What's going on with Nightblade these days

noobfury

Hey guys,

I've been playing ESO for just over 6 years and recently just started getting back to PVP. Having a lot of fun but surprised at the overall lack of performance I'm seeing with NB.

That being said, I have a NB but I'm not experienced with the class , It's kind of new to me so I'm running my DK instead. Let me tell you how my day went.

Went to Vlastarus and was locked in to the gear merchant, a NB tried to gank me from flank out of shadow. I lost a little HP, turned around and killed him within a minute or so.

Went to IC and did some quests. I saw a NB up on a ledge looking down at me , pretended to access my inventory and he came down and tried to kill me. Same thing , lost about 50% HP and killed him quickly.

Later on in the evening I was in a very long engagement between Alessia and the bridge , (which by the way was a lot of fun for any of you that took part in that ) . I had the kill 20 NB quest and to my surprise I hit 20 in no time. They just seemed to be dropping like flies no matter what they tried to use. The only exception was one obviously skilled player who was able to get behind us and gank me from behind but otherwise they seemed to be completely useless.

I've been wanting to play around with my NB but at the moment , I can't seem to find any synergy between gear and skills that can give it anything special or any kind of edge in pvp compared to other classes. There was a time back in the day when Magsorc and NB were at the top of the heap in PVP.

Just not sure what's going on with the class anymore, I know some of the devs like to play NB but maybe they aren't focused on that these days.

Anyway , hopefully some of you guys can give input.

Oh and that Dark Convergence BS needs to go also , that **** is annoying in large scale encounters.

Have a great day !

spongebobmovieticket

IMO nightblades shine when they use speed and resistance over shadowy disguise for defense. Cloak helps here and there for escape, but the main use for me is the guaranteed crit strike. Using resistance pots, lady Mundus, mirage, and vamp passives is plenty enough survivability while still putting out a ton of damage. You can use two damage sets this way, or a damage and sustain. All swift jewlery, celerity, and race against time for speed.

baselesschart

Nightblade has a massive, and I mean massive learning curve in the modern state of PvP. But thats what makes it more rewarding and so fun to play. If I had to guess you were playing against some unexperienced nightblades. As far as I'm concerned nightblade has the highest single target burst potential but its overall predictability is what holds it back.

DarkStrifeYT

Lots of people that don't understand how nb works is what is happening. They got ganked a lot, and decided to make a nb, find a ganker build, failed at it because they don't understand how nightblade works.

malistorr

You are right. Nightblade is lacking in basically every way against Templar and DK and probably most other classes as well. Their offensive skills just don't do nearly as much damage and their healing is subpar as well. Even if you go all offensive you'll struggle to kill other classes with their huge heals and/or shields. And you'll die quickly and easily. If you go defensive you won't have a chance to kill anyone even if you do last a little bit longer in a fight. You may be able to kill some new/bad players but that's the case with any build.

At least in no CP there really is no way to do a ganker build. You'll need a few moves to kill anyone and by then they've rolled, healed, shielded-up, etc. Cloak doesn't last for long and there are too many counters like potion or skill that make it worthless. Combine it not lasting long with your very limited magic pool (for stamblade) and you can't be invisible much. As soon as others can see you you're dead really quickly.

I suppose you could make a brawler type and use 1H or 2H skills and do ok but the damage on NB class skills is just a joke compared to other classes' skills. And your healing without a back-bar resto staff is still really low. Class balance is really bad right now in no CP at least. Anyone who disagrees doesn't play a lot of classes like I do.

Larcomar

Like other's have said, the reason you're finding NBs dropping like flies is that there are a huge number of them around - it seems to be the go to pvp class for a lot of newer players - and an awful lot of those are really bad. Like, really bad.

To give you an idea, we periodically get people popping up on the forums complaining they got detected in cloak. Because they didn't realise that there are things like detect pots in the game. And those are the one's who made it here to ask. I regularly kill NBs in cyro because they cloak up, just *sit there* and then - when it finally dawns on them that I can see them - run round panicking spamming cloak. As to using "advanced skills" like shade? Not a bat in hells chance.

That said, when you come across a good nightblade, you realise quite rapidly how powerful the class is. They strike out of no where, have huge burst potential and then just fade away. You can chase them as long as you want, but you're just going to be running round in circles. They're just going to shade away, cloak up and come at you from a different angle. Or just kill the guy you were standing next to while you're still wondering what was going on. Those guys, though seem to be pretty rare. It's definitely one of the highest skill cap classes.

To be fair, I think a number of changes have made life a lot more difficult for the amateurs. The biggest one was probably the nerfs to snipe but other changes like nerfs to proc sets and increased tankiness have raised the skill ceiling. I mean, once upon a time, you could hang back 40m away, pop a veritable stream of snipes at someone on siege, and be back in cloak before they dropped dead. Not least because they *literally* just dropped dead. The first they knew someone had apparently fired a stream of snipes's at them was when they got to see their death recap. Hell, in the hey day of proc sets, I can remember firing one poison arrow at a target, hopping back into cloak, and just watching them melt....

Don't get me wrong - I think Zos was entirely right to put an end to that. Back then, playing NB basically guaranteed you free kills at almost zero risk. It was too easy. The problem is that - a bit of a pattern in this game - it meant that when they changed it an awful lot of players simply didn't have the skills to adapt. Or, indeed, didn't realise they needed to adapt. I still get NBs popping up and spamming me with stuff like venomous smite and then running away assuming that's all they need to do.

xDeusEJRx

malistorr wrote: »

You are right. Nightblade is lacking in basically every way against Templar and DK and probably most other classes as well. Their offensive skills just don't do nearly as much damage and their healing is subpar as well. Even if you go all offensive you'll struggle to kill other classes with their huge heals and/or shields. And you'll die quickly and easily. If you go defensive you won't have a chance to kill anyone even if you do last a little bit longer in a fight. You may be able to kill some new/bad players but that's the case with any build.

At least in no CP there really is no way to do a ganker build. You'll need a few moves to kill anyone and by then they've rolled, healed, shielded-up, etc. Cloak doesn't last for long and there are too many counters like potion or skill that make it worthless. Combine it not lasting long with your very limited magic pool (for stamblade) and you can't be invisible much. As soon as others can see you you're dead really quickly.

I suppose you could make a brawler type and use 1H or 2H skills and do ok but the damage on NB class skills is just a joke compared to other classes' skills. And your healing without a back-bar resto staff is still really low. Class balance is really bad right now in no CP at least. Anyone who disagrees doesn't play a lot of classes like I do.

I don't think we're the same nightblade class here. Nightblade is the sole reason damage mitigation was changed after flames of ambition, because their damage in no proc 1 year ago was just far too ahead of every other class so they had to up the damage mitigation via battle spirit. And even so Nightblade is still a top tier class in terms of damage. Problem is nightblade has never been a class you can just jump into, it has a steep learning curve, magblade especially. Stamblade is kind of easymode.

This is how much damage a nightblade was doing before the changes to damage mitigation:


If you're wondering what damage is what. It's a 12.9k surprise attack, 7.7k partially charged heavy attack, 4.1k deadlands assassin proc. Nightblade, especially NB ganker is BY NO MEANS lacking damage. I mean having a guaranteed crit proc on a direct damage hit gives NB a huge edge in burst damage. NB meta from early 2021 to summer 2021 was literally why they had to up mitigation because they were pulling insane damage after they got buffed by surprise attack changes. And this is on a full gank and spank spec

Most people just don't know how to play nightblade is all. It's not simply a cloak and win class. Most people who play NB and get wrecked the moment they're revealed think they can just slap on damage. No, just like any other class you have to have a well rounded builds, but most people who wanna play ganker just think since you're invisible that you're invincible so they try going full damage.

Even now in deadlands, NB can still do crazy damage if you build a well-rounded build. On my Magblade I can get 15k assassin's will bows on people and I argue magblade can't push damage the same way a stamblade can but they can still drop big damage


I'd argue Nightblade shines more in no cp no proc environments than they do in CP because they have really high built in damage so even with cp gone they will be a cut above the rest of the classes, a lot of other classes rely on sets to make up for deficits, and nightblade just has tons of built-in damage.

I personally highly disagree NB lacks in compared to most classes, I think they're one of the top classes, but I do agree they are lacking to DK and templar but that's because those classes just have a better class toolkit, but by NO means is this class underperforming.DK and templar have better class kit but NB has better innate damage from their passives. Players just need to learn that if you stack in one specific stat, you're going to lose in most cases. Cloak is never a cop-out for NB, especially since tons of people have some sort of detection effect running now.

malistorr

That is CP and I'm guessing the target has no mitigation at all based on those numbers. That and you're showing 2 crits which almost never happens. With most NB builds in no CP now you're lucky if you have 25% crit chance. So those numbers right off the bat are not even close to reality. At least be honest. The real numbers in no CP is you would not crit on either attack and even with fully gold gear and 2 damage sets and maybe even a mythic like Markyn you'd be lucky to hit for more than 6-7k from the Surprise Attack for any target that is even a half-decent player and knows the basics of damage mitigation. You have things like Vamp 3, sets like Pariah, and mythics like Gaze. I'm guessing the target above had none of those. The heavy attack maybe 5-6k if you're lucky against most targets. There is no deadland's assasin proc. in no CP either. So you're facing a DK or Templar with probably 32K health and 30K resists and hit for maybe 35% of their health with the attacks you state. And they recover all that health in a split second with 1 of their heals which are all way better than anything a stamblade can do. Reality is not even close to the picture you're painting. I think you're playing a different game. For a stamblade to kill a half-tanky DK or Templar these days they'd need to stand still, not heal at all, not block, and let you use 4-6 skills in a row depending on if you're using an ult etc. This is reality in no CP. I can't speak to the CP experience as I have no interest in using gimmicky proc sets.

fred4

Hmm. Nightblade was strong last summer, when overall damage was very high. That suited classes whose main defense was damage avoidance. These days I'd say nightblade is lacklustre, compared to various older patches. Not bad, but not great. I believe this is by design. Nobody likes to get ganked.

There are still outliers. Vamp builds that require a lot of prep work to set up a gank and hit in excess of 20K with Incap Strike alone in CP against a moderately tanky target. Their combo may kill your 35K health tanky-ish DK outright. Players who pull this off are rare, but I believe it's these outliers that caused ZOS to balance the game as they did.

As a melee magblade, the ability to ditch the resto staff in favor of 1H+S has been a boon. Someone said nightblade has bad healing. Nope. Rally is broken and inconsistent, but block-spamming Healthy / Shrewd Offering a few times, like a magplar might spam Honor the Dead, works a treat in emergency. So I guess we'll see what happens next patch, when that skill becomes available to stamblade.

I don't aim to go toe-to-toe with a well-played mag DK, which is strong this patch, but I do feel like my spec (melee magblade) has been on the up and I'm better able to have a go.

fred4

malistorr wrote: »

That is CP and I'm guessing the target has no mitigation at all based on those numbers. That and you're showing 2 crits which almost never happens. With most NB builds in no CP now you're lucky if you have 25% crit chance. So those numbers right off the bat are not even close to reality. At least be honest. The real numbers in no CP is you would not crit on either attack and even with fully gold gear and 2 damage sets and maybe even a mythic like Markyn you'd be lucky to hit for more than 6-7k from the Surprise Attack for any target that is even a half-decent player and knows the basics of damage mitigation. You have things like Vamp 3, sets like Pariah, and mythics like Gaze. I'm guessing the target above had none of those. The heavy attack maybe 5-6k if you're lucky against most targets. There is no deadland's assasin proc. in no CP either. So you're facing a DK or Templar with probably 32K health and 30K resists and hit for maybe 35% of their health with the attacks you state. And they recover all that health in a split second with 1 of their heals which are all way better than anything a stamblade can do. Reality is not even close to the picture you're painting. I think you're playing a different game. For a stamblade to kill a half-tanky DK or Templar these days they'd need to stand still, not heal at all, not block, and let you use 4-6 skills in a row depending on if you're using an ult etc. This is reality in no CP. I can't speak to the CP experience as I have no interest in using gimmicky proc sets.

Speaking for CP, yes, I have been hit with multiple crits in a row. If not, the nightblade can go around for another attempt, albeit against a better prepared enemy. Yes, I have been hit with a 21K Incap, followed by something like a 15K Surprise Attack on my stamsorc, this patch, who was wearing Gaze of Sithis and had around 40K health. I was neither super tanky nor squishy, no Impen other than base, but resistances in the upper 20s.

I don't know how this is done. The attacker had extremely low health, so obviously some Titanborn / Balorgh / vamp build pushing damage sky high. No procs, though. Like I said, this was an outlier. I believe the setup time for this type of gank is very high (waiting for Simmering Frenzy), so I think this is situational and not very attractive to most people. Perhaps unsurprisingly this was in IC, with me standing on a flag. I don't think I blocked. I didn't have time to (Edit: and Sithis, duh). I felt this shouldn't happen with my 40K health build, but it did.

This goes to show where the theoretical limits are. They are very high. A build like that is very situational, but yeah, I believe a more balanced build can produce exactly the sort of numbers xDeusEJRx mentions in CP. Don't forget that Assassin's Will, buffed by Soul Harvest, has a substantially higher tooltip than the ultimate itself.

malistorr

Simmering is also getting a nerf soon so even less chance of high damage numbers.

xDeusEJRx

malistorr wrote: »

That is CP and I'm guessing the target has no mitigation at all based on those numbers. That and you're showing 2 crits which almost never happens. With most NB builds in no CP now you're lucky if you have 25% crit chance. So those numbers right off the bat are not even close to reality. At least be honest. The real numbers in no CP is you would not crit on either attack and even with fully gold gear and 2 damage sets and maybe even a mythic like Markyn you'd be lucky to hit for more than 6-7k from the Surprise Attack for any target that is even a half-decent player and knows the basics of damage mitigation. You have things like Vamp 3, sets like Pariah, and mythics like Gaze. I'm guessing the target above had none of those. The heavy attack maybe 5-6k if you're lucky against most targets. There is no deadland's assasin proc. in no CP either. So you're facing a DK or Templar with probably 32K health and 30K resists and hit for maybe 35% of their health with the attacks you state. And they recover all that health in a split second with 1 of their heals which are all way better than anything a stamblade can do. Reality is not even close to the picture you're painting. I think you're playing a different game. For a stamblade to kill a half-tanky DK or Templar these days they'd need to stand still, not heal at all, not block, and let you use 4-6 skills in a row depending on if you're using an ult etc. This is reality in no CP. I can't speak to the CP experience as I have no interest in using gimmicky proc sets.

Most of people you gank open world aren't prepared for a gank, so most aren't ready to block,dodge heal or even have a pot available. So if a NB has adequate damage they can burst most people down, lots of people might not even have their armor buffs up when you go to gank them. I feel like most of this is a negligible argument. Maybe it's true when 1v1ing it's hard to burst people down on a ganker, but in most cases you're not easily seen by most people you go to gank so they won't be prepared or even get a chance to react if your damage is on point

Also them having 30k resistance means nothing, you can still get bursted down with 30k resistance. I run 30k on most of my builds and my health bars can still move when getting zerged down. The only time it's not moving at all is if you have like 35k-40k+ resistance. Which in that case, you're quite literally a tank build. Most tankiness in CP is from mitigation, which you don't have in no cp outside of battlespirit and a few sets like Swift. In no cp most tankiness is just from pariah/gaze builds, but in most cases pariah builds can't kill anything themselves. 30k is meaningless if you have even 11k penetration, not including the pen you'd get from minor breach (surprise attack) and major from mark target. With that much pen you'd be sitting at 20k, which would leave only 10k armor can still mitigate damage but at that point you basically have paper resistances and mitigating maybe 10% of damage with that much resistance.

Gank/cloak playstyle is insanely easy, still to this day. But most NB's fold because they don't have necessary damage, can some ganks be hard to pull off? Of course, but nightblade has some of the highest potential damage of all classes if built right, which is the same case for DK or Templar. Trying to say a NB's damage even sits at the same table as most of the classes is beyond ridiculous

xDeusEJRx

I even tossed together a template gank build on ESO build editor just to showcase what a gank spec fully proced into damage could get. This is in no way a proper build, I just specc'ed fully into damage and this is a no CP set up. No CP was put into this build and I got 13k penetration and 7k weapon damage and with major and minor breach active on target which would push my penetration to 21k. In cp I could push those numbers higher obviously with CP and other sets that grant more upfront damage. Even so, with damage like this you can gank pretty much most people other than actual tank builds open world.

malistorr

I'm assuming all 3 jewelry are weapon damage? What mundus? All stats in stam?

WaywardArgonian

Nightblades who camp Cyrodiil questing towns or IC quest locations are not typically the cream of the crop. Adding to that, we are on the tail end of Whitestrake's Mayhem, which is when half the server runs Nightblades and you can immediately tell who are the experienced NBs and who are just playing one for the sake of farming PVE'ers. Most fall into the latter category. Which is fine, but it might contribute towards a skewed idea of what Nightblades are capable of as a class.

Some people have already explained some reasons why playing a Nightblade isn't necessarily as straightforward as people think, but I'll also give it a shot.

When looking at ganking builds, one thing that is rarely talked about is target prioritization. I was quite surprised when, during this Mayhem, I played a 35k hp, high resist Stamsorc and some bow gankers would still prioritize attacking me while I was fully buffed up over the 22k health potato spamming Snipe next to me. Maybe it's considered a 'dirty secret' of Nightblades, but if you look at ganking compilations, you'll notice more ofen than not that they mainly attack people who have low HP pools or alliance ranks that indicate they are PVE'ers/questers. Someone who normally never plays a Nightblade might not realize that and go on to attack the one tanky guy in the zerg with no plan beyond the first burst, expecting to drop them instantly 'just like in the video'. Specifically in your case, I think DKs are in such a strong place right now that I usually avoid DKs wholesale when ganking, unless they look to be sufficiently inexperienced for me to stand a chance. Cowardly? Perhaps, but it's also accepting the reality of what that particular build can/can't do, and when in a full ganking spec, a long, drawn-out fight is not what you'll want to go for. There are Nightblades who can thrive in such fights, but they tend to be Stamblade brawlers or non-invis Magblades, and those are a lot rarer than one-shot gankers.

There's tons of other Nightblade skills that aren't talked about enough, such as mobility and predictability, but I'll refrain from turning this into more of an essay than it already is.

olsborg

NB burst is way too easy to predict and just dodge. NB healing is Almost nonexistent. (Stamblade)

Tommy_The_Gun

To answer "what happened to NB" in a short sentence: Elsweyr update happened. In this update, Necromancer class was introduced. Obviously ZOS wanted for the new content to sell well, but they did not wanted to make Necro too OP (they did it anyway lol), so they hard nerfed one of the base game class that happened to have the most similar vibe & feel. NB was that class that was basically "staying in the way".

Despite receiving numerous small buffs here & there with qol improvements, NB did not recovered since. Class still has very steep learning curve and is very hard to master, when compared to other classes. As OP mentioned there are rare cases when you can meet a skilled & decent NB player, but overall - learning the class is not worth it since you can achieve way better results on other class, but without the "steep learning curve" part. Other classes are just way more forgiving.

On one hand, I am glad that class is very unlikely to receive more nerfs (but you may never know lol), but on the other hand I would still like to see some buffs or qol to skills & aspects of the class in which it is very weak. Mass Hysteria or Consuming Darkness abilities for example are probably not just the worst nb skills, but rather the worst class skills or mayb even worst skills in the entire game. As for the shades - this imho the big culprit why NB has steepest learning curve. Because this is a very good skill but extremely unintuitive to use. If this skill received some qol improvements (aoe markers, arrows on the ground below your character pointing to the shade) then it would be way more user friendly and without any buffs, class would be way easier to play.

fred4

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Most of people you gank open world ... aren't ready to block,dodge heal or even have a pot available. So if a NB has adequate damage they can burst most people down, lots of people might not even have their armor buffs up when you go to gank them.

This actually puts what you're saying in perspective. I can find and gank people like that all day, but that means they're noobs. You're casting NB damage in an unfavorable light, if that's what it takes.

Since I don't go to duel in Alik'r and rarely end up in duelling situations in open world, I find it hard to judge where NB actually is. I also play a melee magblade with a ton of speed and sustain, which is arguably a non-meta spec. Stamblades have been historically stronger and both can use Caluurion now. That said, I have a friend, who is a competitive dueller and CP open world player on a stamblade. Based on what he is capable of, I agree that stamblade is competitive. His name is Mr. Tyrant (PC EU). You also only need to look at The Real Godzilla (YouTube), who quite recently put stamblade at S+ tier for 1vXing.

I think everyone is biased by their playstyle and experience. I play about half the classes and so does Godzilla. I think he mainly plays templar, mag DK and stamblade. Not because those are currently strong, but because that's where his experience lies. Melee classes. Out of those, he put stamblade at the top in December. If you don't do the same, that may come down to the learning curve. Not just of nightblade, but I think all classes have one. If you main <insert class here>, your experience with that class may put it at the top for you.

fred4

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

As for the shades - this imho the big culprit why NB has steepest learning curve. Because this is a very good skill but extremely unintuitive to use. If this skill received some qol improvements (aoe markers, arrows on the ground below your character pointing to the shade) then it would be way more user friendly and without any buffs, class would be way easier to play.

Very interesting proposal. I use an addon on PC, but it's not as intuitive as that.

Reminds me of another proposal dating back to when magsorc was strong and shields were subsequently changed / nerfed. The frustration playing against a magsorc for many (newer) players IMO came from the sorcs health bar not moving. If the health bar above the character's head had included a shield component, that may have been all that was needed.

Dem_kitkats1

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

I personally highly disagree NB lacks in compared to most classes, I think they're one of the top classes, but I do agree they are lacking to DK and templar but that's because those classes just have a better class toolkit, but by NO means is this class underperforming.DK and templar have better class kit but NB has better innate damage from their passives. Players just need to learn that if you stack in one specific stat, you're going to lose in most cases. Cloak is never a cop-out for NB, especially since tons of people have some sort of detection effect running now.

I agree NB is still definitely a strong class in regards to their damage, and still has some of the best burst potential out of any class. But, as other's have mentioned, playing a NB is a learning curve for many players. Back in the day, however, I think it was more viable for players to be mediocre on the class and still be able to kill players within a matter of a few hits, because the innate damage that they have in their passives was enough of an edge. But with the buffs now to certain classes and with the healing creep throughout the entire game that's not the case anymore.

Now, unless you have a good understanding on how to effectively play the class (cream of the crop players) and have a solid build to boot, you can really feel the imbalances between classes. NBs just really lack the healing and damage mitigation that the other classes have. Sure you can put together a speed build, or a tankier brawler build (seems goofy for an assassin class IMO), but then you sacrifice the damage that you need to burst down other players, whereas other classes don't need to. So this is why I think it seems like the class as a whole is underperforming. Because unless you're a vet NB player, it's much more difficult now for you to compete.

malistorr

xDeusEJRx

Which 2 mundus?
All spell damage on jewelry?
Do you have all stats in stam?

noobfury

Thank you all for weighing in.

Many good points and valuable information here. I'm excited to experiment with this class going forward with some theory crafting while trying different builds.

As far as my own play style, I don't enjoy ganking solo targets from cloak if they are by themselves. It doesn't seem challenging or rewarding, nothing against players who do but it's just not my thing. About the same level as running with a group and having everyone unload all of their skills on a solo player lol , just not challenging game play for me.

Now if a player has the skill to pick out a target in a group that enjoys riding down on solo players and eliminates them one by one , then you have a more valid utilization of the skills and perhaps the ability to be more heroic rather than a mere murderer. Players that can achieve this have my respect.

Running around in IC the last few days I have encountered some interesting things with NB players one of which is a vamp build using Arterial Burst , I was actually two shot by a player using this to gank me and I encountered several players using it.
I did come across maybe two that were stacking poison but not seeing this to often. Most of the others looked like they were using the typical cookie cutter builds put out there by streamers.

The pvp game has improved drastically since the pre CP days when we had vet levels. Balance issues have always been a thing from day one , I've found this in every game I've ever played though.

Then some things never change, gotta love them jab spammers lol.

malistorr

xDeusEJRx or better yet, please post a link to the build so all details are visible. Thank you.

Alchimiste1

NB main here, I think both magblade and stamblade are fine. They both actually have high burst the tricky part is getting it to land. They are not dot classes so timing is really important. Just keep practicing and they'll feel better.

but yes they are no magplar or magdk if thats what you are comparing them to. Those two specs are . . .performing better than they should

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

I get that most Nightblade players are casual or new, and that in the right hands the class can be frightening.

However, the reality is that the Nightblade's class kit just DOES NOT synergize well with itself. I mained a Nightblade for YEARS, and I never really could make it drive worth a flip in PvP. Granted, I'm almost 50, slow, and not that bright.

But, I swapped to a Templar main and the difference was night and day. I didn't get any better, but I went from the bottom of the pack to CURBSTOMPING people in BGs. Werewolves still give me a fit, and I blow up when I get ganged up on. But when I go toe-to-toe with most players, I have little worry of going down.

And that's not because of anything special about me. It's just that the melee MagPlar skill lines work so seamlessly together that even a mediocre grunt like me can make it work fairly well.

runningtings

Interesting discussion, I main Magblade and for a while it was very difficult in Cyrodiil to be competitive.

The change to healthy offering though has made a huge difference, having a situational burst heal like most other classes means Magblade is competitive for actual fights instead of limp ganks or pew pewing from the back.

Haven't been playing Stamblade for a while but there are some very good ones out there, someone mentioned Tyrant, he's a good example.

fred4

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

I get that most Nightblade players are casual or new, and that in the right hands the class can be frightening.

However, the reality is that the Nightblade's class kit just DOES NOT synergize well with itself. I mained a Nightblade for YEARS, and I never really could make it drive worth a flip in PvP. Granted, I'm almost 50, slow, and not that bright.

But, I swapped to a Templar main and the difference was night and day. I didn't get any better, but I went from the bottom of the pack to CURBSTOMPING people in BGs. Werewolves still give me a fit, and I blow up when I get ganged up on. But when I go toe-to-toe with most players, I have little worry of going down.

And that's not because of anything special about me. It's just that the melee MagPlar skill lines work so seamlessly together that even a mediocre grunt like me can make it work fairly well.

Yeah, but what's your point? That makes you a natural templar and BG player. I would not particularly take my nightblades into BGs nor play them in a 4-man group. It's the natural open world solo class. Take your templar into Cyrodiil or, better yet, IC solo and tell me whether you'd rather play it over your nightblade in that environment. I know I don't. Not if I want to bring my Tel Var home anyway.

In regard to class kit synergy, I've heard another say the same, but they substituted magblade for nightblade and stamblade for templar. Stamblade just flows, apparently. I wouldn't know. I've played my magblade for so long I would, in fact, not swap it for anything else. Furthermore, Healthy / Shrewd Offering with a 1H+S back bar and staff front bar, which is what I play now, feels quite like a magplar in some ways. I don't necessarily need to cloak or shade away. I can flat out defend against people trying to execute me.

Magplar is the easy-mode class. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I love magplar. I love the situational skills and how straightforward it is. On the other hand the low entry / high-ceiling nature of nightblade seems to be inextricably linked to Cloak and Shadow Image. Playing to avoid damage, rather than to tank it or outheal it, is both powerful and challenging. Nightblade class balance has to reflect the power nightblade gives to the best players or simply to the most extreme risk/reward gankers.

It has to be said that I think ZOS are balancing the game statistically. They allow for a certain amount of outlier builds that may be powerful. The tradeoff of those builds and the reason not everyone runs them is often how awkward they are to play. Grim Focus is one of those deliberately awkward skills. Shadow Image, on the other hand, has a genuine learning curve, but a payoff that is both effective and fun. Gameplay ideas like that are hard to come by. Not straightforward, but nonetheless fun. Where templar is all straightforward and fun, I think nightblade's difficulty is rooted deeply in it's identity. Playing a nightblade, you do need to come to grips with that. The escape tools. The squishiness (usually). The damage avoidance. The single-target nature. If you buff nightblade, you risk homogenising the class. Calls for nerfing it's identity will only mount, because what you can do with Cloak and Shadow Image when you play the class well, that will be all too much.

malistorr

Nightblade was nerfed. At least many of the sets that made snipping/ganking posssible were. I don't know about the skills as I wasn't playing one then. I agree with the poster above that the class can't compete with the likes of magplar period. It's not just a case of open field vs. BGs or IC. Damage on class skills like among the worst of all classes. There is no skill like jabs that can do 8-20k damage and heal you for 40% of that. It's not even a close comparison and anyone who thinks it is is living in fantasy land. Most nightblade class skills damage would need to be buffed about 40-80% to be comparable with the damage that other classes can do with their class skills. And the healing on NB is about the worst of any class. I don't think too many people care about how well the top 2 or 3 nightblades can do after 6-years of practice. They care about is the class viable/competitive at all vs. other classes in BG, in IC, and in Cyrodiil. And the answer is absolutely no.

divnyi

Idk what's wrong with you lot, but for me NB is totally fine now.

Yes best broken sets like MA got nerfed, but cloak isn't bugging out as hard as it was before, it gives much smoother experience.

malistorr

It's just plain math. You can't argue with it sorry.

fred4

malistorr wrote: »

I don't know about the skills as I wasn't playing one then.

I main a magblade, btw.

Damage on class skills like among the worst of all classes. There is no skill like jabs that can do 8-20k damage and heal you for 40% of that.

Jabs or, more to the point, Sweeps is a bit overtuned, but I'm not sure by how much. The damage of that skill in PvP has fluctuated across patches. Like NB hinges on Cloak and burst, templar - especially stamplar - hinges on Jabs in many ways. If that skill is strong, templar does well. When it's not quite strong enough, templar viability plummets. Same as nightblade, really. A "traditional" nightblade's viability hinges on the strength of it's burst, how aggressively it can be played, and how much that aggressive play mitigates the chance of counterattack, because the target is purely busy with defending. This is a feature that templar and nightblade share. Both are pressure classes. In the strictest sense, nightblade does not have burst. They have a 6 second pressure window after Incap.

Current performance of magplar comes from Deadly Strike being available for that class along with - finally - good ongoing healing options, especially the bubble. This wasn't always the case. It's strong, but I don't think you can go by the raw numbers. Compared to really old patches, ESO is in a speed meta and has been for a while. Making all 4 strikes of Sweeps hit the target is not a given. Templar is also open. It cannot block while channeling Sweeps. The skill can also be mitigated by Shuffle or by having a pet or NPCs around you, so you no longer are the main target. Furthermore the fact that it consists of 4 strikes that can all individually crit means you're looking at an average of crit and non-crit strikes from a templar most of the time. It is harder for a jabbing templar to randomly achieve a 100% crit burst combo, compared to other classes. Again. I think magplar is a bit overtuned right now, but IMO it's not nearly as far off where it should be as you make it out to be.

Most nightblade class skills damage would need to be buffed about 40-80% to be comparable with the damage that other classes can do with their class skills.

You must be thinking of the templar Sweeps tooltip and the Burning Light proc. No other class has that kind of damage from a spammable. However, no class has a tooltip like Assassin's Will / Scourge, outside of an ultimate either. I would need to examine stuff like a fully buffed Molten Whip, I suppose, but historically Will / Scourge has always been top outside of an ultimate. Yes, magblade has felt extremely lacklustre next to stamblade for a very long time, but you have to take into account how nightblade operates. It's always been about stacking buffs, such as the +20% damage from Incap / Soul Harvest, and about stacking damage at the expense of being squishy in a way that other classes simply can't afford to do, because they don't have the escape tools that nightblade has. If you can't or don't want to handle the learning curve that comes with that playstyle, the solution is simple, is it not? Play another class or build a tanky, non-cloaking brawler blade.

And the healing on NB is about the worst of any class.

This is, quite simply, out of date. Try Healthy / Shrewd Offering on a magblade. For my playstyle this beats the crap out of Vigor / Rally and feels exactly like Honor the Dead.

I have to admit that magplar is now at a point where Sweeps healing seems to make a real difference for me in PvP as it stacks up with other ongoing heals. This wasn't always the case. By the same token, though, Swallow Soul does heal you for a percentage of the damage done. It's less, but it's HOT. Neither will suffice to heal you by itself.