Assassin's Will is balanced

Caribou77

No not balanced

I have very minimal pvp experience on NB as the play style doesn’t appeal to me. I’d be curious to hear from a veteran NB what you think Stamblade’s weaknesses are this patch.

I main a Magden, and many Stamblades seen much tankier now. I pop a detect pot and they continue to dish out damage, spamming concealed weapon (which is instant cast and deals as much damage as deep fissure, a 3 second delay skill shot) without taking much damage. I don’t really see a disadvantage to balance the damage mitigation of cloaking and very high crit damage.

PhoenixGrey

Yes balanced

baselesschart wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

By that logic, If cfrag from a random pug hits for a 20k you should not have a problem with that right ?

Oh wait nb has cloak so you can counter that as well.

But I m sure you will not be ok with that on other classes.

Problem here not the damage but lack of counterplay for other classes. If only my mag sorc had old BOL I would not mind how hard this skill hits

If I somehow got hit for 20k by crystal frags I would add more tankiness to my build. Not that some zergling would even have any chance of hitting that, which is also another point of discussion, a lot of the deadly nightblade players are veteran players that have been playing the class for a long time. A mediocre nightblade will still go down really quickly and won't execute a burst combo as well.

If the damage isn't the problem and its lack of counterplay from other classes, that would suggest that zos should focus on buffing other classes. Because fundamentally the ability has not changed.

My point is you should not have a problem if zos decides to buff cfrag by 50%?

Yeah I agree with 8 straight patches of nb buffs a lot of other classes are bottom tier compared to nb

The only spec which can remotely challenge nb today is the ice warden

IMHO there is not much difference between a mediocre nb and a top tier one right now. When one skill hits that hard there is no point doing a combo, is there ?

Sergykid

damage is acceptable but don't say it's easily avoidable. By the time u notice it's launched it already hit u. These sound and travel time arguments are ridiculous.

this is a spell you must predict, you must expect it to come in order to actually block or dodge it, it's not something you react to. And the hit can be guaranteed after medium attack off balance stun.

spell is fine just don't say it's easily avoidable

Veeka

Yes balanced

the problem isnt the skill itself but the ways all sets and bonus make it become over powered.

baselesschart

Yes balanced

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

My point is you should not have a problem if zos decides to buff cfrag by 50%?

Yeah I agree with 8 straight patches of nb buffs a lot of other classes are bottom tier compared to nb

The only spec which can remotely challenge nb today is the ice warden

IMHO there is not much difference between a mediocre nb and a top tier one right now. When one skill hits that hard there is no point doing a combo, is there ?

Of course there would be an issue with buffing crystal frags, the ability can proc frequently and can proc off of itself which would make consistent 20k hits off of it wildly OP.

I've played nightblade since release and its never been in a bad spot in the meta, in fact its always been really good from patch to patch. But its usually outclassed by the dlc classes which tend to hold your hand a lot more. Thats not so much the case this patch.

And if anything, zos has gutted a lot of our skills. Incap used to be an instant cast with major defile on it, gone. Surprise attack used to have major fracture/breach on it, and it used to stun, gone. These were never things that I would have considered OP.

You still have to do a combo. The skill doesn't do enough damage alone to kill a PvP build. Especially if someone is on their backbar and/or blocking.

baselesschart

Yes balanced

Caribou77 wrote: »

I have very minimal pvp experience on NB as the play style doesn’t appeal to me. I’d be curious to hear from a veteran NB what you think Stamblade’s weaknesses are this patch.

I main a Magden, and many Stamblades seen much tankier now. I pop a detect pot and they continue to dish out damage, spamming concealed weapon (which is instant cast and deals as much damage as deep fissure, a 3 second delay skill shot) without taking much damage. I don’t really see a disadvantage to balance the damage mitigation of cloaking and very high crit damage.

Its not inherently the class that has given them more tankiness. Every nightblade runs vigor, which now gives minor resolve, in addition to their already acquired major resolve. Most nightblades are running rallying cry, so crits are going to be doing much less damage. They also are running defending on their backbar. Makes it super easy to hit 30k resists on your backbar as a nightblade which didn't really happen all that much in the past.

You can't really rebalance damage mitigation of cloaking because it mitigates it to 0 because you're invisible. Besides, the skill has plenty of counters.

Caribou77

No not balanced

Thanks Baseless Chart, I appreciate it. That answered my question, I think. With minor and major resolve complementing the NB build, they essentially have defense (backbar) on par with most other classes, with the added bonus of cloaking to get to Zero damage done. Also, dark cloak provides minor protection for 10 seconds, and heals you. It adds up.

I get that cloaking has counters, nonetheless, it's a helluvan escape/attack tool, even if many players can counter it. To that point, when I use lingering flare, I swear NBs are cloaking again instantly the moment they are revealed. There is no "can't return to stealth for 4 seconds" as the ability states. Just watched this happen several times in BG's today. I don't know if it's a bug, or lag, or what.

So, like most other PVPrs, I now have to build enough resistance (armor & crit) to survive a ~30k gank combo. Or else hit detect pots all day. I guess this is why there are very low kills and deaths in the BGs I'm playing. I just finished one (Deathmatch Weekend) where just about everyone's score was 0-1-1 or 1-1-0 or 2-1-1. It was boring af. I was a "high" scorer with 2-0-7. One necro got 8 kills, cause he/she was a good necro. Not a fun meta, imo.

Maybe I'll level an NB just so I can experience cloaking around, undetected, looking for a Magsorc low on health to gank. It might be time for me to quit the game.

baselesschart

Yes balanced

Caribou77 wrote: »

I get that cloaking has counters, nonetheless, it's a helluvan escape/attack tool, even if many players can counter it. To that point, when I use lingering flare, I swear NBs are cloaking again instantly the moment they are revealed. There is no "can't return to stealth for 4 seconds" as the ability states. Just watched this happen several times in BG's today. I don't know if it's a bug, or lag, or what.

I honestly couldn't really offer any input without seeing said encounters taking place.

Caribou77 wrote: »

Maybe I'll level an NB just so I can experience cloaking around, undetected, looking for a Magsorc low on health to gank. It
might be time for me to quit the game.

Nightblade is certainly fun, and even despite its competitive performance in the meta, it still is a relatively unforgiving class to play. Its certainly not easy mode, you can easily be punished if you miscalculate and make a mistake while you're in combat.

OBJnoob

No not balanced

Catching up on some of the conversation, I still think it's clearly unbalanced.

A large part of the defense of it seems to be that the skill itself is fine and it's the damage multipliers that make it bad. I don't disagree, nor do I agree, because it seems a superfluous argument to me. Nobody is complaining about the damage of incap, concealed weapon, or killers blade. Only assassin's will. If the damage multipliers aren't bothering anybody on any other skills then it's clearly the original tooltip of assassin's will that is the problem. You could solve the assassin's will problem by tinkering with the multipliers, sure, but then you're nerfing their entire kit when only one thing is being complained about. Nerfing what is being complained about is obviously the answer.

Jabbs_Giggity

The skill damage isn't the problem. The issue of balance is a result of how is buffed. You can buff this through so many ways: slotting a fighters guild skill, using vamp skill line, sets, class active skills, class passive skills.
The problem is two fold.
1. Other classes are not all built to have similar options for a high burst potential. Solution: buff other classes to meet the standards of nightblade, not nerfing nightblade to meet standards of other classes.
2. Utility that goes with AW is too much for a skill with such high burst potential, but skill itself is balanced. Telegraph is easy to see, slow. Audio is loud. Blockable and Dodgeable.

For perspective, I main Templar since console launch. That speaks enough on saying this is balanced in comparison.

Jabbs_Giggity

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

I don't know. I feel that getting 20% bonus on it after hitting an ultimate and 10% more damage from hidden blade gives the damage you are talking about and don't think it would be as bad if those were fixed. But there may be a balance issue in the weapon damage it grants while it waits, and the heal on top of that might be a bit too much. But its not exactly just press and win as there are a lot of things to get lined up to make it truly give you those advantages. I kind of feel other classes should be as rewarded and many are just not.

Big problem in the game is mechanics like nocturnal set. Constantly removing your buffs with no visual cue.

Cloudrest

I'm not sure why Purifying Light/Power of the Light keeps getting brought up in a thread about Assassin's Will. However, here's my 2 cents from playing both Templar and Nightblade:





As you can see, around a 27k crit on both abilities. One of them is a lot more balanced than the other. Assassin's Will can be blocked and dodge rolled. There's a sound that plays that gives away whenever you have 5 stacks and can fire the proc, letting your opponent know that it's up and allowing to anticipate your combo. There's a travel time that allows you to break free and roll dodge even if you get Incap CC + Bow proc'd whilst you're on the ground.

You can't block or roll dodge a 26.3k PL crit in any way. There's 0 counterplay. A nerf was justified-- I was seeing 15-20k+ PL crits pretty damn often, and you can stack them on the same damage tick as a Dawnbreaker for a hard CC instakill. Sure, ZOS nerfed it way too hard and Templar's about as useful as Magsorc now, but it was way too strong in the hands of players far less experienced than I am on the class. Let's not do the same to Nightblade and see them go the way of the dodo-- it's not healthy for the game.

Mind you, I see 15k-20k bow crits pretty often, too, but Incap CC + Bow isn't as strong as a combo. You can completely counter a nightblade's entire damage rotation by holding block or dodge rolling at the right time. I've played both extensively openworld 1vX, 2vX, group, etc. I find Nightblade easier to 1vX on Templar-- even when PL was strong, simply because of the tools in its kit like Phantasmal and Shade. I'll echo what others in this thread like React are saying; the problem with NB right now isn't Assassin's Will, it's the 10% free damage tacked onto concealed weapon and the buffs to NB survivability.

StaticWave

No not balanced

Cloudrest wrote: »

I'm not sure why Purifying Light/Power of the Light keeps getting brought up in a thread about Assassin's Will. However, here's my 2 cents from playing both Templar and Nightblade:





As you can see, around a 27k crit on both abilities. One of them is a lot more balanced than the other. Assassin's Will can be blocked and dodge rolled. There's a sound that plays that gives away whenever you have 5 stacks and can fire the proc, letting your opponent know that it's up and allowing to anticipate your combo. There's a travel time that allows you to break free and roll dodge even if you get Incap CC + Bow proc'd whilst you're on the ground.

You can't block or roll dodge a 26.3k PL crit in any way. There's 0 counterplay. A nerf was justified-- I was seeing 15-20k+ PL crits pretty damn often, and you can stack them on the same damage tick as a Dawnbreaker for a hard CC instakill. Sure, ZOS nerfed it way too hard and Templar's about as useful as Magsorc now, but it was way too strong in the hands of players far less experienced than I am on the class. Let's not do the same to Nightblade and see them go the way of the dodo-- it's not healthy for the game.

Mind you, I see 15k-20k bow crits pretty often, too, but Incap CC + Bow isn't as strong as a combo. You can completely counter a nightblade's entire damage rotation by holding block or dodge rolling at the right time. I've played both extensively openworld 1vX, 2vX, group, etc. I find Nightblade easier to 1vX on Templar-- even when PL was strong, simply because of the tools in its kit like Phantasmal and Shade. I'll echo what others in this thread like React are saying; the problem with NB right now isn't Assassin's Will, it's the 10% free damage tacked onto concealed weapon and the buffs to NB survivability.

Basically if you give a class enough stat buffs without changing its playstyle, it's still going to overperform purely based on superior stats.

BlackCatOnline-

Yes balanced

blktauna wrote: »

TBH I am never able to keep stacks long enough in pvp to get the thing to fire so mad props to those who do. It falls off so rapidly I jus don't bother with the skill.

Me too. I'll often neglect the skill cause my light weaves don't always seem to register. The most reliable way I've found to build stacks for relentless is shooting my bow a few times at a distance but in most cases as soon as the fight really starts I'll die without either using Will or it just doesn't hit hard enough 🫠

MEBengalsFan2001

No not balanced

NB is balanced and working as intended. LMAO...

katorga

No not balanced

StaticWave wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

I'm not sure why Purifying Light/Power of the Light keeps getting brought up in a thread about Assassin's Will. However, here's my 2 cents from playing both Templar and Nightblade:





As you can see, around a 27k crit on both abilities. One of them is a lot more balanced than the other. Assassin's Will can be blocked and dodge rolled. There's a sound that plays that gives away whenever you have 5 stacks and can fire the proc, letting your opponent know that it's up and allowing to anticipate your combo. There's a travel time that allows you to break free and roll dodge even if you get Incap CC + Bow proc'd whilst you're on the ground.

You can't block or roll dodge a 26.3k PL crit in any way. There's 0 counterplay. A nerf was justified-- I was seeing 15-20k+ PL crits pretty damn often, and you can stack them on the same damage tick as a Dawnbreaker for a hard CC instakill. Sure, ZOS nerfed it way too hard and Templar's about as useful as Magsorc now, but it was way too strong in the hands of players far less experienced than I am on the class. Let's not do the same to Nightblade and see them go the way of the dodo-- it's not healthy for the game.

Mind you, I see 15k-20k bow crits pretty often, too, but Incap CC + Bow isn't as strong as a combo. You can completely counter a nightblade's entire damage rotation by holding block or dodge rolling at the right time. I've played both extensively openworld 1vX, 2vX, group, etc. I find Nightblade easier to 1vX on Templar-- even when PL was strong, simply because of the tools in its kit like Phantasmal and Shade. I'll echo what others in this thread like React are saying; the problem with NB right now isn't Assassin's Will, it's the 10% free damage tacked onto concealed weapon and the buffs to NB survivability.

Basically if you give a class enough stat buffs without changing its playstyle, it's still going to overperform purely based on superior stats.

Bingo. They have taken every other classes' "niche" and put it all into NB.

During regular play my night blade has: 56-100% crit rate, ~100% crit damage, ~30-40% raw damage buff, 145% movement speed, over 7K spell damage, and well over 2K regens. My concealed weapon hits as hard as my necro's Blastbones (when it decides to work).

It is sort of ridiculous, and in my opinion makes the other classes sub par. My NB is faster than my Stamsorc. It heals and bursts better than my Necro. It bombs better than my necro. The only class I play that is still competitive is DK, but my NB is a hugely easier due to the massive movement speed and cloak.

Caribou77

No not balanced

katorga wrote: »

Bingo. They have taken every other classes' "niche" and put it all into NB.

During regular play my night blade has: 56-100% crit rate, ~100% crit damage, ~30-40% raw damage buff, 145% movement speed, over 7K spell damage, and well over 2K regens. My concealed weapon hits as hard as my necro's Blastbones.

It is sort of ridiculous, and in my opinion makes the other classes sub par. My NB is faster than my Stamsorc. It heals and bursts better than my Necro. It bombs better than my necro. The only class I play that is still competitive is DK, but my NB is a hugely easier due to the massive movement speed and cloak.

Gee, I wonder how this happened? It’s pretty conspicuous, no?

Any theories?

ketsparrowhawk

Yes balanced

If it didn't hit that hard the class would never get any kills (unless they make some kind of cheesy bash build or something.. but at that point is it even really a nightblade???). Imo the main problem with NB's right now is that they are too survivable. That big damage should come at the expense of survivability.

OBJnoob

No not balanced

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If it didn't hit that hard the class would never get any kills (unless they make some kind of cheesy bash build or something.. but at that point is it even really a nightblade???). Imo the main problem with NB's right now is that they are too survivable. That big damage should come at the expense of survivability.

Agree with the 2nd part but not the 1st part. The rest of us are out here getting kills without hitting people for 28k. It's clearly not necessary. And if they hit that hard during a tank meta how hard will they hit outside of a tank meta? Why would anyone that cares about being competitive build for less than 28k health when some people can do 28k in one shot?

I agree that nbs should have a slight edge in damage -v- other classes at the expense of survivability. But even if you nerf their primary heal they still have invisibility to fall back on. Nbs never lacked for a niche to call their own, have always drawn a massive percentage of players to play them, and frankly have always been capable of killing.

Trying to say this or that about 1v1s or how hard their combo is to land is kinda silly because it pretends that nbs need to be able to survive toe to toe... And then when they receive such buffs they go right back to bow ganking, bombing, and incapping people already fighting someone else.

What one person "needs" to compete in competitive duels another 35% of the player base combines with the rest of their overstocked tool bag to just be trolly and annoying.

HiImRex

No not balanced

OBJnoob wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If it didn't hit that hard the class would never get any kills (unless they make some kind of cheesy bash build or something.. but at that point is it even really a nightblade???). Imo the main problem with NB's right now is that they are too survivable. That big damage should come at the expense of survivability.

Agree with the 2nd part but not the 1st part. The rest of us are out here getting kills without hitting people for 28k. It's clearly not necessary. And if they hit that hard during a tank meta how hard will they hit outside of a tank meta? Why would anyone that cares about being competitive build for less than 28k health when some people can do 28k in one shot?

I agree that nbs should have a slight edge in damage -v- other classes at the expense of survivability. But even if you nerf their primary heal they still have invisibility to fall back on. Nbs never lacked for a niche to call their own, have always drawn a massive percentage of players to play them, and frankly have always been capable of killing.

Trying to say this or that about 1v1s or how hard their combo is to land is kinda silly because it pretends that nbs need to be able to survive toe to toe... And then when they receive such buffs they go right back to bow ganking, bombing, and incapping people already fighting someone else.

What one person "needs" to compete in competitive duels another 35% of the player base combines with the rest of their overstocked tool bag to just be trolly and annoying.

That’s a bit of an oversimplification. Every class has a kill mechanic that goes far beyond how much damage your abilities do.

DKs have a good mix of dots and burst along with the ability to brawl using a combination of strong heals and sustain from battle roar. They pressure opponents with cost effective dots and whips to wear someone down until a leap whip combo can finish them off.

Sorcs have great, on demand front loaded burst with built in mobility (streak) and sustain (dark deal), they win through smart use of these features to win trades which is very different than trading with raw power and brawling like DKs or old plars.

Plars had a combination of high risk high reward pressure with channeled jabs + burning light, with backlash providing periodic burst to open up kill opportunities. It still has the healing package needed to sustain this pressure with cleanse allowing you to soft reset fights. You wore someone down as plar like DK but with a different tempo and cadence.

I can keep going but the point is, DKs don’t need assassins will because they have noxious breath, claw, molten whip, leap, the best on demand single target CC in the game, battle roar, great healing, etc. Sorcs don’t need assassins will because they have burst abilities that can stack on top of other globals and multiple alternative ways to increase burst potential (for example, curse + crystal weapon + dizzy swing lands at the same time, you can even add overload light attack). So on and so forth.

NBs have no overlapping burst or dot pressure or the ability to trade efficiently in a brawl. They have off balance to almost simulate an overlapping burst (but it’s not a true single global burst like sorc, it only saves half a global vs a full globa) which has a long downtime as compared to just CCing someone every 7 seconds, and they have to plan incap + assassin’s will in quick succession.

You want assassin’s will to be nerfed to crystal frag numbers then you need to give NBs a haunting curse. That’s also an oversimplification on my part but I hope you see what I’m trying to say.

That’s why nerfs generally need to be done with a soft touch. There’s a lot more going on here than “assassins will too strong”

OBJnoob

No not balanced

Yes there is a lot going on besides "assassin's will does too much," but your suggested softer touch IS to simply nerf assassin's will. They aren't going to revert the most recent change to concealed so soon, it would be much harder to redo the entire vampire line to not synergize with nb so well. It doesn't make sense to remove the 20% from incap which has been in place for so long, and it would be a less soft touch to rework nb passives.

And tbh nightblades have access to dots if they so choose as well as stuns whenever they want. If they choose not to use them it's probably because the rest of their kit is so strong they don't feel the need to use normal stuff. Lol. Their stuns and dots even have handy utility... The only thing they lack is delayed burst. But one could easily say that their ability to sneak attack is plenty of compensation for that.

Anyway... I appreciate the in depth breakdown but I already knew most of that. I'd expect a little more solidarity but someone voting the same way as me.

It's not balanced. Why quibble about details when we agree?

ketsparrowhawk

Yes balanced

OBJnoob wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If it didn't hit that hard the class would never get any kills (unless they make some kind of cheesy bash build or something.. but at that point is it even really a nightblade???). Imo the main problem with NB's right now is that they are too survivable. That big damage should come at the expense of survivability.

Agree with the 2nd part but not the 1st part. The rest of us are out here getting kills without hitting people for 28k. It's clearly not necessary. And if they hit that hard during a tank meta how hard will they hit outside of a tank meta? Why would anyone that cares about being competitive build for less than 28k health when some people can do 28k in one shot?

I agree that nbs should have a slight edge in damage -v- other classes at the expense of survivability. But even if you nerf their primary heal they still have invisibility to fall back on. Nbs never lacked for a niche to call their own, have always drawn a massive percentage of players to play them, and frankly have always been capable of killing.

Trying to say this or that about 1v1s or how hard their combo is to land is kinda silly because it pretends that nbs need to be able to survive toe to toe... And then when they receive such buffs they go right back to bow ganking, bombing, and incapping people already fighting someone else.

What one person "needs" to compete in competitive duels another 35% of the player base combines with the rest of their overstocked tool bag to just be trolly and annoying.

Other classes manage to get kills with weaker attacks because the rest of their toolkit compensates for that. For example blast bones and sub assault are delayed burst abilities, so they can be combo'd with other skills. DK's have strong dots and delayed burst to supplement their damage. NB's have incap and assassins will. They must land their combo perfectly or they will not get the kill. And if the combo doesn't 100% delete the healthbar, most likely you will miss out on that kill and it'll be several seconds before you can try again.. by which time your target is fully healed. If assassins will is nerfed then the rest of their offensive kit will need to be buffed to compensate.

ketsparrowhawk

Yes balanced

Imo dueling should not be grounds for balance decisions. Play some sweaty BG's as a NB and see how you feel. It's very rare to see a NB with a godly performance in BG's. I'm not a NB main but when I do play on mine I always conclude it's way harder than it looks.

React

Yes balanced

As others have mentioned, there are fundamental toolkit differences between NB and other classes that justify to an extent the damage we're seeing from them now.

All of the damage is dodgeable and blockable, including the ultimate. I've already listed all of the other counterplay mechanics they've added to assasin's will, so I won't do that again in this comment.

There is no delayed burst whatsoever on nightblade. There is generally no dot pressure, at least not on the specs hitting the assasin's will numbers that prompted this thread. There is nothing to go through block, and only power extraction goes through dodge roll.

People get hit with these numbers, or watch an experienced player succeed over less experienced players, and immediately come to the conclusion that the ability is too strong because of how hard it hits. But it seems that most people don't consider how easy the toolkit is to counter, and how difficult it becomes to actually kill any half decent player who is blocking/dodging appropriately without any damage mechanics to ignore their blocks/rolls.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Yes there is a lot going on besides "assassin's will does too much," but your suggested softer touch IS to simply nerf assassin's will. They aren't going to revert the most recent change to concealed so soon, it would be much harder to redo the entire vampire line to not synergize with nb so well. It doesn't make sense to remove the 20% from incap which has been in place for so long, and it would be a less soft touch to rework nb passives.

Why shouldn't they make the proper adjustments, though? Assasin's will itself is perfectly fine for the counterplay it has, especially when considering all of the other factors I mentioned above. If the problem of it hitting too hard stems from the damage modifiers in the toolkit, why would you think its a good idea to nerf the ability instead of the modifiers? I'm still hitting 10k concealed weapons, 10-13k rushing agonies, 6-8k medium weaves, 5-8k saps/extractions, etc. If you nerf assasin's will without adjusting the modifiers the class retains the majority of what is overperforming about it until the proper things get nerfed, at which point where youre left with a more balanced toolkit but also with an assasin's will that now doesn't do enough damage to actually kill anything.

I have played both versions of nightblade and the new hybrid nightblade in just about every meta. There were years where magNB could not kill any half decent player because nothing in the toolkit hit hard enough and again, it didnt/doesnt have delayed bursts/dots. If they listen to misguided feedback from people who are taking the damage numbers at face value without any context, the class will simply end up back in that spot where it struggles to kill anything.

I'm going to repost the comment I made at the beginning of this thread, since there's been quite a bit of discussion since then. The series of nerfs I have listed below amount to a signifcant damage reduction, as well as slight adjustments to sustain, self healing, and the removal of a debuff from the toolkit.

React wrote: »

Here is where I'd start with a first round of nerfs to nightblade (PTS week 1 type deal, to be buffed/nerfed further as needed)

1) Concealed - modifier down to 5% damage done if the proc is going to remain the way it is now, or reverted back to 300WD/SD for 10 seconds (original pts value) if they made it proc the bonus on cast. Minor expedition removed. Tooltip increased to match surprise attack (+4.4%).

2) Shadowy disguise - fatigue added, just like streak or roll dodge.

3) Phantasmal - roll cost reduction capped at 30-50%.

4) Power extraction - remove the minor cowardice.

5) Death Stroke and morphs - reduce the damage modifier by 5%.

6) Healthy Offering - remove the vitality on cast. This morph heals 5% more as the morph effect (rather than granting 5% vitality for 10s). Both morphs of this skill - the DOT effect should be exponential. It already stacks, but rather than putting 3 dots on you that each tick for 100 damage per second if you press it 3 times consecutively, the first dot would tick for 100/s, the second for 200/s, the third for 300/s, etc. These would still stack, and this would encourage you not to spam the ability. Numbers are just examples, the dots hit harder than that on the live server.

Metemsycosis

Yes balanced

The class is overtuned but when was the last time assassin's will was even changed?

I find it hard to believe people will come to the forums day in, day out crying about a tank meta. Then will sit and say oh em gee, what's this?? A 28k bow proc (nvm it required 10 stars to align)

Tommy_The_Gun

Yes balanced

React wrote: »

2) Shadowy disguise - fatigue added, just like streak or roll dodge.

The only way I can see something like that happening is if ZOS would remove all of those cloak hard-counters they have been adding over the years, so it would have same amount of counters as streak has. Slapping increased cost while keeping every stealth countering ability as it is now would be just an over-kill. Streak has it, because there are no streak counters (not in the same scope as we have stealth counters).

Note: What do I mean by "hard counter" ? :

Something that prevents you from using the ability in a 1st place (and is easy & reliable to apply while still allowing to put pressure), or disables / cancels out the ability split second after it was casted, effectively causing you to only waste resources while looking as if you are having a seizure & not gaining any benefit.

OBJnoob

No not balanced

React wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Yes there is a lot going on besides "assassin's will does too much," but your suggested softer touch IS to simply nerf assassin's will. They aren't going to revert the most recent change to concealed so soon, it would be much harder to redo the entire vampire line to not synergize with nb so well. It doesn't make sense to remove the 20% from incap which has been in place for so long, and it would be a less soft touch to rework nb passives.

Why shouldn't they make the proper adjustments, though? Assasin's will itself is perfectly fine for the counterplay it has, especially when considering all of the other factors I mentioned above. If the problem of it hitting too hard stems from the damage modifiers in the toolkit, why would you think its a good idea to nerf the ability instead of the modifiers? I'm still hitting 10k concealed weapons, 10-13k rushing agonies, 6-8k medium weaves, 5-8k saps/extractions, etc. If you nerf assasin's will without adjusting the modifiers the class retains the majority of what is overperforming about it until the proper things get nerfed, at which point where youre left with a more balanced toolkit but also with an assasin's will that now doesn't do enough damage to actually kill anything.

Why? Because as I was saying it is a softer touch and a simple enough change that the devs might actually go for. I think it's funny how players openly criticize the game for not listening to feedback but they always want the most intricate and precise solutions based on their own subjective game theory.

You say assassin's will may over perform because of x,y,z but the fact remains it over performs. You have a choice between asking for A or asking for X, Y, and Z. You choose to make the big ask instead of the little ask.

And then when the class is reworked from the ground up everybody can complain that zos only does things with a hammer and lifelong nbs can threaten to leave because of whatever tiny straw irked them the most.

And the cycle continues.

People are so tied to the academia of the topic and their own idea of perfection that they fail to settle for a basic and easily implemented fix.

In a game with this many overlapping variables the least change is almost always the right change. Can't expect the devs to realize that when the player base doesn't either.

Thecompton73

Yes balanced

Metemsycosis wrote: »

The class is overtuned but when was the last time assassin's will was even changed?

I find it hard to believe people will come to the forums day in, day out crying about a tank meta. Then will sit and say oh em gee, what's this?? A 28k bow proc (nvm it required 10 stars to align)

The funny part is since 80% of the PvP population in running so much mitigation the ability isn't hitting most players for nearly that much. That's about as hard as I've ever been hit with it on my glass cannon 6 medium 1 light armor NB that only has 1200 crit resist.

IZZEFlameLash

No not balanced

I have hard time imagining people calling things balanced if any other classes' abilities hit harder than ults like Assassin's Will. So, no. It isn't balanced.

The_Titan_Tim

No not balanced

After loading into my Templar that was left in Stonefalls (the dueling area of Ebonheart Pact) this Christmas morning… one thing became blatantly obvious.

I was the only one there that was not on a Magicka Nightblade. There were 6 other players there, all Magicka Nightblades, all running the same high damage build, baiting Spectral Bows.

Last time I have ever seen this level of migration to one individual class for dueling, was when the Homestead patch came out with a whole line of Magicka Dragonknight buffs.

Generally speaking, if everyone you run into are playing the class in question, using the ability in question, it’s probably because it’s overperforming somewhere.