Let's face the Nightblade Problem

Sikon

So with this Thread I want to summarize the issues and problems for Nightblades at that moment.

First of all it is important to seperate two different Gamemodes for this class... This is PVP and PVE.

I want to focus on the PVE Aspect here, because PvP is already discussed alot in other threads and the call for NB nerf is surely back again.

But in PVE Nightblade overall suffers alot compared to other classes (excluded are Necromancers which are on nearly a same "unbalanced level" as NBs).
So what is the issue on Nightblades in PvE at that moment?

If you play the meta right, Nightblade (especially Stamblade) has alot of problems to even manage a clean parse because of ressource sustain Problems. Mostly it is the Magicka which is running out because of the "Concealed Weapon" changes. That's why alot of Nightblades already switched to full Magicka Builds instead of Stamina (even if they loose a bit of damage and a very good execute there).

What happened to "Concealed Weapon"?

LOST DEPTHS & UPDATE 35:
Concealed Weapon (morph):

This morph now passively grants Minor Expedition while slotted, instead of increasing your movement speed by 25% while in sneak or invisible.
This morph now also increases your Damage Done by 7-10% for 5 seconds after leaving sneak or invisibility, or Major Expedition Ends while in combat.

First of all, this change was so immense, that it was unavoidable for most NBs to not play with "Concealed Weapon" on the bar EVEN if you are Stamblade. Which means, you already block to Barslots with "Concealed Weapon" + "Twisting Path" (Proc it with Major Expedition).
At this Point you could still sustain a good Stamblade Rotation even if you skillbar was already messy and blocked with a magicka spell you just have in for a very strong passive bonus.

ZOS saw this Problem and did not want to have the playstyle like that, so what happened:

UPDATE 38:
Veiled Strike
Concealed Weapon (morph): This morph now grants its damage done bonus for 10 seconds if Major Expedition was active while it was cast, rather than for 5 seconds when Major Expedition ends or was refreshed, to ensure the skill is used actively rather than passively. The damage bonus still operates the same for leaving sneak or invisibility.

Means, if you want to play "Concealed Weapon" then you also have to cast it for the passive bonus. I can understand this mindset by ZOS, but it was forcing alot of NBs to play fully Magicka then because this passive 10% Damage Done Bonus was just to strong compared to the "Surprise Attack" Stamina Morph.
Anyway you would loose damage then because you also miss a very strong execute which is only available on Stamina Morph and made Nightblade compete with other high damage Parses in Raid.

So Stamblades tried to find a way to hold there damage on Top Numbers with other classes by using Stamina (Stamblade execute which can start around 35% Health of the boss) and "Concealed Weapon" Morph which will cost alot of Magicka and a additional Spell in the rotation.

It results in the choice between going on a Stamblade with a good execute and "better" damage but running out of ressources in the rotation IF you not use Tri-Pots/Heroism Pots.
Or you go on Magickablade, get no ressource Problems with "Concealed Weapon" because it is your Magicka Spamable (like ZOS intended) BUT you miss the good execute which made Nightblade so strong in PvE to compete on the high parses.
That means in both decisions you LOSE DPS overall and still cannot stick up to other classes DPS atm.

Okay, that was a summary of the recent changes. But now coming to the actual changes /PTS.

PTS 9.1.0 Changes:
Grim Focus:

This ability and its morphs no longer need to be activated to generate stacks, as they will now generate stacks any time you meet their original requirements simply with the ability slotted on either bar.
Increased the cost of the special activate to 1890, up from 1350, to make up for the fact that you no longer need to activate the buff portion of these abilities.

Relentless Focus (morph):

This morph now increases the amount of Weapon and Spell Damage each stack grants to 80 at rank IV, rather than increasing the duration of the buff, since the buff no longer has a duration.
This morph now costs 1377, rather than 1148.

So I thought, great maybe the issue with the Rotation and Magicka Sustain is addressed by ZOS now.

Because you do not have to cast Grim Focus every 40seconds again and you can spend the Magicka for the "Concealed Weapon" uptime... yes, it was a right step in this direction, but the changes again miss the problem. The "Relentless Focus" morph which is Stamina based is again a worse morph compared to it's Magicka one "Merciless Resolve". You buffed up the passive Weapon/Spell Damage by 20 per stack but it will not result in a better Morph Damage wise.

Even if it was the right idea still most NBs even on Stamblade choose "Merciless Resolve" because of the higher damage. AGAIN we have the Problem to get forced into a Magicka Morph on Stamblade because the Stamina Morph version is by far worse than the Magicka one. (Same happened to "Concealed Weapon" vs "Surprise Attack").

But let's calculate the Parse with the higher Damage Morph "Merciless Resolve":

On a perfect parse (Light attack every Second) you could cast Merciless Resolve 8 Times now compared to the pre Patch changes with 40s Cooldown to recast.

40second /5 (stacks of Lightattack Parse for Merciless Resolve) = 8 Procs

Let's do the Maths.

Pre PTS:
Cast "Merciless Resolve" = 2.700 Magicka (every 40 seconds)
Proc "Merciless Resolve" = 1.390 Magicka (every 5 lightattacks / 5 Seconds)

In 40 Seconds = 2.700 + 8x1.390 = 13.820 Magicka

PTS:
Cast "Merciless Resolve" = 0 Magicka
Proc "Merciless Resolve" = 1.850 Magicka (every 5 lightattacks / 5 seconds)

In 40 Seconds = 8x1.850 Magicka = 14.800 Magicka

That means, the new rotation gets even more Magicka intense than before for the Stamblades... which results in a even more messy rotation and playstyle for Stamblade PvE. Means the Nightblades get forced more and more into a Magicka Spec.

So all these ideas of changing "Morphs" making them more "used" than staying passive on bars are great. But they do not address the Problem on Point @ZOS. The Nightblade has a big gap between the impact of "Stam Morphs" and "Magicka Morphs". That's what really need to get closed. Nightblades atm can either play on full Magicka but still suffer because the "Main Damage" of the good Stamina "Execute" is lost. Or you hold on to the Stamblade with it's "Execute" but get alot of sustain Problems because you have to use the damage multipliers from "Magicka Morphs".
If you lack one of each other you cannot compete with Highparses of other classes. So normally NB need to go on Stamina for the highest Damage and have to handle the sustain Problems somehow...

So, what we can do against that?

Solutions

Fix the Morphs and make them equal.

"Execute":
You can address the "Magicka Execute" and make it to an equal Damage Output as the Stamina one. Easy solution. Every Nightblade will switch completely to Magicka and Damage will be fine. No Sustain Problems but Stamblade will be dead.

"Surprise Attack" and "Concealed Weapon"
You can address "Suprise Attack" and make the Stamina Morph to an equal Damage Output like "Concealed Weapon" it will solve the sustain Problems for Stamblade and give it back a Stamina anytimer, the bar is not blocked with an forced "Magicka Morph".

"Grim Focus" changes:
To solve the sustain Problems you can make Grimfocus not that magicka intense in the rotation. The PTS Update addressed that and made hope, but increasing the magicka cost for proccing it, results in a more magicka intense rotation than before. Fix that. Make the costs lower again and Stamblades have less magicka issues. This will be the fastest switch to make the Stamblade rotation at least more sustainable. The Problem with the "Concealed Weapon" and "Execute" morphs will still exist.

I am sure, my solution could not be perfect and maybe there are also other ways or opinions on Nightblades current state. But I tried at least to figure out the real Problem on Nightblades atm.
If you made it until here, thank you very much for reading all this and I really appreciate your feedback or other solutions.
Also feel free to correct me if I am really wrong in this topic.

Greetings from a NB player since ESO Beta

Faint_One

Change surprise attack or veiled strike is the better way I hope to see
move 10% increase passive to base skill and make the differences of two morphs from movement speed to sundered is a simple balance

Eliran

Both of your solutions are wrong, CW nor SW should provide that buff because they shouldn't even exist in execute phase.

The solution is much more simple than you think however ..

Step 1:

Make Grim Focus proc give the buff CW currently give for 12 seconds = problem SOLVED.

That way, it will align with the high skill cap Nightblades have over other classes and promote weaving big time, something that is super hard to achieve and is neglected/obsolete in PVP in most situations. (Dodge/kite/speed abuse .. etc)

Now we are back to step one where in U37 the class was playable but still nerfed and under perform DKs big time however.

Step 2:

I don't expect Nightblades to be AoE Gods like DKs .. so to make each class unique, NB's should be SINGLE TARGET Gods, because hey, it only make sense. (Hate me all you want, we are not even close to that right now in PVE, Templars/DKs/Sorcs and even Necro's eat us alive in that department.)

I say NB's should get some form of "stacking" buff on target that align with weaving .. similar to combo points that rogues have in WoW (At least when I played) and many other games with "Thief" like classes .. so the more you focus on 1 target, the more damage you do basically.

Suggestion:
Passive: Direct Focus:
"Every time you hit a target with a light or heavy attack, increase the damage you do to that target by 1% for 5 seconds, stacking up to 10 times."

*This passive effect only yourself (no one else, not even other NB's), and if people really worried, the effect is halved(or doesn't work) in PVP.

In turn, Nightblades become the ultimate weaving/single target class and if bad play/weave, then basically your damage gonna be dramatically lower, which make high skill cap even more fun while lower skip punishing, and of course, also work with heavy attack builds for some weird HA builds .. to be fair to all play styles.

Zastrix

I agree with everything said above and I especially love this part:

Sikon wrote: »

Pre PTS:
Cast "Merciless Resolve" = 2.700 Magicka (every 40 seconds)
Proc "Merciless Resolve" = 1.390 Magicka (every 5 lightattacks / 5 Seconds)

In 40 Seconds = 2.700 + 8x1.390 = 13.820 Magicka

PTS:
Cast "Merciless Resolve" = 0 Magicka
Proc "Merciless Resolve" = 1.850 Magicka (every 5 lightattacks / 5 seconds)

In 40 Seconds = 8x1.850 Magicka = 14.800 Magicka

I am running mag and I barely sustained fights on u38 parses, u39 is basically impossible to sustain on my vampire build.

I also 100% agree with @Eliran

JerBearESO

It would be nice to see the stam version of grim focus overhauled entirely. I say this because to just make it do more or equal damage to the mag version would be meaningless. It would be a morph wasted on the same effect as the new use highest resource mechanic....

How about, for example, we first of all apply the use highest resource mechanic, of course. Now you can take merciless morph on stam. Now make the relentless morph something unique entirely, like:

No longer gain stacks per light/heavy attacks, but instead apply them to enemies. Whenever an enemy reaches 3 stacks, a shadow will automatically spawn and fire a lesser arrow at the target for like half damage of the other morph. Cast this ability on a target to debuff them so that any shadow arrow applied to them within 5 seconds will consume the debuff to deal bonus damage.

Sikon

So ZOS addressed the 2. solution I mentioned by making adjustments to "Concealed Weapon" and "Surprise Attack" in PTS Patch 9.1.2.

"Surprise Attack: Reduced the cooldown of the guaranteed Critical Strike on this morph to 3 seconds, down from 4.

Concealed Weapon: This morph now grants Major Berserk for 7-10 seconds based on rank, rather than a unique 7-10% damage done when meeting its conditions."

I think the intention of this adjustments is the right way @ZOS but it won't solve the Problem for NBs atm. Why?


The change to "Concealed Weapon" by taking one unique 10% Damage buff away and replace it with a "Major Berserk" for 10s gives NB less accessability to damage boosts than before. I know you want to fix the Problem that, "Concealed Weapon" is just used as a "buff up" Skill in between a rotation and I think you "solved this issue" like that.

Magblades:
So as a Magicka focused NB, I would use the "Concealed Weapon" now as anytimer and have legit a permanent "Major Berserk" uptime. 10s are alot for an anytimer (compare it to "Wreckling Blow" 2h which has only 3s uptime with a casttime).

Stamblades:
Stamblades probably won't use the "Concealed Weapon" anylonger in rotation as a "Buff up Skill". Good job you solved this problem.Probably you also solved the sustain issues on a Stamblade rotation, because they can drop "Concealed Weapon" now.
BUT Stamblades probably won't use "Surprise Attack" as an anytimer too. The reduced 3s for just a "Critical Strike" is just to weak to use as an anytimer. Nightblades already have a high critchance and using it for a crit every 3s is just not necessary. So you missed the goal to make Stamblades switch back on "Surprise Attack". It is just a weak class anytimer.
The go to anytimer for Stamblades would be probably be "Wreckling Blow" and hold a "Major Berserk" Buff uptime especially with the 2h adjustments implemented on PTS.
Or you try going for Bow / Snipe since Bow got also Damage buffed on PTS.

In Groups/Raids you mostly aquire "Major Berserk" Buff also by Sorcs "Atronarch" for example too. It is a real good buff and you definetly do not want to miss it. So have it on a class anytimer like "Concealed Weapon" is really nice.

But overall the missing unique 10% Damage Buff which was on "Concealed Weapon" before will reduce the Damage of Magblade and Stamblade..

Both Specs will suffer from this nerf because before you could have a "Major Berserk" + the "unique 10% Dmg Buff". The 10% from "Concealed Weapon" were the only way to try to compete with the DPS of other Classes atm in Raid Content. You took it away.

Even if you solved the sustain issues, which were especially Stamblades struggling with, Nightblades will drop on Raid-DPS ofc by missing a unique 10% Damage Boost from "Concealed Weapon".

So next step will be a consideration, how to give Nightblades back the Damage to compete at least in "Single Target" fights with the other DPS Classes in the game. Because like this Nightblades (and Necromancers) are lacking the most atm.

I know that the PTS Patchnotes are not final. So I think there will be further adjustments, I am excited to see what's coming next.

Lykeion

I'm glad there's been so much constructive discussion around NB's skill set, but I also feel like these aren't exactly all the reasons why NB is weak in PVE. Warden and Necro are now also pretty bad at PVE DPS in general, but they both offer unique and powerful group buffs, which makes them welcome Healer/Supporting DPS. NB, on the other hand, offers almost no unique group buffs. Maybe it's time to add some team-wise skills to NB. The long-forgotten Consuming Darkness could be a good entry point

Sikon

Yes, I remember the days where "Consuming Darkness" was a must-have in AOE-Boss fights where the group could stack on it as a "Save Spot" (HelRa, AA, SO). But time has changed, there are alot of other skills/passives + better heals which make this Ulti unnessecary at all.

Zodiarkslayer

Surprise Attack's so called buff is a damage "puff". It will have an impact at well under 1%.
In a class that can get to over 70% crit chance in content and where crit damage is capped, a guaranteed crit strike is pointless. How often that happens is beside the point. This mechanic has the least impact on nightblades.
I mean there are still builds where you can get over 100% crit chance on a NB. It's meaninglessness is ridiculous. Put it on Necro's skulls or Warden's birds. They need it more.

Surprise Attack needs more damage at base!
Impale needs the same scaling as Killer's Blade.

Sikon

Yes agree, improving "Critchance" on Nightblades is like giving a drop of water in the ocean. Nightblades often crit every 2-3 hits anyway.
What would be a better choice for "Surprise Attack" is to increase the "Critdamage" by a specific amount for example.

SandandStars

PvE is so repetitive and uninteresting.

There. I said it.

DrNukenstein

The nightblade problem is that as the assassin class it's skills are distinctly well suited to killing human targets (other players).

It used to be balanced around this and kept weak for reasons similar to the sorc: Skill expression can trump the spread sheet.

The past few patches have been an experiment in balancing the class as if it's PK features weren't a thing, and now we have a monster in PVP that still lags behind other classes in PVE despite doing better than it was before. This means it will totally get gutted in an upcoming patch we just don't know how or when.

OBJnoob

I keep saying this and I guess nobody really agrees but I'ma try one more time.

NB sucks at PvE for the same reason it rocks at PvP. It has massive burst potential in two skills and an ultimate, and it's passives involve crit chance, crit damage, and penetration. These are great passives and tactics for PvP where you can arguably never have enough. In PvE where people worry about going over hard and soft caps they are less useful.

The same combo that destroys players is run-of-the-mill in PvE where everybody is critting all the time and over-penetrating, debuffing and buffing as a team.

What NB needs, in both cases, is to lose some of the burst out of their traditional combo, and regain that power through some DoTs and Cleave abilities.

Trying to fix the issue by adding +%damage done, in any form, isn't going to work. Because they already have more of it than anybody else. And I'm not saying making them do 10% more damage isn't going to make them do 10% more damage. But this over-simplified solution for PvE is going to wreck PvP because it's just going to make their burst stronger without giving them any useful PvE tools. It's a band-aid, and not a very good one.

NB will be fixed, in all regards, if this advice is followed.

SandandStars

What I find a little surprising is that so many people on night blade in PVP now are really bad at playing the class.

I think it is safe to say that word is out that night late is probably the most powerful class, beating DK when played well, so we are seeing a ton of new people flocking there chasing the meta. Meanwhile, the people who are good at night blade are racking up 30 or 40 kills in battlegrounds with no deaths.

I really haven’t seen this disparity of skill on any class in PVP.

Sikon

Thank you for your insightful participation on this discussion about NB in PvP. I play also NB in PvP alot but as @SandandStars already said, NB is all in or nothing. If you master the playstyle it becomes real strong and for some people even OP.
But if you cannot time your bursts/debuffing the enemy and force their defensives before, this class cannot shine as much as most people think. That's why I also think NB has the largest disparity of skill as a class than every other.
You can master it and go godmode or you fail and be the worst. Good Players can handle it but also good players can go on 40kill BGs with DKs, Sorcs and so on. It's mostly a skill gap.. NB has a good toolkit by buffing and burst damage better than other classes for PvP. It lacks in some defensives tho that's why cloak spam becomes important and annyoing for people.

Anyway I know there is a huge gap between NB performance in PvE and PvP and if this thread stays PvE focused for NB it would be great. There are alot of other threads about NB in PvP.
To find a balance in the game for every class there must be more spells adapted with things like "damage on Non-Player Enemies" or something like that.

birdik

SandandStars wrote: »

What I find a little surprising is that so many people on night blade in PVP now are really bad at playing the class.

I think it is safe to say that word is out that night late is probably the most powerful class, beating DK when played well, so we are seeing a ton of new people flocking there chasing the meta. Meanwhile, the people who are good at night blade are racking up 30 or 40 kills in battlegrounds with no deaths.

I really haven’t seen this disparity of skill on any class in PVP.

30-40 kills on new characte?) so i did yes, lol