Magblade in U32 (PvP)

Urzigurumash

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Is there any chance MagNB is too effective at large scale potato mashing to get the buffs it needs to be competitive in 1v1 / smallscale between experienced players?

On our server it's quite conspicuous: MagNBs have been a rare sight in the popular dueling spots for years, and are much, much less popular in high MMRs BGs then they were years ago.

On the other hand, year after year, this class earns the most AP in Cyrodiil. So perhaps some look at that and say, why would this class need buffs? It's almost like the inverse of MagDK over the last few years: premier duelist, decent in BGs, but a fairly uncommon class in Cyrodiil.

In other words, is MagNB a victim of the outrageously overpowered state Vicious Death has been in for years, because this set has been necessary to limit the power of zerging?

(PS: these thoughts are all pre-Dark Convergence)

Don't think so, I just believe people don't know proper nightblade counterplay.
If you watch ganking videos a lot of times people die because they turn their backs on nightblades as soon as they start ganking because they panic, but turning your back to a NB only makes it easier for them.
On top of that, lots of people don't adequately block on flags, they just sit their completely exposed nor do they run reveals, detects, Zoals monster helm, etc. They just don't know proper counterplay to NBS. Lots of magblades don't even run crippling grasp, which IMO a magblade running crippling grasp and following with concealed weapon stun is worse than getting with fossilize from a DK. Because that combo has high damage, immobilize, stun and snare capabilities. Hell most magblades bombers don't even need to run Mark Target

Magblade bombers mostly succeed because the players leave themselve vulnerable half of the time, I rarely personally get successfully bombed unless there's multiple magblades that hit me at once.
I don't think it's that Magblade is too effective, I think it's just people aren't accustomed to fighting magblade style and therefore don't know proper counterplay. Like I'm sure most players have never been hit with crippling grasp into concealed weapon stun combo or the fear trap, etc.

Sounds likely, kind of gets to the question: is the perceived decrease in mNB Power over the years partly related to the general increase in their opponent's Skill?

Langeston

Urzigurumash wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Is there any chance MagNB is too effective at large scale potato mashing to get the buffs it needs to be competitive in 1v1 / smallscale between experienced players?

On our server it's quite conspicuous: MagNBs have been a rare sight in the popular dueling spots for years, and are much, much less popular in high MMRs BGs then they were years ago.

On the other hand, year after year, this class earns the most AP in Cyrodiil. So perhaps some look at that and say, why would this class need buffs? It's almost like the inverse of MagDK over the last few years: premier duelist, decent in BGs, but a fairly uncommon class in Cyrodiil.

In other words, is MagNB a victim of the outrageously overpowered state Vicious Death has been in for years, because this set has been necessary to limit the power of zerging?

(PS: these thoughts are all pre-Dark Convergence)

Don't think so, I just believe people don't know proper nightblade counterplay.
If you watch ganking videos a lot of times people die because they turn their backs on nightblades as soon as they start ganking because they panic, but turning your back to a NB only makes it easier for them.
On top of that, lots of people don't adequately block on flags, they just sit their completely exposed nor do they run reveals, detects, Zoals monster helm, etc. They just don't know proper counterplay to NBS. Lots of magblades don't even run crippling grasp, which IMO a magblade running crippling grasp and following with concealed weapon stun is worse than getting with fossilize from a DK. Because that combo has high damage, immobilize, stun and snare capabilities. Hell most magblades bombers don't even need to run Mark Target

Magblade bombers mostly succeed because the players leave themselve vulnerable half of the time, I rarely personally get successfully bombed unless there's multiple magblades that hit me at once.
I don't think it's that Magblade is too effective, I think it's just people aren't accustomed to fighting magblade style and therefore don't know proper counterplay. Like I'm sure most players have never been hit with crippling grasp into concealed weapon stun combo or the fear trap, etc.

Sounds likely, kind of gets to the question: is the perceived decrease in mNB Power over the years partly related to the general increase in their opponent's Skill?

I would say no, personally.

Due to PVE concerns, Magblades were fairly consistently nerfed during the same period that ZOS introduced two classes seemingly designed from the ground up to excel at PVP, while other classes such as Magsorc seemed to be handled with kid-gloves, receiving [relatively] minimal nerfs and in many cases significant buffs (BoL & Matriarch, for instance.)

ZOS deciding to implement cast times/minimum travel times didn't help the situation much, seeing as magblades utilize single-target abilities almost exclusively and those are the type of abilities that are disproportionately negatively impacted by such changes — it's much easier to dodge Soul Harvest than it is to dodge AoEs like Leap or Crescent Sweep, and adding cast times only exacerbated that.

I also suspect that NBs were hurt worse than most when the current combat team decided to go and pare the skill trees of "redundancies." I can't say for certain because that occurred before I started playing the game, but after going through the NB skills on USEP and reading about how they've been changed over the years I got the impression that the previous combat team had a pretty unique perspective on how the NB toolkit was supposed to work/synergize, and I don't think the current team understands the logic that they were using. For example, it makes sense to me that a class that relies heavily on damage avoidance rather than mitigation or healing to have multiple sources of Major Expedition — I think that such a "redundancy" was logical and intentional.

In any case, I think the damage that the current team has done has gotten to the point that it's irreversible at this stage of the game. Cast times are obviously going nowhere, and the NB toolkit is never going to get the promised "skill audit" that it desperately needs.

Urzigurumash

Makes sense, especially the projectile travel time change, combined with what @Thecompton73 said about weaving Swallow Soul. For me that used to be a fairly difficult thing to duel against in overland, I remember a decent number of solo mNBs out there that would use that technique. I think I've had one overland duel versus a Dark Cloak mNB in the last year or two.

Pretty much all the old burst Ults are easier to avoid or block than they used to be though. Again I'm not sure how much of that is due to cast times and how much might be due to general "Skill Creep".

VarisVaris

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

robpr

VarisVaris wrote: »

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

Is the 300 sd/wd on 5 stacks of bow a buff though

Tommy_The_Gun

VarisVaris wrote: »

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

It is nice to see, but Malevolent Offering all of the sudden scales with spell damage & max magicka, as it costs max magicka. It is a huge game changer, as this skill used to scale with max health - so both NB tanks, NB mag and NB stam build could use it.

Now it is going to only benefit mag NB.

On PTS with 15K mag & 2.5K spell damage I have 8.5K tooltip and 4.2K in Cyro. Also, this skill can now crit. So you could imagine what tooltip you would get on a fully magicka build. With 30K+ max magicka and 4.5K spell damage, you could probably have 20K tooltip & 10K in Cyro.

Idk, I am all-in NB buff, but 10K burst heal in PvP sounds broken to me.

VarisVaris

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

VarisVaris wrote: »

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

It is nice to see, but Malevolent Offering all of the sudden scales with spell damage & max magicka, as it costs max magicka. It is a huge game changer, as this skill used to scale with max health - so both NB tanks, NB mag and NB stam build could use it.

Now it is going to only benefit mag NB.

On PTS with 15K mag & 2.5K spell damage I have 8.5K tooltip and 4.2K in Cyro. Also, this skill can now crit. So you could imagine what tooltip you would get on a fully magicka build. With 30K+ max magicka and 4.5K spell damage, you could probably have 20K tooltip & 10K in Cyro.

Idk, I am all-in NB buff, but 10K burst heal in PvP sounds broken to me.

it's no different to the other burst heals classes have access to and this one comes with a health drain aswell

VarisVaris

robpr wrote: »

VarisVaris wrote: »

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

Is the 300 sd/wd on 5 stacks of bow a buff though

in terms of damage probably a loss but the healing it provides is nice to have

Stx

robpr wrote: »

VarisVaris wrote: »

Another week of pts and another wave of Magnb buffs, very welcomed and pretty nice changes overall, the cherry on top would be a minimum traveltime reduction on strife but those changes are far more than I've expected.

Is the 300 sd/wd on 5 stacks of bow a buff though

I would imagine it's a slight nerf from 10% crit damage but when you add in the damned crit cap they are doing, it becomes a significant buff. Compared to the 5% damage I believe 300 flat damage is better.

kuschlwuschl116

now please please please move major sorcery and brutality from Drain Power to Siphoning Strikes

SoulwayFilth

Liking the sound of these changes, don't know if my MagNB will die in BG now. An increase in HOT for dark cloak + an actual self heal. Amazing.

Irisa37

azjuwelz wrote: »

I main a stamblade, and I've played every class in pvp except Templar. I love my magblade for vet trials, but she's completely useless in pvp. I think the biggest difference between her and my stamblade is the lack of any kind of burst heal. Sure you can cloak and hope nobody's using detect pots or you can spam the Harness Magicka but that only lasts a few seconds, and Swallow Soul is just a HOT and worthless if you can't target anything.

A delayed damage ability would be nice as well. Oh, and Mark Target is the most useless skill--not needed in pve and just a huge red flag to the enemy in pvp. This does not satisfy the need for a burst heal.

I share a lot of your experiences. My magblade is my main for PvE and PvP, but she is so much better in PvE that the comparison is night and day. In PvP, trying to hit anyone is a nightmare because so many of our abilities can just be dodged easily and the slow cast time is a real issue. The lack of a burst heal is definitely the most significant problem, as heal over time from Rapid Regeneration (assuming it actually targets me instead of another friendly player) is just not strong enough in the high damage meta that dominates at the moment.

Reaper's Mark and Piercing Mark do have their uses, however, I stopped running them, as the damage bonus was not that spectacular and the warning sign that they give is rather obvious and just results in other players either kiting, dodging, or just using terrain to block line of sight until it ends.

@Urzigurumash - On an earlier point that you raised in this topic, magblade bombers can be effective, but they do rely on players not protecting themselves, being grouped on a flag, and are not really the issue that is being debated here. The same is true of gank builds. What we're talking about here is regular magicka Nigthblade builds for group play or 1vX being too vulnerable defensively (no burst heal) and lacking offensive damage output for various reasons (see above).

Stx

SoulwayFilth wrote: »

Likinf the sounds of thses changes, dont known if my magnb will die in bg now. An increase in hot for dark cloak + an actual self heal. Amazing.

Yeah.. I've been surviving so long with just Rapid regen, dark cloak, and siphoning strikes. Adding a burst heal and stronger dark cloak will be crazy. Although I'll have to drop a skill for it. Maybe mirage..

fred4

Langeston wrote: »

I also suspect that NBs were hurt worse than most when the current combat team decided to go and pare the skill trees of "redundancies." I can't say for certain because that occurred before I started playing the game, but after going through the NB skills on USEP and reading about how they've been changed over the years I got the impression that the previous combat team had a pretty unique perspective on how the NB toolkit was supposed to work/synergize, and I don't think the current team understands the logic that they were using. For example, it makes sense to me that a class that relies heavily on damage avoidance rather than mitigation or healing to have multiple sources of Major Expedition — I think that such a "redundancy" was logical and intentional.

Those were some of the most hare-brained decisions. You can't design combat like an accountant. There is limited bar space. Major Expedition was on several skills to facilitate different builds and have enough bar space to do so. The original design team understood this and designed skills with playstyles in mind. Opening with Crippling Grasp was once a common strategy, a slow projectile that would hit with your other opening attack.

The root from that skill was always strong. I think the original version of this skill overlapped with Zaan for a while. The combination of the root and the speed could make it very difficult to get away from a Zaan nightblade. This was before the common sources of speed we have now and before the root cooldown.

On the whole, though, the skill was designed for kiting. To keep melee players at a distance while you were on a squishy build. None of the effects outside of the root were particularly strong. It wasn't easy to kite. You still needed practice. ZOS, as per usual, overnerfed Crippling Grasp to where that playstyle is but a distant memory. They got rid of the speed on Double Take too, inexplicably only leaving the speed on Path, which was the daftest skill to leave the speed on. I still see it used occasionally, but who needs a signpost "nightblade was here"? Race Against Time is, by far, the most obvious skill that will make it onto your bar, these days.

Just a fun historical tidbit: Before Wild Hunt, before Swift, before everything like that, we had (and still have) Skooma Smuggler. The original implementation of Refreshing Path had a bug. When you cast the skill you normally got 4 seconds of speed. However, if you activated Skooma Smuggler, Refreshing Path would reset the Skooma Smuggler timeout. Thus it was enough to use Refreshing Path once every 30 seconds and you would get permanent Major Expedition.

Foxtrot39

While the changes to malevolant offering are nice for magblade, they're also destructive of tank support and sustain healer

Like MANY pointed out, one morph should cost magicka, scale with magicka and allow self heal, the other would be the current live server version

So there is the option to be able to self heal and heal others but using magicka everytime or heal others only at the cost of your own health wich it scale from

Just cutting the cake in half shouldn't be that hard to do right ? /s *cough*stamwhip*cough*

Consuming darkness and all morphs are total crap though no way around that, it get outclassed by meditation with the passive in term of caster benefit,

While the heal synergy only redeeming quality is that it can be used in a 20s window and remove agro on the ally that use it, caster just get craped on in the meantime

Urzigurumash

@Irisa37

I know, my question was whether mNB's occupation of the "ecological niche" of Vicious Death Envelope meant that it was generating so much AP - and being Emp'd so frequently - that it wasn't getting the attention it needed for more normal smallscale play.

An antiquated idea, obviously, since the introduction of Dark Convergence has relieved mNB from its VD duty.