A hard look at NB invisibility and why I believe it requires a cool-down.

MindOfTheSwarm

I know that this topic is a controversial one and has been talked about for years, but there is no denying that Cloak in its current form is broken. But first let’s clarify what I mean by broken.

I don’t mean the skill is broken, I mean it breaks the game.

Let me elaborate, for years people in PvP have complained at the power of cloak and what it brings to Nightblade ganks. As such over the years it has been nerfed whether through increased costs or reductions in durations. These direct nerfs are one things. However, what is worse and more detrimental to the class, are the abundance of indirect nerfs.

These include but are not limited to;
i. Cast times on important skills in the NB kit such as Teleport Strike and Death Stroke. Skills which many believe should be instant cast.
ii. An over reliance on proc sets when it comes to attacking out of stealth.
iii: Passives in the CO specifically designed to counter this one mechanic such as breaking free at no cost. This removes the delay from a manual break free and thus is a free escape from an NB gank.

iii. Three skills specifically designed to counter stealth. Forcing many players to run at least one reveal. This is bad in 2 ways. One it takes up a skill slot, and 2 it can totally destroy a gankblade from being remotely feasible if enough people are running a reveal skill. Making such a build useless.

I could go on and on but it just seems to me that so much of addressing stealth is done in elaborate and pointless changes to the fundamentals of the game. This is why it is broken. It breaks the game in that much of PvP balancing is centered on a single skill. Furthermore, it breaks NB’s themselves preventing buffs to the class.
Grim focus is another skill that got nerfed, all because it was easy to burst out of stealth with it. Nightblades are held back from much needed buffs by their own skill.


With that out of the way, I would like to stress. GANKING is and should be ok. The issue is the frequency that a Nightblade can do it.

This is why I 100% believe a cooldown is necessary. Let’s say 4-8 seconds with 2 seconds of reveal immunity to offset the cooldown and it would last forever until broken. Here are a list of pros and cons as I see it:

Pros:
1. Stealth lasting forever is good for NB as it allows them to activate it and not worry about spamming it to remain hidden. Making PvE stealth play more smooth and allowing easier prep time in PvP (you could go in with a full Magicka pool instead of half your resources missing.)

2. The cooldown is good for players countering NB ganks. It gives them some time to effectively counter the gank and not worry about an NB spamming stealth over and over. It’s also good for NB as a cooldown gives it opportunity to offer extra mechanics to other skills while stealthed enabling a stronger gank. This is good for all, as it increases the strength of a gank but also increases the risk making ganking a tactical decision rather than just opposing up an anyone with little risk if it fails.

3. 2 Seconds of reveal immunity on activation is also good for both the NB and opponents as it means a NB does not have to spam stealth in order to get away as 2 seconds should provide ample time to get out of the way without fear of reveal effects. It’s also good for opponents as spamming reveal effects would no longer be necessary. Once revealed a NB would have to rely on other skills to survive until they can stealth again.

4. Shoe boxing viable gank builds with proc sets and 2 handed skills would cease. Especially if other NB skills gained extra benefits while stealthed. Allowing the Assassination line to serve as what it is supposed to do without being over shadowed by out of class options.

5. Better resource management for the NB. The skill could even be free to cast if it had a cool-down.

6. A cooldown would as mentioned earlier, open up the possibility of extra effects on other skills while stealthed, creating an opportunity for stealth to be usable in endgame trials.

7. Nightblades and by extension PVP would no longer have as much balancing focus centered on cloak.

Cons:

1. The cooldown is also a con for NB that like to use it at will. A cooldown will force more tactical play. Some players don’t want high risk high reward.

2. Change how stealth is used forcing a change of play style particularly in PvP. Example would be NB would be better opening up from standard stealth and using cloak to get away. Or opening up from cloak and then either evading with other abilities or popping a stealth pot for emergency escapes.

This is basically it in a nutshell. There are other points I could have laid out but I have to go to work now.

Basically in conclusion:

A cooldown would create a high risk high reward play style.

Currently, the play style is high risk low reward. While forcing so many other restrictions for the rest of the game. Which is not balanced in my opinion. A cool down makes room for buffs. It’s current form does not.

gariondavey

Have you even tried playing a nb? Against any groups that are somewhat competent, you will not be able to stealth. At all.

daim

Its not only controversal topic but also beaten to death over the years. [snip]

[edited to remove rude remarks]

Brrrofski

I've been playing on a new server. I'm around 700 CP.

I'm still not getting one shot by gankers.

If you are, work on you build.

Cloak is perfectly fine as it is. It's super easy to pull NBs out of stealth - most use cloak in a super obvious way.

Son of your points (most actually) makes very little sense.

Snamyap

Sure, let's screw over pve Nightblades for pvp, again...

Amottica

gariondavey wrote: »

Have you even tried playing a nb? Against any groups that are somewhat competent, you will not be able to stealth. At all.

I agree.

OP comments that there are skills designed to pulls NBs out of stealth forcing many players to run at least one reveal. I find it odd that someone would complain about a game having solid counters to the use of a skill. After all, how many builds in PvP lack a heal? How many magicka build lack a shield?

Exactly. No one is forced to do anything. Builds, and well-organized groups, choose skills wisely.

Besides, OP even acknowledges these reveals would still be important with their suggested change as the note that the NB would be immune to reveals for a short time. As such it changes nothing concerning this point.

TheImperfect

NB is just fine, needs buffing if anything.

TechMaybeHic

Some of your initial assessment is right as far as weird balancing to deal with things out of cloak. I'd include requiring combat for some sets to proc as one. But your points and conclusion are off.

I'd argue a cool down but having it be unbreakable raises the floor and lowers the ceiling making it easier and less strategic for both the NB who now should rely on shadow image rather than just spam cloak; and for those that know how to counter as if the NB gets guaranteed time to get out of PBAOE with cloak that the good ones make good use of shadow image to do now.

It's actually not too bad now. I rarely get ganked successfully unless it's someone who has a good proc and all their burst ready to go and they're good at it; then it's lag roulette to see if I can't heal and/or break free with a dodge roll, or they cant follow up their opener.

fred4

We've probably butted heads on this before. My main question would be: Why cover all of this old ground when ZOS have tidied up Shadowy Disguise quite recently. It's now more reliable and yet it's counters are better defined and more powerful.

My main character is a perma-cloaking magblade. As such this post is personal to me. The first thing I want to remind people of is that this kind of spec, the spec that can actually spam cloak, has always come with a lot of sacrifices. That said, I'm happy with how the game stands today. I think the spec is currently somewhat competitive without being OP. Where it should be.

Your post is basically an attack on a very specific playstyle. My playstyle. A somewhat rare one. I run that spec, because I enjoy the quality of life that comes with it, not because it is especially powerful. It is more powerful to build for just as much mag sustain as you need for combat and juggle occasional cloaking with crouching, being visible and Shadow Image, even as a magblade. You end up with higher weapon / spell damage.

I have to confess, I didn't read all of your proposals. First of all, I obviously don't see a problem. You assert that there is one. I don't see it. Secondly I'm just happy ZOS did some detail work on Shadowy Disguise already. Let sleeping dogs lie. You think they would get whatever you're proposing right, first time, even if it was the solution to anything and everything on paper. No way.

The game works as it is for a speedy high-cloak sustain magblade in PvP. ZOS have fixed most of the reliability issues that Shadowy Disguise had. When it fails, it is rarely due to some obscure / inscrutable reason anymore, which was the problem that drove NB players mad in the past. There are, however, some that remain. Notably NPCs in IC still do what they want. They can knock you out of cloak repeatedly. In those cases I need to be able to recloak. This is just off the top of my head. You think I want another debugging session over a year, or more, of patches? No.

You mention ganking. A true ganker only needs one or two casts of cloak at a time. After that, their target is dead or they Shadow Image out. I want to dispel some misconceptions. Yes, there are all these cast time delays. On gap closers, on ultimates, on Grim Focus. What those have done is merely change how burst works. You can no longer reliably stun with Mass Hysteria into Grim Focus. You can, however, chain Death Stroke or Grim Focus into Concealed / Surprise Attack or an execute. While the greatest beneficiary of that was arguably DK (Leap -> Execute in same GCD), this goes for any class. If a nightblade wants to truly build for one shots, they still can. I've been hit by some. I've analyzed their burst. They (or at least some) omit leading with a heavy or light attack to make the most of the Incap delay into the next attack. While many people have been moaning about the loss of their old playstyle, others just got on with it.

To be honest, this is a case where I think ZOS reasoning was faulty and all of those 400ms cast times should be reverted full stop. Yes, as an experienced player I can hear Incap and dodge roll, but I have that in my bones. When I feel tunnel vision setting in, I'm already a hair trigger away from dodge rolling. Be on the attack or simply be visible as a nightblade yourself, count to 3, dodge roll to avoid the Incap / Soul Harvest from some nightblade you didn't see. Yes, the 400ms second delay helps the target a bit, if they are an experienced player. Does it help the PvP noob this change was directed at? I highly doubt it. Instead, what it mostly does, is make the game feel laggy, even when there is no actual lag. Gap closers and ultimates feel like crap now. They either miss, due to positional desyncs or they get double-cast, because you have no immediate feedback on whether you successfully targeted the ... target. That change only made the game feel worse.

Finally, let me dispel points iii and iv from your original post. The Slippery passive in CP. You say this removes the delay from a manual break free. No it does not. It makes it happen automatically and it removes the cost, once every 21 seconds, but it still takes a GCD. In order to automatically counter many a ganker - but not all - you have to invest in the Zoal monster set as well. Even with that you are still vulnerable to ranged attacks and to gankers on an immovability potion.

Regarding point iv, two things. One is that stealth counters were always a problem. For example the Sentry set has unlimited detection range, limited only by draw distance. I've had a whole afternoon ruined by a single guy turning up at the hotspots in Cyrodiil, hunting nightblades (me). That was many patches ago, before all the changes. The game has always relied on making detection just inconvenient enough for many people not to bother or for newer players being clumsy with it. Which leads to the next rebuttal: You don't truly need detection. That's why many people don't bother. You do need it, if you want to hunt nightblades actively. However, if you just want to survive, you don't. You just need to be patient, tanky, block, maybe wear Zoal. That's in a 1v1. In a 1vX or AvA, yeah, nightblades can be a pain, but boy am I hunted by the players who actually know what they're doing. That doesn't just include detection. That includes, Streak, Jabs, the templar ult, being one shot by a leap. Being cursed by a sorc can put me out of action for 12 seconds in an AvA, because exposure at the wrong time is death. Multiple sorcs are especially nasty. Purifying Light is the same, but at least expires after 6 seconds. Asserting there are only hard counters to Cloak is wrong.

Beardimus

Anyone that beats one is annoying.
I'll agree NB beating oneself is that bit more annoying, as gank play feels sneaky. Especially in battlegrounds

But ALL classes need their pro and con and class defining style. It's very much paper, scissor, stone.

Given the counters, even in small scale solos can manage NBs (reveal pots, delayed damage) the balance is about right.

I'll repeat, I HATE dying to NBs.

Some NBs on here campaign for changes to reveal pots and I would say that's wrong. But with them how they are the balance Is ok.

If you are getting one banged by NBs something up with your build..

rbfrgsp

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

olsborg

A few years ago, sure. But now you have many means of revealing and preventing a nb from cloaking, wich makes using cloak a very situational skill. It does not require any cooldowns or limitations whatsoever in my opinion.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

I only gank I got to say this proposed version of cloak is vastly superior to the current version. I assume he means that the cooldown starts when you exit stealth, but even that would be very strong. Could easily roll spam or teleport to shade for 4 seconds before it came off cd and then you would be nearly impossible to reveal. Then if zos uses this as an excuse to buff nb we would become very strong.

I think speeding up the projectile speed on grim focus and its morphs or turning it into a melee attack when in melee range would be a good enough nb buff. Don't need infinite cloak with reveal immunity. Would be a little bit too OP.

the1andonlyskwex

This feels like a buff thread disguised as a nerf thread. A short cooldown on cloak won't solve any of its problems, and adding reveal immunity and infinite duration will make the existing problems much worse.

fred4

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

I completely agree with that assessment. That change favors stamblades who already have minimum cloak sustain. Be a vampire and approach the target in crouch only. This is something you probably want to do anyway, because attacking from crouch, from behind boosts heavy attacks. The OP completely underestimates the amount of ground you can subsequently cover within two seconds of reveal immunity. Wild Hunt plus a dodge roll on the bow bar should do the trick. No need to invest into more speed.

As usual these kind of proposals hit the historically weaker spec - magblade - and even then the particular kind of magblade that invests into high cloak sustain. Not all do. Proposals also invariably target cloak and forget about Shadow Image. They don't take into account that a pure cloaking spec, without Shadow Image, doesn't do very well unless it has a ton of speed. I've played variations of my build, including a hybrid. I can categorically say that, without being at or very near the speed cap, you get caught a lot. This is where the sacrifices go. You have to be faster than everyone else.

Having cloak work in a more particular way merely slows the gameplay down. If I can't recloak for 8 seconds, I'll grudgingly work around that. It will be less flexxible, less fun, but no less effective. To me this is antithetical to what ESO is and aspires to be, if they ever fix lag. The speed and the spammability of skills sets it apart from other MMORPGs.

Incidentally, OP, if your goal is to sustain cloak in PvE on any spec (mag or stam), try Darloc Brae and be a vamp or combine it with Night's Silence.

Sun7dance

Cloak isn't the real problem here.
It's the neverending story about procc sets.
Cloak is just fine, but Cloak with Caluurion is a completely different story!

So plz nerf the right thing!

MindOfTheSwarm

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

I only gank I got to say this proposed version of cloak is vastly superior to the current version. I assume he means that the cooldown starts when you exit stealth, but even that would be very strong. Could easily roll spam or teleport to shade for 4 seconds before it came off cd and then you would be nearly impossible to reveal. Then if zos uses this as an excuse to buff nb we would become very strong.

I think speeding up the projectile speed on grim focus and its morphs or turning it into a melee attack when in melee range would be a good enough nb buff. Don't need infinite cloak with reveal immunity. Would be a little bit too OP.

You are pretty much the only person here that understood my proposal was more of a buff. Everyone else missed it lol.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

ZOS could simply overhaul how it works, instead of granting invisibility, Shadow Cloak and Shadowy Disguise should both heal like Dark Cloak but instead of granting minor protection they should decrease your detection radius by 5 meters.

(As you would still need to become hidden for it to work) since it would not beable to work in the middle they would at least have a decent Heal over time.

fred4

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

I only gank I got to say this proposed version of cloak is vastly superior to the current version. I assume he means that the cooldown starts when you exit stealth, but even that would be very strong. Could easily roll spam or teleport to shade for 4 seconds before it came off cd and then you would be nearly impossible to reveal. Then if zos uses this as an excuse to buff nb we would become very strong.

I think speeding up the projectile speed on grim focus and its morphs or turning it into a melee attack when in melee range would be a good enough nb buff. Don't need infinite cloak with reveal immunity. Would be a little bit too OP.

You are pretty much the only person here that understood my proposal was more of a buff. Everyone else missed it lol.

Cause it's not a buff to me. It's a buff to stamblades, the variant that doesn't need it. It would be a nerf to me.

MindOfTheSwarm

fred4 wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Maybe I'm misreading the first post but are you suggesting Cloak becomes a toggle skill? AND it gets 2 seconds of reveal immunity on activation?

As a stamblade PvP main I say YEEEEEEESSS.

Because, if gankers *** off people now, I can only imagine the fury when cloak becomes so OP that you hit it once and then have a free two seconds to get as far away from any reveal or AoE mechanism as you can, thereby staying lost in stealth forever.

Stealth in > kill combo > hit cloak, knowing I am not gonna be seen by anyone by any means for two seconds > saunter casually away > repeat. A single NB who knew what they were doing and selected targets in a good order could take out an entire siege if cloak worked this way.

I only gank I got to say this proposed version of cloak is vastly superior to the current version. I assume he means that the cooldown starts when you exit stealth, but even that would be very strong. Could easily roll spam or teleport to shade for 4 seconds before it came off cd and then you would be nearly impossible to reveal. Then if zos uses this as an excuse to buff nb we would become very strong.

I think speeding up the projectile speed on grim focus and its morphs or turning it into a melee attack when in melee range would be a good enough nb buff. Don't need infinite cloak with reveal immunity. Would be a little bit too OP.

You are pretty much the only person here that understood my proposal was more of a buff. Everyone else missed it lol.

Cause it's not a buff to me. It's a buff to stamblades, the variant that doesn't need it. It would be a nerf to me.

I disagree, I think both NB variants needs a buff. The assassination line in particular. It’s silly to me that pretty much all other options are vastly superior to this line. The idea behind the proposal was that during invis the assassination skills would gain extra benefits.

Assassin’s Blade could silence for instance.
Teleport Strike could have increased damage coming out of stealth, or maybe a damage buff against targets that are not within 5 meters of an ally. Something to hit home the assassination feel. Currently 2 handed is better at the job these days. Likewise most NB’s run Dawnbreaker as it is flat out better.

The main purpose to this thread was this:

NB won’t get significant buffs while cloak remains in its current state.

This is a fact. There is no way around this. (Of course it could still happen but it would
be very surprising). Skills in the kit such as Teleport Strike and Death Stroke have delays because of cloak. How do the community adapt? They simply run non-assassination line skills instead. Which by and large do a better job anyway.

As for magblade, most run Soul Tether if bombing otherwise Comet. Rare is the Magblade running Soul Harvest unless they are running Caluurion.

NB has been gutted and gutted over the years and it’s all down to cloak. I’m not calling for nerfs, that wasn’t the point of this post. I’m calling for a rework of the skill to make room for much needed buffs to the class in general. Call me a pessimist, but I just don’t see any of the complaints NB players have been addressed or met while cloak remains a spammable ability.

fred4

@MindOfTheSwarm: Did it ever occur to you that some of us like Shadowy Disguise for it's own sake? I don't need to be the best. I don't need to be a competitive dueller on my magblade, as long as I'm somewhere in the ballpark in open world, which I feel I am.

Frankly I am getting tired of competitive players wanting to balance the game while paying no heed to the collateral damage they would be doing to players who are in it for the fun. This is ultimately an RPG and only what you might call a semi-competitive game. Cloak spamming offers utility, such as bringing your Tel Var home when you can't port out of IC via Cyro during, say, the event. It allows you to loiter on hostile flags and in hostile keeps. It feels entirely different and way superior to alternatives. Most obviously, for the spec I run, magblade is faster than stamblade and allows you to weave in and out of combat in busy AvA fights in a way that stamblade can only dream of. This makes for a very fun playstyle and I'm willing to pay the price for that.

Aside from this, to say that NB has been gutted "for years" is a gross distortion of the facts. Whenever there is a high damage patch, such as last summer, it heavily favors nightblade. Up until recently stamblade has been near the top in tier lists that I occasionally see. I have not followed these for the current patch. My feeling is that mag, specifically magplar and mag DK have the upper hand and that even magblade has closed the gap on stamblade, albeit without overtaking it.

Maybe what you're saying is that certain nightblade skills are no longer used? Crippling Grasp comes to mind. Then again Healthy Offering has been resurrected as a mainstream magblade skill. It's swings and roundabouts. If ZOS see a skill being underused, they will probably get on top of that eventually, because they're into fixing that. Mass Hysteria ... who runs that anymore?

Incap and Soul Harvest are alive and well on the servers that I play. I mostly play in IC. Sometimes Cyro. Where do you play? BGs? It probably just comes down to that. I encounter some nightblades running DB, but it's rare. For me it's a question of ultimate cost / uptime. I prefer SH and, yes, I run Caluurion. On PC EU Balorgh, Caluurion, Markyn, Clever Alch is probably meta for mag and stam alike, although I personally prefer Zoal over Balorgh and I never liked Clever Alch. There are other builds. Outright gankers push damage sky high, as I have been hit for 21K Incap Strikes. That would be with some Titanborn vamp setup, so no, it is not the case that you need to run Caluurion with Incap. I'd say CP IC and Cyro has a different meta from BGs and from Ravenwatch.

aurelius_fx

buff magblade

MEBengalsFan2001

What I don't get is that Flare, Cameo Hunter and Mage Light abilities actually don't work as intended. They all state X amount of time the player can't do XYZ yet NB can go invisible immediately after I hit them with a flare or if I see them with mage light. So how is Invisible as a skill not broken?

Cameo Hunter - "Invoke your expertise in anatomy and enemy behavior to detect stealthed and invisible enemies around you for 5 seconds. Exposed enemies cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 4 seconds."

Mage Light - "Summon a mote of magelight, revealing stealthed and invisible enemies around you for 5 seconds. Exposed enemies cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 4 seconds."

Flare - Launch a blinding flare, revealing stealthed and invisible enemies in the target area for 5 seconds. Exposed enemies are stunned for 4 seconds, and cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 4 seconds.

Today while using Radiant Glory on a NB he went invisible while I was hitting him. How is that possible? I thought direct attacks like that would not allow the NB to go invisible.

So the skill is broken where you can use it rather earlier than you are allowed to and can go invisible while you are also taking damage from a channeling attack.


I also want to know how some NB can go invisible 10x in a row, use multiple magika based abilities and continue to push when they clearly should be out of magikea, even after using a potion. Running my Arigorian NB with over 40K magika I can't do that even with a potion poppped to sustain my resources.

I have no issues with facing NB even if they can escape and use invisible easily and constantly.

Iron_Warrior

I always hated nb cloak but not anymore because of the evil hunter skill, it has a 12 meter radius and you can easily break the cloak with it. And it also gives 12% crit chance and 3% weapon damage for just slotting it.

But do you know what skill i think is problematic and should be nerfed to the ground? Streak!!!

MindOfTheSwarm

What surprises me is that everyone baring two people read my proposal as a nerf. It isn’t. It’s a buff…. I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

fred4

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

What surprises me is that everyone baring two people read my proposal as a nerf. It isn’t. It’s a buff…. I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

No, it's not a buff to every nightblade. Yes, it depends on how you look at it. You have implicit goals that I don't share. The gist of what I'm getting is that you feel NB performance, specifically PvP burst, will remain blunted until such time as when Shadowy Disguise is reworked, causing forced downtime on invisibility in combat situations without people actively trying to detect you. You would be willing to accept such a compromise. I would not.

This might well be a buff for a common playstyle, essentially that of a stamblade who doesn't have great cloak sustain to begin with. However that's not the only way to play the game. You're likely assuming that combat / duelling / 1vX performance is the single factor by which a class should be judged, as so many better players appear to do. I do not share that viewpoint. I like that I can disengage at will unless someone actively tries to detect me. I detest cooldowns on abilities and on cloak in particular. I care more about how the class plays than it's ultimate competitiveness, as long as it's there or thereabouts (in my case). I've heard that stealth classes tend to get nerfed in MMOs in general, but basically I'm fine with that. I would have the unconditional stealth regardless, based on where nightblade currently is in ESO.

That's the other thing. I don't buy that stamblade is uncompetitive. In AOE-dominated BGs, maybe, but not in open world. I think it also depends hugely on your playstyle and expertise. People who play multiple classes tend to still gravitate to one that they main. Their playstyle evolves hand in hand. Everyone's viewpoint is invariably skewed by that. Some, like Deltia, never got to grips with nightblade, based on a video I once saw (although I haven't followed him lately). Due to it's squishiness and single-target nature, I believe, in BGs. Others, like The Real Godzilla, put stamblade at the very top for 1vX, S+ tier, as recently as December, although he does mention the learning curve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmSiNaSJsKc

For me personally, I heavily favor my perma-cloaking melee / ranged hybrid magblade, even though that's been an underdog spec for so long. I was playing that even before Caluurion existed. I don't do so well with stamblade. I've tried and tried, but in my hands the two class variants are equally effective at best, yet the magblade is so much more fun.

fred4

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

What I don't get is that Flare, Cameo Hunter and Mage Light abilities actually don't work as intended. They all state X amount of time the player can't do XYZ yet NB can go invisible immediately after I hit them with a flare or if I see them with mage light. So how is Invisible as a skill not broken?

All skills have a tick frequency. Detection skills are down to 1/2 a second, I believe. It used to be 1 second. This means, if you have the skill active and a nightblade comes in range, it may take up to 1/2 a second before they are detected. If the nightblade goes out of range again within that time, they are not detected. With lag, positional desyncs and extreme speed on the part of the nightblade, detection may fail. If the nightblade cloaked at the edge of your detection range and managed to get out of range before the next tick of your detection skill, then Cloak succeeds. If this was in Cyro in heavy lag, players are never really where they appear on your screen and that would be why it failed. More likely, though, the nightblade just used Shadow Image!

Today while using Radiant Glory on a NB he went invisible while I was hitting him. How is that possible? I thought direct attacks like that would not allow the NB to go invisible.

Lightning heavy attacks do keep me out of cloak. I assume Radiant and resto heavies are the same, although I'm not sure about Radiant. Soul Assault can be cloaked after 2 seconds - very deliberately implemented by ZOS that way, because Soul Assault was oppressive and OP at one point in history. It may be that Radiant is subject to similar rules, though it doesn't channel for that long. Most likely you are confusing Shadow Image with Cloak. Or Temporal Guard, altough that should cause a very visible effect.

So the skill is broken where you can use it rather earlier than you are allowed to and can go invisible while you are also taking damage from a channeling attack.

Nope. See above.

I also want to know how some NB can go invisible 10x in a row, use multiple magika based abilities and continue to push when they clearly should be out of magikea, even after using a potion. Running my Arigorian NB with over 40K magika I can't do that even with a potion poppped to sustain my resources.

Breton, non-vampire, Atro mundus, 6x or 7x light armor, high sustain food, such as Ghastly Eye Bowl or Hissmir Fisheye Rye, Siphoning Attacks, Magicka potions, flat +90 regen from CP, just over 2K unbuffed mag regen on the stat sheet. That's all it takes. No sustain set nor sustain jewelry. Furthermore Cloak frequently transitions nightblades between in combat and out of combat status. While out of combat, magicka recovery is calculated differently and is higher than in combat. In order to maximise your magicka recovery while out of combat, you need to obtain your recovery from the sources I mentioned. Sustain sets, by and large, do not work. There is one alternative to build for enough sustain as a vamp on any race. The Darloc Brae set.

kringled_1

Like fred4, I also run a high cloak, high speed NB (primarily in IC) and this would pretty much destroy the playstyle. I've also had to compromise a lot to get there. I run this because it's fun for me rather than because it's super effective, and I'm pretty squishy in the face of other players. I run wild hunt, front bar spinners, and back bar warlock (one of very few sustain sets that work in this situation) with regen enchantments on jewelry as it is easier for me to transition the character to pve this way.

BXR_Lonestar

I'd be fine with a cooldown for invis, but then make it last longer. A 2-3 second duration on the skill is absolutely ridiculous. Make it last 10-12 seconds with a 15 second cooldown? I'd be fine with that.

Also, if your going to add a cooldown, then let me cast my buff/debuff spells without being pulled out of invis. SO long as no damage is done, I shouldn't get pulled out of invis.

MindOfTheSwarm

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I'd be fine with a cooldown for invis, but then make it last longer. A 2-3 second duration on the skill is absolutely ridiculous. Make it last 10-12 seconds with a 15 second cooldown? I'd be fine with that.

Also, if your going to add a cooldown, then let me cast my buff/debuff spells without being pulled out of invis. SO long as no damage is done, I shouldn't get pulled out of invis.

This is what I was putting forward. Only it’s duration would be permanent until you deal or take direct damage.

Amottica

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

What surprises me is that everyone baring two people read my proposal as a nerf. It isn’t. It’s a buff…. I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

It very much is a nerf. Plain and simple. It is changing how it works to make it easier for players who do not want to try to pull players out of stealth. That is stated in the OP as part of the justification for the change. I do not think we need to make the game easier for players that do not want to use the counters available for something.