Return Shadowy Disguise back to pre-Patch 44

Sedare38 · November 7

Re-posting MY post from another thread that was closed because I honestly don't feel like this should be lost.

I am the guild leader of a mostly NB guild. So far 5 people have canceled their subscriptions mostly due to this change but also due to a complete lack of balance with regards to the following:

Ball groups and the severe lack of counter play due to
Shield stacking
Echoing Vigor and Radiating/Rapid Regen stacking
Any other heal over time stacks introduced since Scribing or from other classes
The complete lack of balance with regards to overly tanky builds still being able to do massive amounts of damage 1 button heals or shield + heals which negate any burst dmg, complete lack of rss management in that they never run out, etc. The tank meta for the last X months (or is it years now) has been ridiculous and you've manage to make it worse ZOS.
0 give and take except for 1 play style the ganker -- this is not an invitation to hear people bemoan gankers but this is the only playstyle that sacrifices protections or survivability to dump fully into damage and you all know it, which is why cloak is so important to getting in and out quickly.

Anyway back to Shadowy Disguise aka Cloak.

The toggle sucks and this is why:

Half the time I don't know if it's on or off b/c the only real indicator is the yellow highlight on my ability, which if I'm on back bar, I won't see. Oh but you turn red . . . like Vampire stealth, or half the other NB ability buffs.
In laggy situations it does not work -- either toggling on or off
It actually limits mobility defeating a core identity and characteristic of stealth play -- if you're a stam leaning NB you'll have only a few seconds to get out of dodge. If you're magicka you'll have more. Regardless, forcing me to stand still on a class built for fast in and out attacks to sustain the invis longer is stupid, counterintuitive, and kills class identity.
Invisibility ends immediately upon toggle off -- give us a 3-4 seconds lingering invis b/c nearly 90% of the time in PVP at least, I cannot crouch hide and so when I run out of magicka or need to rest to recoup by turning it off, guess what -- I'm not hidden. WHY? Because ZOS, you've been unable to fix the combat bug for YEARS. Upon disengaging for 5 seconds from a fight, I should be out of combat. This rarely happens. I should not be stuck in combat b/c of group mates still attacking or b/c my former target is still attacking/being attacked. It should only tie to me. Fix this and you can mark the toggle negative for it off. The immediate end also messes with mobility/escaping.
Can't weave through PVE situations as effectively: Can't get through a delve or Imp city without attacking/being attacked by mobs or without stopping for a "breather."
It doesn't simplify things at all and I'd argue it makes it more complex b/c players now have to really adjust and think about their magicka more. This is counter to your justification.
For the people crying oh just spam siphon attacks and have unlimited blah blah, this pigeon holes people into playing 2h backbar with Rally and juggling 2 abilities to hopefully get away. Remember NBs are the only class with heals that hurt . . .
Screws over 1-bar builds. If you need this explained you're not paying attention enough.

There's probably more points about how damaging this change is and how much I dislike it, but ultimately no Nightblade user called for it.

Solutions b/c why only bring problems to the table:

Reduce the movement recovery penalty: While moving, reduce magicka recovery by 50% instead of 0.
Reduce the tick cost by 33-50%
Have the cloak linger for X seconds and scale it off one of the shadow passives (introduce a new section to the passives if you have to, I don't care). This should be done regardless if you don't reduce cost or reduce the recovery hit while moving.
Old cloak but with a reduced initial cost and then have a ramped cost for spamming it. I'm just putting this here b/c it's a middle-ground option. I personally don't think cloak should be ramped b/c of the myriad of ways to detect, which necessitates more spammage of the ability.
Put it back to the way it was.

What isn't a solution is telling people to dump more into recovery, cost reduction, or use Darloc Brae. Those things reduce damage entirely too much to make a heavy damage build, ganker or more sustained fighting style, viable in today's pvp.

TBH, I'm not having fun logging in to the game b/c of this change but really in conjunction with the absolute lack of balance, and my sentiment is shared by well over 20 of my guildmates and many outside of the guild whom I hear in /zone daily. I have played since open beta. I've only taken a break once for a few months b/c ZOS broke the patcher for me at Murkmire and blamed my ISP who in turn blamed ZOS. It got randomly fixed and I've been uninterrupted since. However, this is the straw -- 1 straw among many, but this is the final one. Thanks for all the fish.

Undo the cloak change like you did the silence with Incap. It's unnecessary, unwarranted, unwanted by those who play the class, etc. #shameonyou

BlueRaven · November 7

Not to make a pun but nbs feel like they are nothing but a shadow of what they were when the game released. It almost feels like a class without direction.

Cloak was the last interesting thing about the class, so target that with a nerf I guess.

fizzylu · November 7

Zerith-var is the only good thing about U44.

MedicInTheWild · November 7

I laugh that at 50K health there is no noticeable reduction in damage in these groups. If you have 50K health you shouldn't be able to kill a rat. The more health the less damage, at same time give a slight bonus the opposite way lower health more damage....... and bring back old cloak

JustLovely · November 7

Cloak was grossly, as in SERIOUSLY GROSSLY OP in PvP situations. It absolutely should have been changed. NB is still one of the most OP classes in game.

Hugie · November 7

Personally, I prefer the new version of cloak. When I'm bombing, it's WAY nicer to hide somewhere stationary with it toggled on (negligible cost) until it's go-time than it was before, where I'd need to stare at cloak cooldown and refresh it every 4 seconds or risk being detected.

That said, I completely agree regarding OP's other points re: ballgroups and HoT-stacking, which are a plague upon Cyrodiil. Plenty of folks have made cogent suggestions to address the disproportionate power of ballgroups (for starters, limit heals to 2 instances max per skill, refreshed/replaced by strongest instance), and it's a real shame that the devs don't seem to find the status quo to be problematic.

RomanRex · November 7

Glad it was changed… not nerfed.

Desiato · November 7

JustLovely wrote: »

Cloak was grossly, as in SERIOUSLY GROSSLY OP in PvP situations. It absolutely should have been changed. NB is still one of the most OP classes in game.

Many pvp nbs who you may have felt were op have posted this change doesn't really affect them. For me, the change is *really* annoying from a pvp pov and makes the class less enjoyable to play, but not necessarily less powerful.

In contrast, it seems ZOS changed cloak to make it easier for casual pve players to sneak around delves and public dungeons.

It's extremely disappointing ZOS would completely change such an iconic ability that has been integral to a variety of play styles for a decade, but it's not like it hasn't happened before. It feels in game development, nothing is sacred anymore.

fizzylu · November 7

Desiato wrote: »

It feels in game development, nothing is sacred anymore.

*in the development of ESO

fred4 · November 7

Sedare38 wrote: »

[*] Half the time I don't know if it's on or off b/c the only real indicator is the yellow highlight on my ability, which if I'm on back bar, I won't see. Oh but you turn red . . . like Vampire stealth, or half the other NB ability buffs.
[*] In laggy situations it does not work -- either toggling on or off

Assuming you're on PC and don't already use this addon, install Skill Blocker 3.8.1. In blockhandlers.lua, line 8, function checkCombatAndBracingConditions, replace the following:

local result = (block_notInCombat and not isInCombat and not block_isBracing) or
(block_notInCombat and not isInCombat and block_isBracing and isBracing) or
(block_inCombat and isInCombat and not block_isBracing) or
(block_inCombat and isInCombat and block_isBracing and isBracing) or
(block_isBracing and isBracing and not block_notInCombat and not block_inCombat)

with

local stealthstate = GetUnitStealthState("player")
local result = (stealthstate == STEALTH_STATE_STEALTH or stealthstate == STEALTH_STATE_STEALTH_ALMOST_DETECTED)

In game, in Near's Skill Blocker addon settings, configure the following:

Type of alert: No message
Alert sounds: OFF
Invalid ability alert: OFF

Skill Selector -> Class -> Nightblade -> Shadow -> Shadowy Disguise -> Block when out of combat: ON

This will repurpose the addon to block Shadowy Disguise skill casts when you are already invisible. Cloak will no longer be a toggle. You can no longer turn it off by casting the skill. Instead, to turn it off, you have to perform some action that breaks invisibility. I typically sprint very briefly to do so, but dodge rolls and most skills also work. I am not an addon developer and don't have the time nor experience to develop this as a proper / dedicated addon. However the above works.

IncultaWolf · November 8

No. It feels a lot better to use in pvp and pve now. I love this change

Monte_Cristo · November 8

It'd be a good change if it didn't remove your magic recovery while on. Why not just a reduced recovery instead?

Tommy_The_Gun · November 8

I would not be surprised if shortly after cloak got nerfed, there would be a follow-up nerf for all of the detection skills & potions, as all of those tools are still "tuned" to counter "old cloak" and if something still remains OP, then those would be those hard counter tools (and especially detection potions).

IncultaWolf wrote: »

No. It feels a lot better to use in pvp and pve now. I love this change

That is because it no longer requires weapon to be drawn. You can "cast it" (turn on) instantly, while previously you needed to keep in mind to have your weapon drawn. Otherwise there would be a delay as your character drawing weapon animation would play. So this is probably the only good part about this change... till it gets bugged out with random update & left unfixed as it was the case previous castable cloak with a duration.

As for everything else (cost, sustain, reliability)... eveything is much worse.

I mean if I could, I would go back to previous cloak without hesitation. It was so much better. Was pressing a button every 3 seconds really harder than pressing a button & then another button every 2 seconds ?

BlueRaven · November 8

JustLovely wrote: »

Cloak was grossly, as in SERIOUSLY GROSSLY OP in PvP situations. It absolutely should have been changed. NB is still one of the most OP classes in game.

Not really, no.

In pve which appears to be the more popular playstyle…

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668439/poll-are-you-playing-pvp-or-pve-more#latest

Nightblades are certainly not op.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8216062#Comment_8216062

Jaimeh · November 8

Sedare38 wrote: »

TBH, I'm not having fun logging in to the game b/c of this change but really in conjunction with the absolute lack of balance, and my sentiment is shared by well over 20 of my guildmates and many outside of the guild whom I hear in /zone daily. I have played since open beta. I've only taken a break once for a few months b/c ZOS broke the patcher for me at Murkmire and blamed my ISP who in turn blamed ZOS. It got randomly fixed and I've been uninterrupted since. However, this is the straw -- 1 straw among many, but this is the final one. Thanks for all the fish.

Undo the cloak change like you did the silence with Incap. It's unnecessary, unwarranted, unwanted by those who play the class, etc. #shameonyou

The cloak being turned into a toggle with a magicka drain was the last straw for me as well. I find the skill now completely intuitive to use, and so difficult on stamina specs, that I'd rather get the other morph for PvP, and use invisibility potions... on the one class that has a native invisibility skill... During the PTS cycle, I've sent them a lot of feedback: in-game, in the forums, and I also consolidated feedback from other players with their experience with the new cloak as well as ideas of how ZOS can change the skill without the toggle drain, and forwarded to it to them, but I don't think they considered a single thing, because they were set on the toggle going live from the start. I've been playing for 9+ years, and I've honestly had enough of seeing them butcher NB, and on the PvE side of things, have my favourite DPS class become completely unsuitable for endgame. I haven't been able to bring it in serious raids for years. And now with Arcanist having the added insult to injury of how easy it is to play combined with how much of a higher damage ceiling it has. So I've cancelled my ESO+ when the final patch notes were released, and I've decided to play the game as FtP from now on, and also not spending time on the PTS any more. It's one of their worst changes, but if the game's history has shown us anything, is that they usually double down on really unpopular decisions, so don't expect anything to change OP, but thanks for making this thread anyway.

xylena_lazarow · November 8

Coldharbour NO. Sorry for your loss, but the PvP meta is infinitely better without perma cloak and instant Tarnished. Now let's do something about Sorcs who pull the same unfun infinite disengage reengage trash.

Taril · November 8

Personally, I like the new cloak.

The only notable change to make it worse (Besides people's inability to use a toggle instead of spamming a key) is the recovery malus.

Other than that, it's a direct upgrade to the previous version. The cost per time is the same, if not better (Used to be 4590 for a 3 second cloak but you'd often use it every 2 seconds to not have it time out and reveal you for a period of time. Now it's just 3240 per 2 seconds, halved if staying still) and it's easier to utilize a variable duration because you just toggle it on for however long you want it instead of mashing the button every 2 seconds to keep up the duration.

Honestly the only thing that needs looking into is that recovery malus. Adjusting that so it feels less bad for Stam builds (Though of course it has to keep in mind not letting Mag builds simply be cloaked forever) would do the trick.

Heck, this entire scenario might simply be fixed by replacing the recovery malus with adjusting the cost to be based on lowest resource (So Stam builds use Magicka for it while Mag builds will use Stamina meaning they both would be inhibited from perma-invis by the recovery of their non-favoured stat)