necro or warden wait 3 seconds for a hard hitting aoe while im trying to land 5 LAs and waste a global cooldown to activate a dodgeable bow. assuming i dont have to recast

Banana

Dottzgaming.com has a good one

Algorax

Somers23 wrote: »

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

It's an istant cast on single tartet, maning that you need a target to initiate it.
Now since it is an istant casting, it means that you should not be able to initiate it if your target vanishes, because you have no target anymore to start the attack and therefore cause the aoe. The footage clearly shows that the animation starts after the vanishing, that the vanish does not prevent the activation/targeting as intended.

burglar

Nightblade has had issues for so long that I find it hard to even talk about it, because it seems to fall on deaf ears. Issue after issue could be brought up over the years, but with every patch there's almost always been a nerf, and some change that doesn't seem to benefit the class. Sure, there are changes that have helped a bit, albeit awkwardly so - looking at you merciless resolve.

I don't know what to do, I've tried adapting to everything they've done, but it doesn't seem to work out. It's weird, but I actually feel offended by the way they've treated nightblade. I've spent so much time on my character and just continue to experience the same kinds of treatment. At this point, they've done everything but deleted the class, essentially removing any identity the rogue archetype had. I often feel like they're telling me indirectly to play a different class. All of this goes against their supposed desire to increase class identity.

It makes me mad, because Sorcerer and Templar always remain on top and are seemingly never nerfed. And, it's usually people that main Templar, Sorc or dragonknight that complain about cloak being unfair, or that ganking is unsportsmanlike. I don't know if the devs cater to them, but it sure feels like it, with one of the ways they cater to them being all the nerfs they apply to NB.

Iunno though, one could argue that I've created this for myself by playing a bosmer melee magicka nightblade. Thing is, they've done a good job of creating a melee variant of a mostly mage-like class, stamina sorcerer. Yet, they can't get melee magicka nightblade to work, or even just magicka nightblade, for that matter.

Lord-Otto

Algorax wrote: »

Somers23 wrote: »

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

It's an istant cast on single tartet, maning that you need a target to initiate it.
Now since it is an istant casting, it means that you should not be able to initiate it if your target vanishes, because you have no target anymore to start the attack and therefore cause the aoe. The footage clearly shows that the animation starts after the vanishing, that the vanish does not prevent the activation/targeting as intended.

Latency. The DK pushed the button before the NB cloaked, but on the NB's screen it looks like he cloaked first. Because your screen always lags a little behind with enemy input. It also explains "Phantom Range" in the Dark Souls games.

RedBeard_Viking

ya dude i fill ya its rough. Try playing a magcro pvp im pretty much done man lol.To be fair aside from horrible performence that needs to be worked on the game overall has better balance imo this patch.I quit for awhile and decided to come back an magcro still trash lol.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

Sad to see that none of these issue are adressed in the PTS.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_Gilliam
@ZOS_GinaBruno

colossalvoids

Seems like basic qol and fixes aren't something to consider when aiming for "some class adjustments from long standing player requests and outliers", which is a shame @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

Zelos

I mean I have to say, this is a pretty champion like thread. Highlights all the things wrong with stamina and magicka nightblade. Its really the only class whos burst is extremely easy to dodge and anticipate since there isnt much variation between skills at all.

Vermintide

Great thread and deserves to be kept bumped. I started playing this game pre-Morrowind, so pretty early days; and let me say this- nightblade has NEVER been an easy class. Yet with every update we've had nerf after nerf...

Some classes go up and down, some get the nerf bat one patch, they get buffed into broken OP territory next patch. Such is the way of things. But nightblade has always been a high skill ceiling class that gets destroyed instantly if you don't know what you're doing.

The last time I remember this class performing well for PVP was... Scalebreaker I think? Some time pre-Elseweyr anyhow. Since then things have just gotten more and more difficult, but nothing has ever been given to reward player's persistence with this class. It's a straight up disadvantage now compared to others.

Suggestions:

-Being able to stealth, heal and reset is not broken, it's what this class relied on. Allow is crit heals in stealth like we used to. Keep the class squishy as an insect to balance this out, by all means, but give us that option.

-If not that, then give us some other ways to mitigate damage back. We used to have things in our toolkit like maim on fear, good synergy with sets like Wizards Riposte, you could make a magblade that actually stood its ground and fought. It was balanced out because you sacrificed big burst to get that tankiness, and had to rely on a precise burst window where about 6 buffs were up and the planets were aligned. There was no need to destroy this playstyle, it was hard to pull off.

I had a lot more I wanted to say but getting this far has actually just made me realise the extent of what they did to this class, honestly. So much was taken with apparently not even a second thought to the impact. I'd go so far as saying this class is legitimately faulty right now. Broken, not fit for purpose, malfunctioning.

I should say I'm primarily concerned with PVP, for me that's where he real fun and reward of building your character is; so all of the above might sound crazy to a PVE player. As far as PVE goes, it's still a really good class. I have no idea what the ranking is of DPS tiers or whatever, but I know it's a really fun class to run around soloing huge groups of mobs etc with a constant selfheal, high crit and not having a boring fixed rotation. But PVP is just the polar opposite.

xI_The_Owl_Ix

Its been half a year and these issues still remain. None of these issue has been fixed or adjusted.

I know that magBlade performs really well in PvE but its bad/clunky in PvP.

Langeston

It's way worse now with these absurd proc sets, and the loss of that 10% mitigation hurts a bit too.

In order to get kills on other classes I have to go 100% offense, zero defense, and fairly low health (by today's new bloated standard). Meanwhile they're all able to build to be an unkillable [by me at least] tanks while still being capable of doing at least as much damage as me.

Even Templars & DKs (who, if you believe the forum posts are "dead classes"🙄) are just so much stronger. I can't imagine what those people would be saying if they tried rolling a magblade.

Deathlord92

Simple fixes that would help magblade give us major sorcery on our siphon strikes and I class burst heal.

Langeston

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Simple fixes that would help magblade give us major sorcery on our siphon strikes and I class burst heal.

The fact that every single one of my abilities can be reflected and/or dodged is a bigger issue for me. Especially now that well-fitted got buffed & impen isn't as necessary.

Kolzki

From what I’m seeing, swallow soul now doesn’t heal when it hits a shielded or blocking target. Can anyone confirm? Was this in patch notes that I missed?

JayKwellen

Langeston wrote: »

It's way worse now with these absurd proc sets, and the loss of that 10% mitigation hurts a bit too.

In order to get kills on other classes I have to go 100% offense, zero defense, and fairly low health (by today's new bloated standard). Meanwhile they're all able to build to be an unkillable [by me at least] tanks while still being capable of doing at least as much damage as me.

Even Templars & DKs (who, if you believe the forum posts are "dead classes"🙄) are just so much stronger. I can't imagine what those people would be saying if they tried rolling a magblade.

Every time I read about how "dead" they are, especially DK's, I wonder the same. Pretty sure they would rage quit the second they got slapped down by a DK or Templar and go back to their original class if they tried to magblade.

Regarding getting kills on a magblade, you don't totally have to spec fully into damage to get kills though. My current project is my newest magblade -- a dark cloak, heavy armor, 1 sustain set and 1 damage set brawler. It's a pretty even spread between damage (still hit 15k a 20ishk spec bow tooltip at least, respectable enough), sustain, and offense. And I can still kill people too!...

...except it takes foreeeeeever. Sometimes I'll be dueling someone and after 15 minutes of back and fourth we just both concede, wave, and go our separate ways. Sure, I can clap a paper thin light or medium armor wearing glass cannon no problem, but as soon as I come across a good stamden/stamcro/stamDK/magden, pretty much anyone with a decent grasp of the game who knows how to turtle down and recover or keep their HoTs up, the fights go on for ages as there's literally nothing I can do to burst through their healing and mitigation. To make myself tanky enough to brawl with your average stamina character I've had to sacrifice enough damage that I'm not much of a burst threat to anyone, instead I have to just slowly grind them down, kinda like an old school DK but less exciting. Which is fair I suppose, or would be, if stamina classes had to make the same sacrifices.

Langeston

JayKwellen wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

It's way worse now with these absurd proc sets, and the loss of that 10% mitigation hurts a bit too.

In order to get kills on other classes I have to go 100% offense, zero defense, and fairly low health (by today's new bloated standard). Meanwhile they're all able to build to be an unkillable [by me at least] tanks while still being capable of doing at least as much damage as me.

Even Templars & DKs (who, if you believe the forum posts are "dead classes"🙄) are just so much stronger. I can't imagine what those people would be saying if they tried rolling a magblade.

Every time I read about how "dead" they are, especially DK's, I wonder the same. Pretty sure they would rage quit the second they got slapped down by a DK or Templar and go back to their original class if they tried to magblade.

Regarding getting kills on a magblade, you don't totally have to spec fully into damage to get kills though. My current project is my newest magblade -- a dark cloak, heavy armor, 1 sustain set and 1 damage set brawler. It's a pretty even spread between damage (still hit 15k a 20ishk spec bow tooltip at least, respectable enough), sustain, and offense. And I can still kill people too!...

...except it takes foreeeeeever. Sometimes I'll be dueling someone and after 15 minutes of back and fourth we just both concede, wave, and go our separate ways. Sure, I can clap a paper thin light or medium armor wearing glass cannon no problem, but as soon as I come across a good stamden/stamcro/stamDK/magden, pretty much anyone with a decent grasp of the game who knows how to turtle down and recover or keep their HoTs up, the fights go on for ages as there's literally nothing I can do to burst through their healing and mitigation. To make myself tanky enough to brawl with your average stamina character I've had to sacrifice enough damage that I'm not much of a burst threat to anyone, instead I have to just slowly grind them down, kinda like an old school DK but less exciting. Which is fair I suppose, or would be, if stamina classes had to make the same sacrifices.

Literally everyone I know that has rolled a magblade over the last 6-9 months has had the exact same progression:

They all love it at first, and don't understand why people complain about it. They can't stop talking about how it's OP AF in BGs ... and then they hit level 50. They begin to notice that their magblade doesn't seem to hit as hard anymore & the survivability isn't quite as good, but they're still having a good bit of fun with it. Then, after playing enough BGs, they finally start seeing some high MMR matches — at that point, I never see them on their magblade again, lol.

No joke — that is how it goes every time. After about 3 weeks, they quietly go back to their sorc, DK, stamcro, warden, or stamblade & I never see them on their magblade again.

Deathlord92

Langeston wrote: »

JayKwellen wrote: »

Langeston wrote: »

It's way worse now with these absurd proc sets, and the loss of that 10% mitigation hurts a bit too.

In order to get kills on other classes I have to go 100% offense, zero defense, and fairly low health (by today's new bloated standard). Meanwhile they're all able to build to be an unkillable [by me at least] tanks while still being capable of doing at least as much damage as me.

Even Templars & DKs (who, if you believe the forum posts are "dead classes"🙄) are just so much stronger. I can't imagine what those people would be saying if they tried rolling a magblade.

Every time I read about how "dead" they are, especially DK's, I wonder the same. Pretty sure they would rage quit the second they got slapped down by a DK or Templar and go back to their original class if they tried to magblade.

Regarding getting kills on a magblade, you don't totally have to spec fully into damage to get kills though. My current project is my newest magblade -- a dark cloak, heavy armor, 1 sustain set and 1 damage set brawler. It's a pretty even spread between damage (still hit 15k a 20ishk spec bow tooltip at least, respectable enough), sustain, and offense. And I can still kill people too!...

...except it takes foreeeeeever. Sometimes I'll be dueling someone and after 15 minutes of back and fourth we just both concede, wave, and go our separate ways. Sure, I can clap a paper thin light or medium armor wearing glass cannon no problem, but as soon as I come across a good stamden/stamcro/stamDK/magden, pretty much anyone with a decent grasp of the game who knows how to turtle down and recover or keep their HoTs up, the fights go on for ages as there's literally nothing I can do to burst through their healing and mitigation. To make myself tanky enough to brawl with your average stamina character I've had to sacrifice enough damage that I'm not much of a burst threat to anyone, instead I have to just slowly grind them down, kinda like an old school DK but less exciting. Which is fair I suppose, or would be, if stamina classes had to make the same sacrifices.

Literally everyone I know that has rolled a magblade over the last 6-9 months has had the exact same progression:

They all love it at first, and don't understand why people complain about it. They can't stop talking about how it's OP AF in BGs ... and then they hit level 50. They begin to notice that their magblade doesn't seem to hit as hard anymore & the survivability isn't quite as good, but they're still having a good bit of fun with it. Then, after playing enough BGs, they finally start seeing some high MMR matches — at that point, I never see them on their magblade again, lol.

No joke — that is how it goes every time. After about 3 weeks, they quietly go back to their sorc, DK, stamcro, warden, or stamblade & I never see them on their magblade again.

Only way to play magblade is using 5 heavy or if your going light you have to wear armor master and even then it’s not enough against certain players with strong builds.

Lord-Otto

Magblade got a good buff with the bow change and can actually benefit from vamp stage 2, unlike any other class (yes, really, not up for debate). I would say the class for itself is alright.
What's not alright is magicka classes in general (except sorc). Worse damage, damage delivery, sustain, slot management, sets and weapon passives just don't make up for a bit group utility. I would suggest buffing magicka classes first (except sorc) and then see if magblade still falls short.

Langeston

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Magblade got a good buff with the bow change and can actually benefit from vamp stage 2, unlike any other class (yes, really, not up for debate). I would say the class for itself is alright.
What's not alright is magicka classes in general (except sorc). Worse damage, damage delivery, sustain, slot management, sets and weapon passives just don't make up for a bit group utility. I would suggest buffing magicka classes first (except sorc) and then see if magblade still falls short.

What do you mean? Any vamp that slots Mist Form can take advantage of the stage 2 passive. In fact, I've been toying around with using Mist Form myself instead of Cloak because of how FUBAR Cloak is right now.

As far as the Merciless change goes, while it was definitely a buff in PVE it was a lateral move at best in PVP. Losing the 10% mitigation was a lot more noticeable than gaining a 2%-10% crit damage buff (which is at best a 5% damage buff in no CP, even less in CP.) If survivability on light armor magblades was already bad, it's downright abysmal now.

I literally go days at a time without seeing another magblade in a BG. That's not a sign of a class being in a good spot.

JayKwellen

Langeston wrote: »

@Langeston Literally everyone I know that has rolled a magblade over the last 6-9 months has had the exact same progression:

They all love it at first, and don't understand why people complain about it. They can't stop talking about how it's OP AF in BGs ... and then they hit level 50. They begin to notice that their magblade doesn't seem to hit as hard anymore & the survivability isn't quite as good, but they're still having a good bit of fun with it. Then, after playing enough BGs, they finally start seeing some high MMR matches — at that point, I never see them on their magblade again, lol.

No joke — that is how it goes every time. After about 3 weeks, they quietly go back to their sorc, DK, stamcro, warden, or stamblade & I never see them on their magblade again.

Lmao that was my story too. Prior to the mNB I was a stamDK, before that a magplar, before that a magsorc. Each one was really great at something. Great burst, great healing, combination of each, all that good stuff. Once I started the magblade at first everything was cool, then I hit the same wall you're talking about. I even made a threat on the forums some months back asking for advice in dealing with those exact issues, low survivability and low damage, because I just couldn't figure out what was wrong. Coming from a sDK and seeing my light attacks and soul swallows hit for less than half of what I was used to was disheartening.

After a while I actually took a break from my magblade for a bit and made a stamden, and I suddenly felt OP as hell lol. Like a god amongst men. You mean I can be tanky and have amazing AoE burst and have amazing healing? At the same time?? On the same build??? I've basically deconstructed that character at this point, but by the end of it I was running something really gross with like 5k wep damage with almost 80% total mitigation while still having 28k+ health and basically endless sustain.

Then, for reasons I can't explain other than mental illness, I shelved the warden and went back to the NB, where I've remained since.