Nightblade Update

Lyall84 · July 2014

Xnemesis wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

Jarnhand wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

Jarnhand wrote: »

For me is plain demotivating to read the 'letter'. NBs have many buged skills, and they need to be fixed. No fixes in first part of 1.3 either. I am loosing motivation to play the game, and are looking into 'that other new RvR MMO' going into alpha next month...

I have been keeping my eye on one went into alpha this month, going beta next month.

Do not think its the same one. I am refering to CU, alpha most likely August, beta sometime next year. BSC days next week with big news...

Archage is what has caught me eye.

I played the beta and its horrible. If you like Korean games with subtitles and grind fests then its for you. If not steer clear!

Good to know.

Braddass · July 2014

It is sad (and rather telling) that the Nightblade thread has devolved into a discussion about what other MMO to play.

Sangeet · July 2014

I still want my Nightblade to be fixed, Balancing is much needed!

Selodaoc · July 2014

Problem is that ZoS seems to think its a problem with Stamina vs Magicka, when theres big flaws with the CLASS skills, which are magicka based, and synergy between passives.

The dmg of Nightblade class skills hits for quite little dmg in sustained fights, which forces Nightblades to use stamina based skills.
Problem is that class skills are magicka so your forced to try to get both magicka passives AND stamina passives.
This is one of the reasons why staff NB is much better. You only have to get spell dmg and spell crit.
Destro staff is weapon dmg but its still better and still benefits from spell crit.

Another problem in PvP, is that class skills, once you up your spell dmg are the best skills to burst, which PvP is all about. While if you go bow, you need weapon dmg.

Other classes synergies WAY better with weapon types like fire and lightning.
They also have better heal procs.
Better resource regen without dmg reductions.
Skills to lower incoming dmg for a longer duration.
Better ways to increase weapon dmg..as a spell class...
Better passives to lower skillcost.
Better debuffs.

Ilterendi · July 2014

Selodaoc wrote: »

Problem is that ZoS seems to think its a problem with Stamina vs Magicka, when theres big flaws with the CLASS skills, which are magicka based, and synergy between passives.

The dmg of Nightblade class skills hits for quite little dmg in sustained fights, which forces Nightblades to use stamina based skills.
Problem is that class skills are magicka so your forced to try to get both magicka passives AND stamina passives.
This is one of the reasons why staff NB is much better. You only have to get spell dmg and spell crit.
Destro staff is weapon dmg but its still better and still benefits from spell crit.

Another problem in PvP, is that class skills, once you up your spell dmg are the best skills to burst, which PvP is all about. While if you go bow, you need weapon dmg.

Other classes synergies WAY better with weapon types like fire and lightning.
They also have better heal procs.
Better resource regen without dmg reductions.
Skills to lower incoming dmg for a longer duration.
Better ways to increase weapon dmg..as a spell class...
Better passives to lower skillcost.
Better debuffs.

I partially agree with you. NBs do have some rather nice moves, for instance an unblockable/non-reflectable fear, a healing debuff for the cheap (50 ult), shades which gives a healthy dmg debuff for 20 secs to the benefit of the entire group, veil of blades, Funnel Health (super buggy). We have some potential. Some lackluster abilities, namely Blur and Haste, need a rework or substantial buffing. I keep Haste on my bar just for the 12% added heavy dmg for clipping, didn't find anything else worthwhile to add...

I really loved an earlier suggestion that someone made about making the damage component calculation scale from type of weapon, for instance a DW based NB's magicka abilities would USE magicka as a fuel resource but take its damage from stamina. This may be enough to fix some balancing issues, while creating a few more. Any issues created implementing this system could be solved by class balance, which is already a laughable ongoing issue. Also, lol @ZOS for looking into the DK nerfs in fear they went too far. Yes, really.

Farkaz · July 2014

Ilterendi wrote: »

shades which gives a healthy dmg debuff for 20 secs

debuff lasts only for 4 sec

ESO Paul Sage The Road Ahead Q&A Transcript(dulfy.net)

What more adjustments can Nightblades can expect?
We will see how 1.3 performs and adjust from there.

Dear ZoS can you be more vocal about NB and start dialog with us? We need some changes now, not after 1.3.

Ilterendi · July 2014

Rezam wrote: »

Ilterendi wrote: »

shades which gives a healthy dmg debuff for 20 secs

debuff lasts only for 4 sec

per attack of the shade. Shade lasts for 20 secs, attacking during that time therefore sustaining the debuff for the shades duration.

In your defense. The tooltips still suck.

Farkaz · July 2014

Ilterendi wrote: »

per attack of the shade. Shade lasts for 20 secs, attacking during that time therefore sustaining the debuff for the shades duration.

In your defense. The tooltips still suck.

thanks for clarification.

Ilterendi · July 2014

Rezam wrote: »

Ilterendi wrote: »

per attack of the shade. Shade lasts for 20 secs, attacking during that time therefore sustaining the debuff for the shades duration.

In your defense. The tooltips still suck.

thanks for clarification.

Np at all. They really need to kick some of their tooltip writers in the teeth.

The changes in gear sets will be a big turning point for stamina dps, not sure if it's enough. Also considering the current pvp meta, the gear changes may more heavily benefit pve. Which I'm not opposed as I'm more pve sided, but I would hate to see pvp become more lopsided.

forthewinn2 · July 2014

Ilterendi wrote: »

I partially agree with you. NBs do have some rather nice moves, for instance an unblockable/non-reflectable fear

I hate the fact that aspect of terror makes mobs run off in random directions, it just means Im getting attacked from 3 different directions and can no longer cc or aoe anything

Hears_Bright_Colors · July 2014

The Impale morph. This skill does 0 damage about 25% of the time I use it. The animation fires. Magicka is consumed. No damage dealt. This has been going on since the start.

It is especially annoying in Cyrodiil. I have an enemy at 100 health, use Impale and they don't die. I've used it 4 times in a row with the enemy at 100-200 health and they live. They are well within the distance. I use the tab targeting so I know I'm within their hitbox. It's just not doing damage. I'm strongly considering just removing it as it's just a chance at doing something other than taking 200 magicka.

forthewinn2 · July 2014

@Hears_Bright_Colors yeah the same thing happens to me with veiled strike, animation fires off about three times yet enemy takes no damage

Hears_Bright_Colors · July 2014

@forthewinn2‌ - Thank you. Glad to see it's not just me. I'm open to the idea that it's something I'm doing wrong if anyone has any ideas but it's definitely not performing it's intended action/effect 100% of the time.

Braddass · July 2014

Ilterendi wrote: »

Also, lol @ZOS for looking into the DK nerfs in fear they went too far. Yes, really.

I thought that was hilarious as well. It makes you wonder ...

Selodaoc · July 2014

Hears_Bright_Colors wrote: »

The Impale morph. This skill does 0 damage about 25% of the time I use it. The animation fires. Magicka is consumed. No damage dealt. This has been going on since the start.

It is especially annoying in Cyrodiil. I have an enemy at 100 health, use Impale and they don't die. I've used it 4 times in a row with the enemy at 100-200 health and they live. They are well within the distance. I use the tab targeting so I know I'm within their hitbox. It's just not doing damage. I'm strongly considering just removing it's just a chance at doing something other than taking 200 magicka.

That happens to me alot aswell, more so when their running away. I have to spam it 3-4 times before it actually damages.

It would also be nice to have some kind of indicator on impale or killer blade when enemy drops below the 300% dmg treshold so you dont have to watch healthbars.

*Shade and fear is useless is most situations

rekina · July 2014

Please fix the [Snip] stealth breaking bugs. I can bear many other glitches with nightblade, but this stealth breaking for no reason is just a deal breaker. This happens VERY OFTEN and everytime it happens it's [Snip] annoying.

Taiminator · July 2014

Jaxom wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

Veil of Blades... the only reason we at wanted for Trials.

There is a very specific build where you can get 850-950 single target DPS over long periods of time in Trials but it's litterally just 1 build. I'd like to start using Medium Armor and my Bow again, but at the current time, it's still not viable.

Selodaoc wrote: »

Hears_Bright_Colors wrote: »

The Impale morph. This skill does 0 damage about 25% of the time I use it. The animation fires. Magicka is consumed. No damage dealt. This has been going on since the start.

It is especially annoying in Cyrodiil. I have an enemy at 100 health, use Impale and they don't die. I've used it 4 times in a row with the enemy at 100-200 health and they live. They are well within the distance. I use the tab targeting so I know I'm within their hitbox. It's just not doing damage. I'm strongly considering just removing it's just a chance at doing something other than taking 200 magicka.

That happens to me alot aswell, more so when their running away. I have to spam it 3-4 times before it actually damages.

It would also be nice to have some kind of indicator on impale or killer blade when enemy drops below the 300% dmg treshold so you dont have to watch healthbars.

*Shade and fear is useless is most situations

I use the FoundryTacticalCombat addon and it tells you when a targetted enemy's health drops below 25% which is when the 300% dmg kicks in. Now if they could just fix that skill to where it actually always fires off and its animation doesn't bug out, freezing you for a few seconds, I'd be a much happier Nightblade. But at this time, my hope of it even getting acknowledged in the next couple months is pretty small as it seems priorities have shifted away from fixing NB ability bugs.

Father · July 2014

I'm using Destruction/Inferno staff and Restoration staff NB with full light armor, and its decent for VET maps.
I dropped the bow and DW once I hit lvl 49, just to experiment cause I heard how hard for this type of build to survive with group mobs.
I did get all the assassin skills, from time to time I get bored then put the same skills I used for a sneaky NB on my 2nd bar , really fun in solo dungeons.
Sneaking behind a mob while crouching lets me hit 2.2-2.3k dmg with Surprise Attack + Reaper's mark.
I tried to use Shadowy Disguise and then Surprise attack but the damage was sooo inferior..its almost 600-700 thats way lower than the crouching one.
some mobs AOE breaks my cloak which makes things hard.

BTW I just want to make sure I'm not alone here, I'm a Bosmer [Wood Elf], and my stamina recovery is always soft capped, I don't wear Medium armor or jewelry that adds Stamina recovery. So basicly my racial bonuses are nothing but crap

The only benefit is the reduced stealth radius and the damage increase from stealth.

Ilterendi · July 2014

Father wrote: »

BTW I just want to make sure I'm not alone here, I'm a Bosmer [Wood Elf], and my stamina recovery is always soft capped, I don't wear Medium armor or jewelry that adds Stamina recovery. So basicly my racial bonuses are nothing but crap
The only benefit is the reduced stealth radius and the damage increase from stealth.

just wait until update 1.3. The Bosmer bonuses will be better, in terms of stamina and regen. Soft caps are changing.

Jacques Berge · July 2014

I'd like to see Magelight adjusted. Most everything about the stealth mechanic needs to be fixed. Increase the detect radius for everyone. Give NB a stealth passive, and make medium reduce detection by a greater amount. Also, sneaking with Magelight on should be impossible, makes absolutely no sense.

Father · July 2014

Jacques Berge wrote: »

I'd like to see Magelight adjusted. Most everything about the stealth mechanic needs to be fixed. Increase the detect radius for everyone. Give NB a stealth passive, and make medium reduce detection by a greater amount. Also, sneaking with Magelight on should be impossible, makes absolutely no sense.

Give NB a stealth passive?? isn't the shadow tree already full of these?
Magelight on not possible with sneaking? that will be a heavy nerf for everyone including NB.

I do want to see spell damage boost from varios skills not just weapon damage,like power extraction or edit some passives to boost some spell damage lets say...on CRIT or somthing like when low on HP spell damage increased by 20%,since every class skill we got uses spell damage! maybe this will appeal to more people

TBH I'm againts all nerfing, the solution is not nerfing magicka builds, but making the NB and its skills more competitive, somthing that can be done but requires time I guess...I'm really happy with every update ZOS makes despite bugged skills, they really care! I've never experienced this kind of service before. so good job

I'm VR6 atm and I'm having great fun with NB despite all the bugs,I know I would be happy to solo vet group dungeons but I enjoy joining a group and doing it with my guild, I really never had a problem with grouping infact I think that in groups NB shines alot or at least thats the way I experienced.

Like hitting a boss were every one of your group is dead and only you stand, with siphoning attacks on magicka bar is almost full, and boss's hp is 25%, you spam Impale while weaving light attacks and boom boss dead!

how many of you experienced this ??? I know I always get a comment at the end like..wow good job !!

Jacques Berge · July 2014

Father wrote: »

Give NB a stealth passive?? isn't the shadow tree already full of these?
Magelight on not possible with sneaking? that will be a heavy nerf for everyone including NB.

Stealth passive as in reduced detection radius. As of now, a full 7/7 medium build only gives you about 2m reduced area (less than the kahjiit/bosmer racial bonuse) So, a DK cat decked out in full plate can detect any non K/B before they can detect him, please tell how this shouldn't be changed.... And about Magelight, it's not a nerf, you can't cast spells and remain hidden. Why should you be able to hide with Magelight on? Not to mention it's a giant ball of light floating around you. I just want stealth fixed, make NB and medium armor users even better and make others worse. Also, I'd like to see some mechanic involving threat detection bubbles overlapping and therefor greatly increasing the radius of all parties envolved. This would reduce the effectiveness of the stealth Zerg, which I'm sure there'll be some guy somewhere saying "Nah bra, it totally makes sense that 100 people could be completely undetectable in this open field here, geez, I bet you want them to do something about point AP farmers too, not radical. Robes and stick ftw"... Smh

Selodaoc · July 2014

Magelight is just stupid.

I ran around in Cyrodiil the other day. A Sorc and me spotted eachother.
I crouched to get into hidden, then he just popped magelight and saw me dirctly.
I couldnt stealth since magelight breaks stealth, so then what do i do?

He just held his right mouse button blocking so i couldnt ambush and i couldnt stealth.
And when i finally got into melee range he blocked my attacks, used a crystal shard (no travel distance from melee range) knocked me down, procced insta crystal shard (2k dmg in 1 second) and finished me of with whatever.

I tried blocking aswell, but spells penetrate almost 50% anyways and i use my stamina for other things, neither can i cast my melee skills while blocking.

Magelight should have its stealth detection component removed, the crit bonus is enough already. Neither should you be able to block while casting spells.

Sai87RU · July 2014

We need +50% crit damage passive. Everyone will have a 50% crit bonus, and we have 100%, and then it will be fine

This passive skill is justified Magelight and everything else.

Jarnhand · July 2014

Zenimax has droped the ball, on the game in general (exploits and bugs and imbalances), and on NBs. So much for fixing NBs. Have not log on in 2 days (this IS radical for me) and almost stoped reading forums...

There may be a small hope in what they are going to say on QuakeCon, but I am not holding my breath. Sorry to say it, but has more or less given up on this game. This may well be the last month I pay for this beta...

Sangeet · July 2014

I would actually like to see a comment of the DEVELOPERS? , its the DEVELOPERS thread, isnt it? I played 15 days nightblade to be at the dead end of the stick with my class? Is there any vision? Currently there are only DK and Sorc ruling the battlefield, nightblades have to sit in group of 5 in a shady area, and spam bow attacks. I really would like to see an official comment, it may say, shut up, youre fine. I dont think its very respectfull to have such a thread of 56 pages, without actual involvement of the designers. Class balance is non plus ultra in any game. (Even boardgames.)

eventide03b14a_ESO · July 2014

I miss my nightblade. He's basically just my crafter now. I brought him out last night and I just can't believe how gimped he is compared to my sorcerer. For a class that relies so much on precise timing I find it very frustrating when my abilities don't go off. I love combo attack of shadowy disguise and concealed weapon when it works. Sadly it's very clunky and very unforgiving if the reticle isn't facing just the right way. Of course I am idiot who thinks his nightblade should be wearing medium armor and even with 25 points in magicka and all magicka glyphs I have to wait for magicka after every fight. It really is a shame because the class has such potential but honestly it's just not fun to play.

kelly.medleyb14_ESO · July 2014

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Incoming Fixes & Improvements
We have ongoing efforts to improve the Nightblade class, and fix some of the outstanding issues. Below is an early look at some of the incoming fixes and improvements you will see in content patch 1.2.X.
Incapacitate will increase heavy attack damage.

Incapacitating Strike will now be capable of critical strikes.

Master Assassin will increase spell power in addition to weapon power.

Path of Darkness damage will be increased. The ability will also be visible to all players.

Refreshing Path will heal allies. The healing will also be slightly increased.

Refreshing Shadows will always be active, and will no longer require you to use an ability.

Also worth noting, there were three Nightblade class abilities impacted by this general combat note from the 1.1.2 patch notes: Fixed an issue where a number of abilities were not properly able to cause critical strikes.

The abilities impacted by this fix were:
Impale (Assassin’s Blade morph)

Killer's Blade (Assassin’s Blade morph)

Sap Essence (Drain Power morph)

Outstanding Known Issues
Patch 1.1.2 fixed many outstanding Nightblade issues, but below are some that we are either actively investigating, working on fixes for now, or have recently fixed and will push in a future patch. Please note this list does not reflect every reported Nightblade issue we are currently investigating.

General: Currently, a Nightblade’s own residual outgoing damage-over-time ticks break his or her invisibility. This is not intended, and will be fixed in a future patch.

Dark Cloak (Shadow Cloak morph): Dark Cloak is not currently removing damage-over-time (DoT) debuffs as it should be. We’re currently investigating this issue to determine which DoTs are not being removed by Dark Cloak.

Haste: Haste is not currently applying the 30% attack speed increase to ranged weapons as it should be. We are working on a fix for this issue.

Mark Target: Mark Target currently allows you to see and attack targets that are sneaking, but not ones that are invisible. We are working on a fix for this issue.

Path of Darkness: The PFX for Path of Darkness and its morphs will sometimes appear under terrain. We are currently investigating this issue.

Pressure Points: This passive ability is working as intended, but there is a bug with the character sheet not correctly displaying the critical strike rating bonus. We have a fix for this, and it will go out with a future patch.

Siphoning Attacks: This ability’s tooltip will no longer says that it restores health. It never restored health, nor was it intended to. This is a tooltip bug. We have a fix for this, and it will go out with a future patch.

Hello Ma'am, I have been speaking with quite a few guild members, alliance members and coalition members and we unanimously came to a few conclusions regarding Nightblades and Melee in general.

Stamina is a huge issue and here is why:

If you are a stamina build and in AvA you use all your stamina and then you die, hopefully you have killed your target but unless they are lower level than you it is highly unlikely. Some of the issues where addressed in the QC QnA so I won't go over those fixes mentioned which include increasing damage of stamina based abilities, I will just go over a couple of things that where not mentioned and are huge sore spots.

Dodge roll, Block, Sprint, Break away, and Interrupt are ALL based on stamina. This is fine for a magicka user as all they have to do is put a couple k into stamina and they can infinitely CC break because their damage all comes from the magicka pool which regenerates while they CC break etc (I know this for a fact because I have played both magicka and stamina builds). This is not the case with stamina builds, best case scenario is that we have a "magicka dump" ability on our bar to use the magicka reserve up but in general it's useless. You might say "cloak" but cloak in real AvA situations is utterly useless except for clearing DoT's and offensive strikes. Face it, stealth is broken, I can't escape the above scenerio even though I am a cat NB they always find me no matter what. Alternatively a mage can go in, kill a target and port away easily (no previous attempts to fix that have not worked they still spam away regen and spam away again).

Some potential fixes:

Have some passives in NB tree or leather armour tree that severely reduce CC breaking stamina costs.

Stealth is broken and here is why:

My hugely fat Nord can "hide" out in the middle of a field in full plate armor in the middle of the day and people ride all around me till I shield charge and slaughter someone with spears.

Alternatively I can spam Cloak every 3 seconds get far away from any enemy behind a rock in the shadows and STILL can't stealth.... the eye stays open forever.... I should IMMEDIATELY be able to stealth away into ANY shadows as a nightblade and this leads me to another ability...

Mage light is broken and here is why:

A huge beaming light circling around me and I can stealth with it and no one can see me but I can see other stealth players. It's range is to far for NB who are supposed to specialize in stealth.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you guys narrow down what is really broken with NB, stamina and stealth.

Kel

Selodaoc · July 2014

Everyone and their dogs are now using staffs.
Its not only becouse its does more dmg but also becouse its so damn much easier.
In these action combat mmos, as a melee, you have to run around like an idiot avoiding everything while spamming your 5 skills.
Theres also issues of delay and your melee skills just swinging in air without doing any dmg.
In traditional mmos, melee skills will always land as long as your in range when you execute them.
If you play ranged, you dont have to dodge so much, your skills are much easier to land, and since you dont have to move so much, you have more uptime on your dmg.

Im not a fan of all this action combat hype. Hope its a fling that passes.
It belongs in FPS and not in mmorpgs.
TERA has been the only one doing it decently.

*Sidenote. Have anyone else noticed Nightblades seem to get more agro then other classes? Everytime me and my friends do dungeons, mobs come storming for me without me doing anything.

dracobains_ESO · July 2014

Selodaoc wrote: »

*Sidenote. Have anyone else noticed Nightblades seem to get more agro then other classes? Everytime me and my friends do dungeons, mobs come storming for me without me doing anything.

Not sure what that is all about. I know i was in a small group and we were killing gators. Every time the tank agroed one it would turn and bolt at me until he taunted it even when I was at max range. Could be an AI mechanic where they head for the person furthest out but I got agro up close most of the time as well even if i didn't shoot anything with my bow. We just laugh about it and everyone calls me gator bait but there is certainly something odd going on with threat mechanics.