Another source of Brutality/Sorcery that...

DrSlaughtr

...works passively like Momentum. Right now only two classes have skills that does this, warden and DK. Everyone else has to choose between damage skills. For templars, they can now get it via jabs, which is at least a spammable (though magplars are icy on using this morph) and bow builds get it from a spammable.

Short of that, you're either giving up damage to run a heavy set (rattle or king) OR you have to use one of the active damage skills that proc it. Degen or hidden blade. Both of which are okay for ranged builds but not so great for melee, especially if you're NB. Nothing says "here I am" more than a dot in the back. Our two sources of damage buff are sap essence and drain power, both of which requires you to actually hit a target in melee range before it procs. This is why NB bombers never relied on it either.

This means in PVP you are basically forced to run 2H, because the only other option is to cycle through expensive pots, locking you out of using tripots, detects, invis, etc.

I've been trying to put together an advanced NB build that uses flame staff and DW, and it really blows. Using 2H is very clunky these days. It's harder to hit light and heavy attacks, IMO, and weaving is a little off compared to other weapon types. It would be nice if we had another option over momentum, considering two classes get this passively for nothing on skills that also provide other benefits. So what if we added it to accelerate? The skill is already expensive so I don't think it would make it overpowered. Any other suggestions?

NordSwordnBoard

Rattle chest, legs and jewelry isn't that much of a damage loss unless you're parsing on a dummy.

DrSlaughtr

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Rattle chest, legs and jewelry isn't that much of a damage loss unless you're parsing on a dummy.

It is for pvp. Even 2 pieces kill a lot of pen or damage, and you likely have to run a mythic jewelry piece, which means 3 heavy pieces.

Per missing medium piece, you're losing 2% damage and 2% crit damage, for instance. For 2 heavy pieces you're losing up to 8% damage on attacks. That's 12% if you have to go 3 heavy to run a mythic.

NordSwordnBoard

TheEndBringer wrote: »

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Rattle chest, legs and jewelry isn't that much of a damage loss unless you're parsing on a dummy.

It is for pvp. Even 2 pieces kill a lot of pen or damage, and you likely have to run a mythic jewelry piece, which means 3 heavy pieces.

Per missing medium piece, you're losing 2% damage and 2% crit damage, for instance. For 2 heavy pieces you're losing up to 8% damage on attacks. That's 12% if you have to go 3 heavy to run a mythic.

So run Rattle weapons and jewelry and wear medium or light chest and legs. I was dismayed but adapted to the fact that Rattlecage's drawbacks include settling for a monster 2 pc instead of a mythic ring in what you described. Upside is I use an arena weapon, so I'm good with it.

Is this for ganking out of stealth? It seems you want the buff without alerting your enemy. Do you think they designed nightblade that way intentionally? I do. Use a damage boost potion, then switch to a different quick slotted potion for different situations later. The loss of Kena procs by hitting air is a nerf I don't agree with - so maybe look at that being changed back.

I disagree with adding major brutality to a skill that already gives 10% bonus to crit damage. 3 major buffs in one skill! We do not need to add major brutality/sorcery to accelerate just because it's hard for you to fit into your build when so many other substitutes exist.

WrathOfInnos

Sorc also has easy access with Surge, and Templar with Jabs. Nightblade and Necro have a harder time getting the buff, and often need to use potions or weapon skills.

I see no issue adding Major Sorcery/Brutality to Channeled Acceleration. That is currently one of the weakest skills in the game, dealing no damage on cast (like Barbed Trap) and having a self-snaring cast time before a short speed boost and mediocre damage buff. Race Against Time is stronger, giving mire mobility and being instant cast, and maybe should not give Sorcery/Brutality.

DrSlaughtr

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Sorc also has easy access with Surge, and Templar with Jabs. Nightblade and Necro have a harder time getting the buff, and often need to use potions or weapon skills.

I see no issue adding Major Sorcery/Brutality to Channeled Acceleration. That is currently one of the weakest skills in the game, dealing no damage on cast (like Barbed Trap) and having a self-snaring cast time before a short speed boost and mediocre damage buff. Race Against Time is stronger, giving mire mobility and being instant cast, and maybe should not give Sorcery/Brutality.

I'm good with that. Add it to channeled only so you're still having to pause for the 1.3 seconds or whatever it is.

I forgot about surge, too.

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

TheEndBringer wrote: »

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Rattle chest, legs and jewelry isn't that much of a damage loss unless you're parsing on a dummy.

It is for pvp. Even 2 pieces kill a lot of pen or damage, and you likely have to run a mythic jewelry piece, which means 3 heavy pieces.

Per missing medium piece, you're losing 2% damage and 2% crit damage, for instance. For 2 heavy pieces you're losing up to 8% damage on attacks. That's 12% if you have to go 3 heavy to run a mythic.

So run Rattle weapons and jewelry and wear medium or light chest and legs. I was dismayed but adapted to the fact that Rattlecage's drawbacks include settling for a monster 2 pc instead of a mythic ring in what you described. Upside is I use an arena weapon, so I'm good with it.

Is this for ganking out of stealth? It seems you want the buff without alerting your enemy. Do you think they designed nightblade that way intentionally? I do. Use a damage boost potion, then switch to a different quick slotted potion for different situations later. The loss of Kena procs by hitting air is a nerf I don't agree with - so maybe look at that being changed back.

I disagree with adding major brutality to a skill that already gives 10% bonus to crit damage. 3 major buffs in one skill! We do not need to add major brutality/sorcery to accelerate just because it's hard for you to fit into your build when so many other substitutes exist.

As the other person pointed out, there are only two classes without easily accessible damage buff. We're not talking about same unique effect that should be hard to get. When 4 classes have either have skills that passively buff or attached to the spammable, it feels a little like my NBs and Necro are forced to either run 2h or limit them to one pot.

I'd understand you point of it wasn't so readily available to everyone else. Wardens get it FOR FREE with resource restore! C'mon. 😂

Running weapons and jewelry rattle is not possible on a gank blade. Go put that on with stygian and you'll be hitting like a wet noodle. You can't really put Caluurions on body either because then you can't target it properly. It has to be front barred to work right. You can't gank this patch with flat damage. Our options are limited.

I didn't suggest adding it to a NB skill for two reasons. One, the only one that makes sense is shadowy disguise and ppl are already convinced it makes me invincible as is so let's not rock the boat, and two, I think another skill similar to momentum can benefit builds that want more options. Some wardens aren't wanting to run netch because of plague, for instance. And magplars may not want to run a Stam morph.

IonicKai

Nightblades can get major brutality and sorcery with power drain and morphs (most people recognize sap essence name). Only cros don't have built in and for that I believe you could go 2h or use degen from mages guild.

JobooAGS

IonicKai wrote: »

Nightblades can get major brutality and sorcery with power drain and morphs (most people recognize sap essence name). Only cros don't have built in and for that I believe you could go 2h or use degen from mages guild.

There is a reason why that skill isn’t used outside of organized groups or bombing

fred4

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Do you think they designed nightblade that way intentionally? I do.

I don't. We're in hybrid territory these days, so it doesn't matter anymore, but historically magblade has just been the neglected class. It kept getting nerfed for the sins of stamblade and magsorc.

If that was intentional, then why did stamblade have Rally all along? The PvP class balance between magblade and stamblade was just a mess. Sometimes ZOS' combat designers feel capable, sometimes they feel like bureaucrats. Neither sticking Major Sorcery on the AOE nor exclusively sticking speed on the ground DOT ever made sense.

fred4

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I see no issue adding Major Sorcery/Brutality to Channeled Acceleration.

Which would make it only useful to bombers, because every other build rightfully uses RAT. Thus it solves nothing, basically. You need the snare / root removal and immunity on most builds, along with the speed. That said, I'm not the OP. I've long gotten used to Detection / Major Sorcery / Magicka potions. I'm not a pure ganker. I run a balanced build not powerful enough to kill meta players outright. I do however open with a gank and drink the potion just before it. I find the detection useful, since it gives you full visibility of the battlefield as you're moving in for the attack and it prevents nightblades from escaping.

fred4

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Running weapons and jewelry rattle is not possible on a gank blade. Go put that on with stygian and you'll be hitting like a wet noodle. You can't really put Caluurions on body either because then you can't target it properly. It has to be front barred to work right. You can't gank this patch with flat damage. Our options are limited.

I didn't suggest adding it to a NB skill for two reasons. One, the only one that makes sense is shadowy disguise and ppl are already convinced it makes me invincible as is so let's not rock the boat, and two, I think another skill similar to momentum can benefit builds that want more options. Some wardens aren't wanting to run netch because of plague, for instance. And magplars may not want to run a Stam morph.

Putting it on Siphoning Attacks has been thrown around in the past.

I'm not sure magblade, or should I say nightblade, is that bad this patch. For one thing, heavy attack flame staff builds are apparently a thing, not just for DKs. What I do agree with, however, is that, if you want to play a conventional build with a flame staff and Swallow Soul, which plays nicely for boss farming in IC, then you're still weak. I've long struggled to understand why stamblade has felt stronger all along for PvP. I now think it's due to certain advantages of the melee playstyle, such as:

• Crouching into a melee heavy attack from out of combat and while flanking yields a huge bonus to your melee opener.
• Using AOE skills, such as Dawnbreaker, Soul Tether and Whirling Blades to execute people.
• Using a spammable that is also a stun (along with the extra damage buff on the stamina morph).

I don't PvP a lot anymore, so the following hasn't received a lot of testing, but basically I think if you adopt a more stamblade-like playstyle, then magblade is pretty much the equivalent. Tends to be squishier, but has better Cloak sustain. I've only specced this out for my woodelf stamblade, so far, but we're looking at a true hybrid here:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=437761

You may quibble about the stats, but it's up to you how you want to balance the sustain. I balance it for perma-cloak and all round very good sustain, but I do want to point out that the build has 24K penetration. The more important thing is how it plays. Instead of opening with Incap, we're using Soul Tether as an execute. You open with Crushing Weapon into Concealed, which inflicts Major Breach, two spammables worth of damage and Caluurion in basically one GCD. This is shortly followed by another burst. Soul Tether being an ultimate has a delay, meaning there will be a damage gap, but on the other hand Soul Tether into Whirlwind is (or can be) another burst of two abilities in a single GCD. What's more important is that these skills are AOE. Regardless of whether the target tries to roll through you and ends up behind you, they will be hit. If Soul Tether is not available, then the same timing applies to Relentless Focus, which may be available instead.

I've always played melee magblade. This build retains one of the most distinctive features of that class, the cloak sustain and the Concealed movement speed in cloak. One dawback, as it turns out, is that there is no way to restore magicka from heavy attacks. I love having the combination of Shrewd Offering and 1H+S on the back bar. Reactively block-healing with that skill is very effective. Switching the main resource pool to magicka may be the better choice or, at least, is something to try. Note how I used Inner Light to keep the magicka pool up. It's a sacrifice over Camou Hunter, but what can you do? Another thing to try is switching from 1H+S to an ice staff.

In terms of the Major Sorcery, I am still tied to potions, but like I said this actually fits my playstyle. You could back bar 2H, even Vateshran 2H, but Rally healing is inconsistent. Shrewd Offering plus block damage reduction is a really good defense. I don't find setting off Caluurion accidentally from the back bar an issue on this build, by the way. I have observed Caluurion misfiring on the wrong bar in general, but since the back bar is pure defense and I don't ever light attack on it, that happens rarely if ever in this build.

fred4

Incidentally one of the reasons I love how the above build plays is what the gank into AOE playstyle does for you defensively. My aim has been to kill single targets, but I've noticed that the pressure I put on surrounding targets allows me to keep fighting or, at least, allows me to escape more easily while they're busy healing. This means I can more aggressively approach groups, zergs, brawls or IC farm groups than on a pure single target melee nightblade. I've never really played an AOE brawler spec, say, a stamden, but I can see now how that's just plain OP. It's a smart choice and/or that's how those classes work. It's not skilled per se.

I think there are a couple of more things to try. Even though not a bomber as such, I may try Vicious Death instead of Stygian. I think Acuity may also fit this build, because it's not front loaded in the way that a typical ganker is. Furthermore Divines gear may be an option, because the speed, RAT and cloak sustain make the build inherently less dodge-roll-reliant than a pure stamblade would be.

Nord_Raseri

The werewolf skill, Hircine's Bounty, now gives both major brutality and sorcery while slotted.

SoulwayFilth

I got sick of pot's not going off in the thick of it when I needed being a tri or immov. Press the button, hear the sound, dead, respawn, pot still available. Good old lag.

Combine with being range magblade, I need bar space. Changed pots to alliance pots for major sorc & proph, general regen. So whenever on cd, I just pop them. Cheap & easy to with decent amount of pvp.

Pot goes off, more skill space, works. So, forgot the skill, use a pot. Than gives you a slot for damage?

Finedaible

What they should do is place Major Brutality on Slimecraw's 2-piece bonus instead of Minor Berserk. That way the 2-piece is useful for classes that need it, and for classes that don't, the crit bonus is still useful. Anything that needs minor berserk can just slot Camo Hunter like they already do.

Vildebill

Finedaible wrote: »

What they should do is place Major Brutality on Slimecraw's 2-piece bonus instead of Minor Berserk. That way the 2-piece is useful for classes that need it, and for classes that don't, the crit bonus is still useful. Anything that needs minor berserk can just slot Camo Hunter like they already do.

Then literally no one would use it. Sacrifice a 2, 5 or mythic for that buff is pretty self gimping.

maxjapank

Finedaible wrote: »

Anything that needs minor berserk can just slot Camo Hunter like they already do.

I was actually disappointed when they took crit away from Biting Jabs. Now I have no source of Major Savagery on my Stamplar unless I use Sun Fire (absolutely no way), use a potion (my choice) or slot Camo Hunter. The fact that so many players say that everyone slots Camo Hunter means that there is a problem with the skill.

fred4

maxjapank wrote: »

The fact that so many players say that everyone slots Camo Hunter means that there is a problem with the skill.

I'm not sure that there is or at least not how to fix that without making the skill unloved and useless. ZOS invented the Major / Minor system for reasons, but it's too coarse to balance things finely enough. There are certain combinations of buffs that stand out for PvP and not much can be done about it. Race Against Time is another one of those skills. The combination of speed and root/snare removal is gold. I'd argue it would still be gold without the Minor Force, even. Shuffle is decent too, especially in the context of a bow build, but Falcon's Swiftness IMO is not. Not much can be done about it without breaking the Major / Minor system. ZOS have probably thrown together just about every combination of major and minor buffs on skills, especially with the warden class. Some of them really work. Most, frankly, do not and the Major / Minor system isn't flexible enough to fix that. That said, I'm using Inner Light on my latest hybrid nightblade, because I really needed the magicka.

PvP_Exploiter

No they just increase the duration of Sap/Drain instead of giving us an out of combat buff

At least we are in the same boat as Necro and Templar.
Unfortunately Templar, or stamplar, has it on a useful skill.

I pray for the day I can use DW/Bow in PvP without needing a gimped setup.

DrSlaughtr

Anyone tossing sap and drain out as a reason to not add another option over rally for other classes is missing to point. But let's focus on NBs, if you wish.

Even bombers do not rely on sap for sorcery. Why? Because you're stacking out of stealth and you need soul tether to crit. So if you use sap for sorcery you don't have the damage buff for your tether and possibly detonation. So they either have to limit themselves to sorcery pots or run 2h. Those were not fair options when DKs, sorcs and wardens get passive damage buffs.

As a melee blade if I only ran weapon power pots then I'm not able to use tripots, detects or invisible pots. Remember you can't even make a detect pot with brutality.

If these buffs were rare or unique, we would be talking a different story. But they're so readily available that it bones the few builds that don't have easy access to it.

It would be different if both DW and Destro both had equally simple access to these buffs. DW is tied to a damage attack and Destro doesn't even have one at all. Hope you grinded mage guild for degen.

Anti_Virus

They should add major brutality and sorcery to siphoning attacks and it’s morphs.

DrSlaughtr

Anti_Virus wrote: »

They should add major brutality and sorcery to siphoning attacks and it’s morphs.

I agree that would be nice but I was trying to avoid any anti nightblade posts while also pitching something that could help other classes left in the wind on this issue.

wheresbes

Is this thread for a temporary solution until Oakensoul comes out?

Generally, I don't like the idea of being forced to use a skill for a "compulsory" buff, even less if it's not an nb skill. I already wrote in the past that they should put the buff on siphoning. I still use RC for the time being (weapons, 2 jewels, 1 body for undaunted).

HalensShade

This has always been an issue on magblade since their bar space is starved already for pvp. Definitely need some kind of passive sorcery to open up a slot for utility.

HalensShade

Anti_Virus wrote: »

They should add major brutality and sorcery to siphoning attacks and it’s morphs.

Great idea. This would make it competitive with the refreshing path changes. Now that path offers sustain, healing, AND expedition there will be zero reason to run siphoning attacks.

Anti_Virus

HalensShade wrote: »

Anti_Virus wrote: »

They should add major brutality and sorcery to siphoning attacks and it’s morphs.

Great idea. This would make it competitive with the refreshing path changes. Now that path offers sustain, healing, AND expedition there will be zero reason to run siphoning attacks.

Is this sarcasm or do you agree with me?

Anti_Virus

Edit nvm I interpreted your comment wrong