Refreshing Path!

OWLTHEMAD

What do you guys think about refreshing path?

As a pve healing skill how does it fair?

In this context what are its strengths an weaknesses.

How about in pvp?
Does anyone use this skill in pvp?
Anyone use it on a non healing spec as a self heal?

The big question, to all player types. do you use it for major expedition? Is it a good source for this buff in certain situations? Or do you find the major expedition to be pointless, a waste of power budget or in some cases even a nuisance?

The removal of major expedition from cripple was near universally disaproved by the nightblade community and at the time leaving path as its only nightblade source was generally despised.

Recently however i have heard a number of voices coming out and speaking to the efficacy and utility of the ability.

So now i am trying to figure out the community consensus.

If you dissaprove for any reason, explain why.

If you use and approve of the skill in regards to the major expedition buff, explain why and in what context you use it. Many of us would love to hear the ideas!

ninjaguyman

I use refreshing path still on my magblade in pvp for both the hot(self heal) as well as the expedition. mostly because I use phantasmal escape instead of race against time for snare removal and I value aoe mitigation over the crit damage. For my build I'd use refreshing path with phantasmal escape or a regen morph with rat. I almost always go with the former because I tend to build tankier, as well as because I detest the fact that regen has the chance to not apply to myself when I want it to and hit some other nearby teammates. I still run brp resto and healing ward for an extra possible hot. Having two skills that can randomly not hit me got old real fast.

My own beefs with path as a skill are:
1. They took the damage off it (yes I'm still salty about that).
2. I almost never let path run its full duration before refreshing it as I'm usually on the move while fighting. Path is already more expensive than regen, and I'm refreshing it pretty much twice as often(atleast in the case of radiating regen, which is the one I would choose).

For your questions, yes, I use path specifically as my build's source of expedition as well as one of the multiple HoTs i use to self heal. If there is a waste of a power budget, it would be the part where it also gives expedition to allies. Expedition should have never been removed from the other nb skills and I for the most part disagree with the redundancy pass zos did. Having redundancy in some skills allowed for more build flexibility, but even if zos were adamant in no redundancy, I feel the skills they chose to keep certain buffs was wrong. I'd have preferred phantasmal escape(or whatever the old morph name was called) to still have major exp over both path and cripple. Essentially race against time but with mitigation as the extra part. I also would have preferred mass hysteria to have minor maim rather than shade.

Kadoin

I don't slot it in PvP or PvE. If I will die on NB, gonna die lol. There isn't really much you can do, bar slot some carry proc sets like Hist...

WrathOfInnos

I don’t like the AoE expedition. By definition you’ll move out of that area quickly. A movement buff that only lasts if you’re not moving. Cripple was a much better place for expedition, and is now nearly a dead skill (low single target DoT, no important buffs or debuffs).

For others nearby, the AoE expedition can be annoying more than helpful. Especially when trying to fine-tune positioning for various trial mechanics, and uncontrollable boost of speed is dangerous.

Refreshing Path should get its damage back. Obviously not as much as Twisting, but maybe 75-80% of that. Then Magblades would have to make a real choice between utility/support or more damage. With the current morphs there’s no choice at all, DD’s take the damage morph, healers take the heal morph. It’s boring and leads to zero build variety.

Hotdog_23

I enjoy the expedition speed burst on my Magblade healer. A few well-placed Refreshing Path helps speed up dungeon runs.

ccfeeling

Zos destroyed the NB healing concept.

AcadianPaladin

When the red twisty path lost the ability to simultaneously heal and damage, I retired my Nightblades.

Iskiab

It’s decent in pve if people stack. It’s easy to hit melee and the tank with it as a NB healer.

In pvp it’s meh. Area is too small, I think there’s meant to be a synergy between phantasmal escape and refreshing path since one gives you expedition and the other cc immunity, but bar space makes it unrealistic. It’s similar to DKs in that way, it becomes wings or expedition because of bar space crunch.

It also takes 4 ticks to reach the same amount of healing as combat prayer, and since pvp revolves around lots of movement typically the healing on path isn’t good.

If it was refreshing aura and not refreshing path, so the area moved with me I’d use it for sure. It’s just that with a small area it’s not good.

I use it in some BGs. Typically if I think the expedition is helping people I use it. A lot of times it isn’t and I swop in concealed weapons instead... and my survivability goes up. In pve use it as a heal, in pvp it‘a best used for the shadow passives or expedition I’ve learned.

OWLTHEMAD

Iskiab wrote: »

It’s decent in pve if people stack. It’s easy to hit melee and the tank with it as a NB healer.

In pvp it’s meh. Area is too small, I think there’s meant to be a synergy between phantasmal escape and refreshing path since one gives you expedition and the other cc immunity, but bar space makes it unrealistic. It’s similar to DKs in that way, it becomes wings or expedition because of bar space crunch.

It also takes 4 ticks to reach the same amount of healing as combat prayer, and since pvp revolves around lots of movement typically the healing on path isn’t good.

If it was refreshing aura and not refreshing path, so the area moved with me I’d use it for sure. It’s just that with a small area it’s not good.

I use it in some BGs. Typically if I think the expedition is helping people I use it. A lot of times it isn’t and I swop in concealed weapons instead... and my survivability goes up. In pve use it as a heal, in pvp it‘a best used for the shadow passives or expedition I’ve learned.

I agree with the intended synergy part.

What ive noticed is its actually a really strong settup in duels what with the limited combat space and all but simply has no viability in pvp outside that context. If it had a different buff on it i could see it being strong, but i honestly cant figure out a use case that doesnt involve dueling, which as far as i know also avoids the disadvantages of battlespirit.

Iskiab

OWLTHEMAD wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

It’s decent in pve if people stack. It’s easy to hit melee and the tank with it as a NB healer.

In pvp it’s meh. Area is too small, I think there’s meant to be a synergy between phantasmal escape and refreshing path since one gives you expedition and the other cc immunity, but bar space makes it unrealistic. It’s similar to DKs in that way, it becomes wings or expedition because of bar space crunch.

It also takes 4 ticks to reach the same amount of healing as combat prayer, and since pvp revolves around lots of movement typically the healing on path isn’t good.

If it was refreshing aura and not refreshing path, so the area moved with me I’d use it for sure. It’s just that with a small area it’s not good.

I use it in some BGs. Typically if I think the expedition is helping people I use it. A lot of times it isn’t and I swop in concealed weapons instead... and my survivability goes up. In pve use it as a heal, in pvp it‘a best used for the shadow passives or expedition I’ve learned.

I agree with the intended synergy part.

What ive noticed is its actually a really strong settup in duels what with the limited combat space and all but simply has no viability in pvp outside that context. If it had a different buff on it i could see it being strong, but i honestly cant figure out a use case that doesnt involve dueling, which as far as i know also avoids the disadvantages of battlespirit.

Duels? I don’t duel much, I didn’t think it’d be useful there either.

I used to use it a while back and how it works has changed quite a bit over time, but there was no patch note so it might have been unintentionally.

At one point the hot lasted as long as the expedition (so after leaving the path) which made it okayish. Then it stopped. You used to be able to run in a straight line and you’d run off the end of the path before it’d refresh, but now it’ll refresh once (so 2 heal ticks). I mainly stopped using it when it wasn’t coded as a hot so didn’t proc transmutation, but someone said that’s been fixed, no idea if that’s true.

Trans was never a great magblade set because refreshing only procs it if you heal someone with it, so they need to be sub 100% health and be in the path when it ticks. Compared to a templar who’s ritual will proc trans on full health people it just seemed dumb.

OWLTHEMAD

Sounds dumb. As far as duels, yeah its really strong. You can basicaly just dance around the aoe, with swallow soul and regen the only way your going down is with s heavy hitting really heavy hitting burst. You take no pressure at all. Against melee opponents you just let them come to you and go to work.

Stx

I think when you compare refreshing path with ritual of retribution it falls flat.

But I do enjoy using it in dungeons just because making your whole group run faster between trash packs is fun. Not that it is super useful but still.