NIghtblade fixes need to be a top priority - Dev response if possible

glitchmaster999

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, I think the final quest is the best in any elder scrolls game I have ever played, however I have played every MMO on the same character a max dps ranged character or melee if ranged is sub-par. I spend most of my game time testing and perfecting builds as I have always done but after playing Nightblade, the class that should have the highest single target dps, up to vet2. I find the class really sub-par. My friend who is using a restoration staff on his sorcerer is hitting higher dps with crystal shards and daedric curse.

I know that Nightblades are being fixed but it is taking too long, this will be the 5th night straight in PVP that I have considered going back to DDO. The only reason I haven't is because I love ZOS and think that they are great. I am trying to be patient but it is so far under powered that it is becoming ridiculous, I have caught out dragon knights on half hp in a dungeon and lost with sneak attack. The sneak attack which hits for about 2.2k gets them down to about 15% then they heal up to full and shield bash me to death. In no way am I bad player but I have found no way to combat this. Sorcerers can do the same if I don't get enough damage out of sneak to destroy them.

In my head, the balance should be a weighted square, the corners of the square being dps, healing, tanking and AOE. Each class should be heavily skewed to one side for instance the Templar should be more towards the healing than any other class, the sorcerer should be more towards AOE and DPS then Templars, and Nightblades should have the highest single target dps. At the moment Nightblades have the worst AOE, even healing with sorcerers (IMO), lower single target dps then sorcerers and dragon knights (I have tested this) and I don't have the experience to talk on the account of tanking. This really isn't good enough and waiting for 1.2 will destroy this game for me. I want to be competitive in PVP without going a magicka destroy/resto build that seems to be a sorcerer wannabe. I want stamina to be a viable option for builds (at the moment one ult scales off stamina to my knowledge and there are many more class abilities and magicka skills then there are weapon skills to choose from).

My suggestions (I don't want all of them just enough to fix some of the problems):
- add weapon ultimates that scale off weapon damage and stamina
- change a passive in a Nightblade tree to "attacking a target increases damage against that target by x% stacking up to x times"
- add more ways of increasing weapon damage in the Nightblade tree (at the moment there aren't any that don't involve killing something or going in melee range)
- decrease the damage reduction on siphoning strikes
- increase the return on siphoning strikes both on the health morph ( which seems to be bugged) and the any abilities morph
- increase the stamina scaling with basic attacks (IMO should be higher damage then with staffs)
- fix haste to work with bows
- add damage boost to haste for one of the morphs instead of incapacitate
- add more cc to the Nightblade, only real option is both mages guild or surprise attack which is both mana costly and melee range
- make the shadow cloak ability apply sneak attack damage as if coming straight out of sneak
- increase the healing from strife, I feel the sorcerer 60% of damage on crits should be more of a night blade ability as night blades can barely keep themselves up with a 70 hp heal every 2 seconds does not heal me throughout the full duration. Again works better with magicka.

I know that many of the suggestions above would be bad but they really need a quick buff to make them at least on the same level even if it isn’t a long time buff just a blanket buff to fill the gap. Could I please get a Dev response as to any plans that they have for Nightblades? We are sneaky *** but we really need some love right now.
Open to suggestions on the changes, I know that all of them together would make things overpowered but a handful of them I think would improve the quality of life. Particularly the weapon ultimates, healing, and weapon damage boosts.

OkieDokie

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

My suggestions (I don't want all of them just enough to fix some of the problems):
- add weapon ultimates that scale off weapon damage and stamina

I cannot agree with that. I'm a nightblade as well and I don't see why you guys think this class should be stamina based. It isn't. In fact, if you take skyrim as reference, nightblades work at their most with illusion spells. I don't want to play a stamina based class, it makes no sense for a class with invisibility, teleport, fear...etc. I would most likely quit if they did that.

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

- decrease the damage reduction on siphoning strikes

This is something I agree. It would make NB more viable for long combats.

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

- make the shadow cloak ability apply sneak attack damage as if coming straight out of sneak

Although I like the idea as a huge input in damage, it wouldn't work. The way the game works, it is only a surprise attack before combat starts and therefore it is quite easy to get to position for sneak. Once it started, it doesn't apply anymore. But I do think NB should get an additional (20-40%, I don't know) for attacks from shadow even in combat, makes perfect sense to me.

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

- add more cc to the Nightblade, only real option is both mages guild or surprise attack which is both mana costly and melee range

CC should REALLY be addressed.

---

The way I see it, nightblade needs a decent mob control and reduction in class skill cost. Changing the damage reduction from siphoning strikes would also be very welcome.

Just my opinion though.

eNumbra

OkieDokie wrote: »

In fact, if you take skyrim as reference, nightblades work at their most with illusion spells.

Um, from Morrowind to Skyrim I've run the "nightblade", assassin/thief setups that rolled Bows and Dual Daggers and I've never needed magicka in ANY of the three games.

Add to that Skyrim being as easily broken as it was, It wasn't hard to practically 1 shot most dragons from stealth with just my Bow.



As for OP and the topic in question, NB fixes definitely need to be paramount right now and why the devs seem to be dragging their feet I cannot conceive. Another CC or two would be nice, but getting a bonus that makes CC work on mobs that can't normally be CC'd would be an equally acceptable advantage, as well as giving them a proper bonus to stealthing, though I'm not sure what it would be other than being able to break combat without having to use the cloak ability from the shadow line.(was able to stealth past a troll with a 5-2 Heavy-Light templar earlier tonight, felt like i needed a shower afterwards)

Fixing their single target DPS would also be helped by eliminating the 360 degree block and making it work either base 180/180 or make the forward 180 into quadrants with the forward blocking the most damage and the side the least, but removing all damage mitigation from the rear.

You can't protect your back with your shield in front of you; that's either pure lazy or bad design zenimax.

OkieDokie

eNumbra wrote: »

Um, from Morrowind to Skyrim I've run the "nightblade", assassin/thief setups that rolled Bows and Dual Daggers and I've never needed magicka in ANY of the three games.

Add to that Skyrim being as easily broken as it was, It wasn't hard to practically 1 shot most dragons from stealth with just my Bow.

So, you've never used invisibility, muffle, fear, frenzy? Nightblades are clearly inspired by illusion casters. And it is easy because the enchanting system is broken, try 16x difficulty mods without enchant and you'll have a good time

Sorry, not my intention to get out of the main subject.

eNumbra

OkieDokie wrote: »

So, you've never used invisibility, muffle, fear, frenzy?
.

Never.

glitchmaster999

Not saying they shouldnt be magicka but they should have option of going stamina build as well.

Axer

Agree (see my balance post)

But yea, the devs NEVER post on these forums. It's pretty infuriating for an mmo. (Notice the nightblade underpowered thread with 334 comments - has a "STAFF POST" icon, yet no real devs responses, just moderaters telling NB to stop being so upset they break the forum rules)

All they ever do is reddit it seems. And even then, only the ama things which are 1 shot time limited events, sucks to communicate that way imo. They really need to post here.

EliteZ

They have already said a large amount of NB fixes are incoming soon, wouldn't you rather wait and have most, if not all, of them fixed to a good standard then rush them out the door fixing 1 or 2 skills at a time while people cry "OMG NOBODY EVEN USES THAT SKILL YOU SHOULD HAVE FIXED THIS ONE INSTEAD". Just have some patience, the fixes are coming.

Axer

EliteZ wrote: »

They have already said a large amount of NB fixes are incoming soon, wouldn't you rather wait and have most, if not all, of them fixed to a good standard then rush them out the door fixing 1 or 2 skills at a time while people cry "OMG NOBODY EVEN USES THAT SKILL YOU SHOULD HAVE FIXED THIS ONE INSTEAD". Just have some patience, the fixes are coming.

They stated there are some minor bug fixes coming.

No serious changes to game balance to improve nightblades which is needed.

Longterm down the road they said on an AMA they will look into nightblades. That means nothing, could be years before they get around to that if they never discuss or read the specific issues.

glitchmaster999

EliteZ wrote: »

They have already said a large amount of NB fixes are incoming soon, wouldn't you rather wait and have most, if not all, of them fixed to a good standard then rush them out the door fixing 1 or 2 skills at a time while people cry "OMG NOBODY EVEN USES THAT SKILL YOU SHOULD HAVE FIXED THIS ONE INSTEAD". Just have some patience, the fixes are coming.

I agree with you somewhat but it needs to be top priority and I've seen the patch notes, unless they havent listed them all, it wont be enough to fix them, the capstone skill for assassin tree still doesnt work with bows or at all if you morph it.

Sorry about typos, typing on my phone quickly before it dies.

williams226

Maybe a passive that changes class abilities to scale & crit from stamina rather than magika even if we had to spend a point to get it. Add it to the medium armour passive, and make it available level 1.

Quoted from above
"- decrease the damage reduction on siphoning strikes
- increase the return on siphoning strikes both on the health morph ( which seems to be bugged) and the any abilities morph
"

I have to say no to this, on a magika build with restro staff you just never run out of mana and can almost kill as fast with siphoning off. To decrease the reduction value and increase the return you would be a God.

I don't use the health morph I use the other one.

glitchmaster999

I like the sound of that passive, I run the other one as well as the health one is broken at 2% instead of 4%. In hind sight I would have to agree however maybe a buff to the health morph so nightblades can sustain themselves would be more warranted.

Evergreen

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

I like the sound of that passive, I run the other one as well as the health one is broken at 2% instead of 4%. In hind sight I would have to agree however maybe a buff to the health morph so nightblades can sustain themselves would be more warranted.

Agreed, simply fixing our broken/bugged skills such as Leeching Srikes which only returns about 2.4% health instead of the 4% its supposed to. Shadow Cloak is also very nasty at Vet Rank levels (I'm in vet rank 6 content) when you are randomly brought out of cloak instantly. I can't wait until we are fixed.

Gisgo

The more i play my VR10 NB the more i think NBs are fine, everybody else is "too strong".
We have the ability to bring a target to 25% health very fast, the problem is that at 25% almost everyone will break CC, heal themselves to full and turn to us with more resources than they need to kill us.
If a class needed an unbreakable CC that was NBs.

Selodaoc

Gisgo wrote: »

The more i play my VR10 NB the more i think NBs are fine, everybody else is "too strong".
We have the ability to bring a target to 25% health very fast, the problem is that at 25% almost everyone will break CC, heal themselves to full and turn to us with more resources than they need to kill us.
If a class needed an unbreakable CC that was NBs.

Problem is everything gives cc immunity in PVP.
If you use Ambush, you wont be able to use stealth > suprise attack to stun.

And its daaamn hard to actually get into melee range in stealth unles the oponent is an idiot

Liquid_Time

I find it funny I run with bow on my NB more than DW just so I have a better chance to survive a fight.. 1v1 sure DW has a chance, but 1v1+ is another story.

I use bow to keep my distance and when they start to close the gap I use the vampire mist (forgot name) to get away. The only reason this seems to even work currently is because it is broken and you are invisible during its length of time.

Now I can do the same thing with my DW of course, but I get a more effective DPS vs. DPS on myself at a distance due to the gap.

With that being said.. simply fix the passives and bugs commonly associated with the NB/DW setup. The delay on this fix is starting to become frustrating at this point. Not because it's not being fixed, but because not everything is expected to be fixed in this next update/patch.

Delay this d*** V content we are all so happy for (sarcasm) and fix your current game already. I fear so many more bugs/exploits are going to come up that fixing those will once again take priority over the buggy foundation this game has right now.

*my rant for the day*

martymart76_ESO

They won't reply. My original thread on this topic with 12 pages of replies didn't get a reply other than to slap the wrists of people for being rude. There needs to be drastic changes to the Nightblade specs other than the lame Bloodmage garbage that most people don't play the class to pursue.

So far, I am not impressed with ZOM's customer service, patching, balancing, and handling of the bots and spam. They are doomed if they don't get the molasses out their ASSES.

At least you aren't getting hatemail and troll posts to your topic telling you "L2PLAY NOOB LULZ MY SPEC IS AMAZING U JUS SUCK LULZ."

methjester

martymart76_ESO wrote: »

They won't reply. My original thread on this topic with 12 pages of replies didn't get a reply other than to slap the wrists of people for being rude. There needs to be drastic changes to the Nightblade specs other than the lame Bloodmage garbage that most people don't play the class to pursue.

So far, I am not impressed with ZOM's customer service, patching, balancing, and handling of the bots and spam. They are doomed if they don't get the molasses out their ASSES.

At least you aren't getting hatemail and troll posts to your topic telling you "L2PLAY NOOB LULZ MY SPEC IS AMAZING U JUS SUCK LULZ."

This game already went full Star Wars. The fan boys are happy though, thats all ESO has at the moment.

glitchmaster999

martymart76_ESO wrote: »

At least you aren't getting hatemail and troll posts to your topic telling you "L2PLAY NOOB LULZ MY SPEC IS AMAZING U JUS SUCK LULZ."

Ive read your whole post and all the pages and that line right there made me laugh so hardbecause that is what happens everytime you say DK nerf, nightblade buff or shield bash...

Gisgo wrote: »

The more i play my VR10 NB the more i think NBs are fine, everybody else is "too strong".
We have the ability to bring a target to 25% health very fast, the problem is that at 25% almost everyone will break CC, heal themselves to full and turn to us with more resources than they need to kill us.
If a class needed an unbreakable CC that was NBs.

That's yet another problem with them is the lack of sustained damage after the burst, if they cant sustain after the burst the only people the will kill in PVP are below lvl 40 as anyone else will survive on 25% + and just heal it off while we sit there trying to pull together resources to kill them. Also if we are on 20% health, we don't get above 30% before the fights over.

Sanguisaevum

Nightblades are fine in pvp and pve.

Assassin / medium armour melee is perfectly viable.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/99160/nightblade-dual-wield-pvp-video#latest

glitchmaster999

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Nightblades are fine in pvp and pve.

Assassin / medium armour melee is perfectly viable.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/99160/nightblade-dual-wield-pvp-video#latest

That whole video is out of stealth 1v1. I do agree it works for that but it shouldn't have to sacrifice group potential as well, in a group of 14 allies against 15 enemies, a melee nightblade is lucky to get close enough to do damage let alone kill someone. I do like going two hander/bow and that evened out engages somewhat but still not enough.

Lynx7386

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Nightblades are fine in pvp and pve.

Assassin / medium armour melee is perfectly viable.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/99160/nightblade-dual-wield-pvp-video#latest

That guy is also abusing vampire abilities more than dual wield or nightblade class skills.

Not everyone is a vampire, nor should they be required to be.

Spectrasoul

Jack of all trades, master of none.

I've wanted to play NB since hearing about this game, I don't regret my choice, I genuinely love the class.. however it is a bit sickening when I feel that everyone else can do every job better than me. I've tried the 4 basic builds (Single target, AoE, Healer, Tank)

As a tank, it's great fun the survivability is just immense. The problem is the only pure threat generator we have is the 1h+shield ability (maybe undaunted 3rd skill) one of the morphs for siphoning tree should be turned into an AoE taunt and that would really make a massive difference. Siphoning strikes damage debuff is too much. I get that they don't want you to have it on permanently but come on..

Single target is great for solo questing. Fighter's guild Expert Hunter -> Camouflaged Hunter is amazing but it is what I feel we should be like against all enemies not just Daedra and Undead. You have to sacrifice so much to get the single target DPS up to a reasonable standard that you pigeon hole yourself and become usless in dungeons or any fight with more than 2 enemies.

AoE, never the strong point, but it actually works ok for tank build. Veil of blades would be better if it stayed centered on you and followed you rather than being cast in one place and stuck. AoE DPS is rubbish unless you use a lot of Bow skills but then you miss out on a lot of other skills to include them.

Healing is probably actually what we are best at which is why I ask myself if this is what they intended. Templars will always be best becase of their class skills. But for support healing or some dungeons we are actually not half bad. Siphoning strikes allow us to spam without fear of running out of mana, Funnel health is nice DPS and not a bad heal on the side.

Sanguisaevum

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Nightblades are fine in pvp and pve.

Assassin / medium armour melee is perfectly viable.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/99160/nightblade-dual-wield-pvp-video#latest

That guy is also abusing vampire abilities more than dual wield or nightblade class skills.

Not everyone is a vampire, nor should they be required to be.

What?!

NOT ONCE did i use a single vampire ability on that video... Except to feed in the intro (which does no damage)

I don't have any of the vampire abilities on my hotbars. And i feed every 30 mins to maintain stage 1. My vampirism is for roleplay purposes.

All my kills come from skill and the dw+nb abilities.

Whats your next excuse?

dannyporter2011b16_ESO

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Nightblades are fine in pvp and pve.

Assassin / medium armour melee is perfectly viable.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/99160/nightblade-dual-wield-pvp-video#latest

That guy is also abusing vampire abilities more than dual wield or nightblade class skills.

Not everyone is a vampire, nor should they be required to be.

What?!

NOT ONCE did i use a single vampire ability on that video... Except to feed in the intro (which does no damage)

I don't have any of the vampire abilities on my hotbars. And i feed every 30 mins to maintain stage 1. My vampirism is for roleplay purposes.

All my kills come from skill and the dw+nb abilities.

Whats your next excuse?

99% of the time you knocked people off their horses and you attacked from stealth.

Why don't you make a video where you're doing that in a group? Nightblades aren't fine, go fight VR10 DKs/Sorcs and see what happens when they out survive your opener when they're NOT knocked off horses... Anyone knocked off is easy AP.

Well done for finding the one role everyone can do and is only effective in 1v1 random encounters.

Nothing to see here folks, move further on.

Sanguisaevum

The video is a testament to the archetypical DW "assassin" play style that so many people on these forums say nightblades cannot do.

Well... They can.

DW - check
medium armour - check
Assassination of targets - check

I fight vr10s all the time. Keep an eye out for the next video.

Ill leave you to your denial now.

Thanks for taking the time to watch.

dannyporter2011b16_ESO

You gank from horses. You haven't shown a single fight where they opened on you, to which you turned it around and won.

You haven't proven anything about how weak DW is in it's defense and how weak NBs are in their lack of defensive tools.

All you've shown is a hidden blade from stealth spam with a few impale executes.

Was a good try though.

Sanguisaevum

Except for the fight where i unstealth and intentionally let the DK open on me while i wait for the attack.

Except for all the fights that i stand toe to to with melee characters and end the fights on full health.

You're grasping at straws or intentionally trolling, man.

glitchmaster999

Sanguisaevum wrote: »

Except for the fight where i unstealth and intentionally let the DK open on me while i wait for the attack.

Except for all the fights that i stand toe to to with melee characters and end the fights on full health.

You're grasping at straws or intentionally trolling, man.

If you win a fight 1v1 as a nightblade you always end on full health, doesn't mean much but point is, just cause you can 1v1 (and pretty much only out of stealth) doesn't make them fine. I have destroyed many dragonknights and sorcerers even in group settings, only reason I could was because they misplayed hard like holding block while immobilized and just socking up stamina.

Nightblade simply dont perform as well as other classes, if you face the same weapon and same build concept in each of the classes and play with the same skill you will lose just because you are a nightblade.

martymart76_ESO

@Sanguisaevum:

So everyone else who is having issues with this class, the myriad of people on the class skills forums and every single one of the people on Tamriel Foundry who have posted parsings, damage meters, pve and pvp videos, are all liars, and YOU are the only one who truly is playing the class correctly and doing so amazingly well, that you think the class is fine and everyone else is fail but you.

Looks to me like you are the one in denial, not everyone else.

What you also fail to understand is that, as I have discovered, the vast majority of players play the other classes, too, and have other classes in VR content as well, myself included. I have a VR2 2hand DK, full heavy armor, offhand bow and:

Leveling was faster
DPS was much, much higher and more sustainable
Self heals were ridiculously more powerful, without even having to dip into restoration staff
Non-vampire
Takes a great deal more damage and has higher resists and health pool
Just flat out easier to play (Nightblade takes a great deal more prep and control and picking battles, whereas my DK can just faceroll entire groups and not bat an eye, just like Templar and Sorcerer can do, as well).

If you love this class so much, why are you downright combating those of us who want to make it even better and more fun? It doesn't make any sense. Just because you do reasonably well against dismounted prone pvp opponents doesn't mean that in VR10 content, we Nightblades (not Nightrestostaff, not Nightdestrostaff, not Nightmaul/greatsword) will even get invited to groups at all due to lower burst and sustained DPS than every single other class (Look at the parsings on Tamriel Foundry. Just go look) doing it better by far. Stop arguing just to argue. The class needs work, end of story, and it benefits YOU as well as us for it to happen rather than argue against it just to argue.

CapuchinSeven

dannyporter2011b16_ESO wrote: »

You haven't shown a single fight where they opened on you, to which you turned it around and won.

You mean, apart from that time he does?

As well as all the times he attacks when they are not on a horse?

What do you want him to do, unstealth BEFORE he attacks to be a fair sport?

While I think this doesn't cover issues with NBs in large scale warfare, and I'm not 100% convinced at the quality of his opponents (like with all videos) he's running the build that people complain they want, the duel wield, typical assassin like character.

What do you want from him? Heavy armour, great mace?