For clarity I am understanding that you mean the morph "Shadow Image" of "Summon Shade" where as most NB's in vids I've seen use the "Dark Shades" morph.

GDB is one hell of a power, but its a tank ability in the class that leans towards being a tank. They don't directly compare, but Shadow Image is good if you've got a syphon/kite set up going on, no question. However I did not realise that there was a maximum range on it (I confess I use Dark Shades), that's poor and should definitely have some visual indicator and the tooltip updated.

Agreed. This skill drives me nuts. Its so much fun when it works but it more often than not seems to fail me when I need it.

AlnilamE wrote: »

I may try this out. I morphed to the shades, and they've been useful when soloing, but this sounds like fun when it works.

It's a lot of fun, to get the most from it, use it quick and fast. If you leave it for too long it can quickly turn into a "ffs" skill.

LunaRae wrote: »

It feels so awesome when you do pull it off though!!

Ha yes this, I had a DK running all over the place trying to get to me the other day.

I don't like how I have to target someone first to place it. Kinda gives away that I'm there as it starts shooting at target. Maybe we should ask our addon guys to make an addon for this.

So I would like to point out that shades including shadow image is insanely useful. It may not be apparent at first, but shadow image itself combos with some of nightblades other skills and also its mitigation is insane.

PVP:
Here is just one of the combos:
Shadow image up
Ambush target
press shadow image again
User another skill (this skill procs the extra damage from ambush since you did not use a damaging skill)

So basically what happens is in pvp you cc your target(loss of enemy dps), you deal damage, and you drop a debuff on them (loss of enemy dps).
I would like to also point out it is fun as heck to do.
There is many more setups you can do you just need to get creative.

PVE:
"The shade's cause the target to deal 15% less damage over 4 seconds."
Keep in mind this applies to bosses,,, this reads to me...
"Target enemy boss deals 15% less damage, because screw him/her/it. If you have multiple night-blades running this skill the effect is everlasting,"

I am just going to add this,,, ^-^

I will agree with you on the point though that it does need a range indicator. I have found many times that i am out of range, because it is tough to calculate its range.

Otherwise, there is no reason someone in a combo build should not be running this skill.

Why shadow image kicks ass.

1. it reduces your enemies damage and it stacks with other reduce damage skills.
2. if your enemy is blocking it counts as a physical attack and they lose stamina.
3. the teleport is actually more life saving than dark cloak.
I use shadow image as a major part of my build and its amazing. People just dont know how to use it.
Shadow image isnt even the problem with NB, Nightblades not have decent misschance & dark cloak never wants to work are the issues.

Couldn't care less about the current convo, my response is directly to OP:

The only thing missing from Nightblades is a good heal/shield spell. Period, that is it. Every single spell in their arsenal serve a purpose, Hell I'll go through them for you.

Shadow:

* Soul Harvest: Ok the weakest of the ultimates and a bad an example to lead off with. It however serves an excellent purpose in PvE: Building ult SUPER fast. In PvP I've used this successfully in large zerg situations to pop veils 100% of the time (combined with Combat Frenzy) and to 'snipe' specific targets quickly. Occasionally I can chain them and kill 6-10 targets in a row. It DOES need a buff, which it's getting but its a great 'assassination' ability.

* Assassin's Blade: Execute move, great in Trials, General PvE and PvP. In PvP a great way to finish off a blazing shield spamming templar who's under 25% health since it casts ever so slightly faster than Blazing shield letting you eventually finish them.

* Teleport Strike: Closer, great ability to catch/destroy other nightblades trying to escape (if you cast it as they go invis/shadow cloak you'll still hit). Hits hard and Ambush morph lets you move into huge early hits or right into a insta kill Impale if they're low enough.

* Blur: Ok this one sucks, but not for the reason you think. It sucks because the duration is too damned low. Beautiful survival tool in the right, tight situations. Also used it to help tank DSA in combination with Evasion from the medium armor line.

* Marked Target: 75% reduction is huge. In trials it gets those mythical 1500dps numbers and in PvP it shreds people who don't know how to block. FYI: Never lead with this ability, lead with Ambush, THEN mark, THEN damage. What happens if you lead with it? They block/purge it.

* Haste: Oddly useful and will be more useful in the next patch. If you're heavy attack cancelling keeping Haste up adds plenty of DPS since it can bump you up to a full heavy attack, or if you're crazy and use double weighted gold weapons, always a full heavy attack now. Personally I'd like to see more attack speed to be able to spam it and make this more useful but as it stands, its required in the Dual Wield 1k DPS stamina build to hit those numbers.

Shadow:

Consuming Darkness: Veil. If you don't have/know what veil is, you aren't a nightblade.

Shadow Cloak: Escape ability that may or may not work depending on the patch. When not near a keep in PvP it still works as intended: Pop cloak, reapply sneak and change direction like a transport ship evading U-Boats in WW2. Still works. Also the removal of negative effects is stupid good, and in dueling if you have this slotted you can 'reset' the fight. I use it against templars due to their numerous channel abilities, lets this ability shine.

Path of Darkness: Want a perfect example of whats wrong with nightblades? This skill is 100% useless outside of tanking. Why tanking? Each tick triggers Elemental Drain and Force Siphon. If anything, in this situation it needs to be fixed. Has little to no use outside of 4man dungeons sadly.

Aspect of Terror: This is THE best CC in the game.

Summon Shade: Bitching about DKs that just block? Guess what, this is how you beat them. These little annoyances drain their stamina to no end. Both morphs are useful and is one of the few skills I wish I had access to both morphs. This is how you win duels.

Siphoning:

Soul Shred: Excellent low cost ultimate for damage. Since its not a static AoE it hurts bad. Great in PvP, not so much in PvE where you want veil 100% of the time. Players tend to move out of Static AoEs.

Strife: Your main attack spell. Wanna know something? Its also just as strong, if not more due to its range, powerful than lava whip. With the same stats you get about the same damage but an 4x the range. Oh and it ALWAYS heals you instead of requiring them to be in a CC.

Agony: Not always useful, but useful in duels and PvE when they're low on stamina and CAN'T break out. If you're able this will destroy stamina in combination with Shades.

Cripple: 'secondary' attack, use in combination with Strife to deal maximum damage while being able to keep kiting. They work together, though you can skip this one if you don't need the bonuses. Nothing wrong with this ability other than it's not spammable.

Siphoning Strikes: If you want to stack spell power and skip regen, this is required. If you can weave light attacks properly you'll almost NEVER run out of mana with this up. The damage reduction pales in comparison to a constant barrage of spells. Properly setup with spell damage (Hint: I can hit 140 spell damage with this up, Funnel Health hits for 600+ in PvP). Even in trials being able to drop Spell Sym and building ult faster (3-6 more ult per cycle due to lack of Spell Sym) makes up for, and on some bosses surpasses overall DPS than Spell Sym nbs. (this does require Siphoning Strikes morph over the heal. Sadly a choice between PvP and PvE on these morphs. I still like both) Either way this skill is an all star and stands for everything Nightblades are in combat: Drain your opponent and finish them off style of combat.

Drain Power: Ok, letting you in on a secret. Combine the Power Extraction Morph with Elemental Ring and you'll do more damage AoE than Sorcs with Crit Surge up. Oh and you'll hit 9 targets on the Power Extraction hit. Wanna go defensive? I've seen nightblades tank 10+ guys using Sap Power with Veils. Combined with the Transfer passive your ult builds stupid fast. The only thing wrong with this ability besides it's OPness is it takes for freaking ever to unlock.

The only thing missing from this suite of tools is a self-heal. That's it. Period. All in all the Nightblade class has more useful tools than any other class in more situations (Daedric Summoning line for Sorcs comes to mind, being useless for most things outside of the Shield and Mines in PvE. Pets are worthless.) Even the useless skills are invaluable for off type casting your NB (say as a tank, which is surprisingly good when setup right).

So please, quit your bitching. At least if you do, complain we have self defense skills outside of Veil and Aspect of Terror which don't work the way we need them to for most PvP encounters/PvE.

I'm not even sure he read the initial post with that response. Yes we do have some great skills. It would just be nice for this one to work more consistently and I definitely appreciate his testing to try and figure out what things set it off to misfire.

It's buggy. It's one of those skills you have to come to an understanding with that it doesn't work like it's supposed to work. Then you have to ask "but how does it work?" After that play it accordingly.

The life of NBs...

Yeah... Use Dark Shades instead. Its awesome. Dot, damage debuff, drains enemy's stamina as they block, distraction if the enemy decides to attack them... enough said.

As for Shadow Image, it could be revised. The skill should be a ground target skill. Upon casting, you teleport to the location you targeted and a shade gets left behind in the spot where you were. That would change it from useless to amazing.

OH and how could I forget, the best bug of all, sometimes for no reason at all your Shade will move so you teleport short of where you left it or if you're really really unlucky as I've had happen to me... you teleport 2 inches.

I've had a few tells about this post so I thought I'd put down what I said to them for anyone else wondering or needing help.

To make it work and effective it's fairly simple.

Use it fast - put down the Shade, Ambush in, deal your burst, then teleport to the Shade to get out, stealth away. Distance is more of an issue than time, but I have seen it fail when it's right next to me seemingly because I left it a while (the buff was still running).

If your foe doesn't die in your first run or you have to chase them around either accept the teleport won't work or teleport and try again.

Too much time and too much distance from the Shade and it'll fail.