Nightblade Prolonged Suffering (Agony Morph)

Palidon · December 2014

The Nightblade skill Prolonged Suffering is a complete waste of time and skill point. It is totally useless. Please ZOS revamp that skill and put it on the same plain as the Dragon Knight Dark Talons or the Sorcerer Encase. At present Prolonged Suffering gives a 12 second Immobilization that can be broken by any other source. In PvP play by being able to break the immobilization by any other source it's not even worth the trouble to put it on ones skill bar. Both the Dark Talons or Encase do not have that type of penalty. My suggestion is the reduce the immobilization time to either 4 or 4.5 seconds which is the same as Dark Talons or Encase and remove the "Can be broken by any other source".

Lynx7386 · December 2014

I'll repeat my reply to your other post about this:

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Palidon wrote: »

I agree on Prolonged Suffering. It is totally useless. Come on ZOS give us NB's a break and give us a Immobilizer on the same level as the other classes have. DK's: Dark Talons Immobilize for 4 sec. Sorcers: Encase Immobilize for 4.5 sec. Nightblades: Crappy Prolonged Suffering Immobilize for 12 seconds but can be broken from any other source. Reduce it to 4 seconds and take away the penality.

You're comparing the wrong abilities here. Prolonged suffering (an agony morph) is akin to runic prison (sorceror) or petrify (dragonknight), both of which disable a target for 12 seconds but also break on damage. They're single-target long duration CC abilities designed to take an enemy out of the fight so you can deal with others.

The closest ability that nightblades have to talons and encase would be our fear from the shadow line, which still definitely needs improving on. Templars dont have anything akin to talons or encase either, though.

Sharee · December 2014

As stated above, agony is a mez, which completely disables target, unlike talons/encase which are roots that do not prevent anything but movement.

Palidon · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I'll repeat my reply to your other post about this:

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Palidon wrote: »

I agree on Prolonged Suffering. It is totally useless. Come on ZOS give us NB's a break and give us a Immobilizer on the same level as the other classes have. DK's: Dark Talons Immobilize for 4 sec. Sorcers: Encase Immobilize for 4.5 sec. Nightblades: Crappy Prolonged Suffering Immobilize for 12 seconds but can be broken from any other source. Reduce it to 4 seconds and take away the penality.

You're comparing the wrong abilities here. Prolonged suffering (an agony morph) is akin to runic prison (sorceror) or petrify (dragonknight), both of which disable a target for 12 seconds but also break on damage. They're single-target long duration CC abilities designed to take an enemy out of the fight so you can deal with others.

The closest ability that nightblades have to talons and encase would be our fear from the shadow line, which still definitely needs improving on. Templars dont have anything akin to talons or encase either, though.

Thanks for the heads up however, I suggest you read the descriptions of both Runic Prison which states "Disorients Target for 16.5 seconds" never mentions it can be broken by damage and Petrify which states " Can take ? amount of damage before it breaks" How much damage equals the ?. For Agony, damage from any other source breaks it right away.

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Tooltips in this game are notoriously inaccurate and misleading. Runic prison and petrify are both broken on damage. Petrify allows some damage before the break, but the amount isnt particularly high.

These abilities are designed as a soft CC. In other games, this equates to abilities like sleep, polymorph, force lift, etc. - they're designed to take a single target out of the fight for a period of time so that you (and, if applicable, your group) can deal with other targets in the same pull. For example, if you're in a pve dungeon and going to attack a group with one healer and two big melee mobs, you'd use the CC on the healer, let the melee's run to you, fight them away from the healer so the CC isnt broken by damage, and then deal with the healer after they've been taken down.

In this game, these abilities are for the most part useless because there's never any situations in PvE where it would be better to CC than to just use area damage and burn everything down. In those few situations where enemies are too tough for area damage to work, chances are they're immune to CC as well so you're screwed either way.

None of the three classes in question (sorcerors with rune prison, dragonknights with petrify, or nightblades with agony) gets any real use out of the abilities. That said, not every class is built the same either - both sorcerors and dragonknights get area roots (talons and encase), but neither nightblades nor templars have an area root available to them. Despite balance concerns, the game would be rather boring if every class had access to all the same abilities - would you want dragonknights, templars, and sorcerors being able to turn invisible like nightblades can? Of course not - that's one of the defining features of the nightblade class, and what makes them a different play experience than the other three classes.

Cody · December 2014

Agony itself is just plain useless. fear is a much better CC ability. I never use agony and i do just fine.

It's clear this ability was meant to take a target out of the fight for a short period of time so you or your teammates could focus on another target. That is not a bad concept.

The problem with it in THIS game though, is that it's better just to burn targets down with AOE attacks. Targets that cant be burned down by AOE attacks are ussualy immune to most CCs anyway, making it useless.

It can't be used in PvP due to the fact actual players know to break it, unlike NPCs, so the overall usefulness of the ability is horrendusly low.

There is no reason to use agony. Just use fear instead.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO · December 2014

If the intention of Agony was to take out one single target in a group fight, it should not break on damage from any source, i.e. any AOE will break it.

For this reason Agony and its morphs are the most useless skill in the game, even when "soloing".

With the cast time (it has that too), it's only good as opener on a single target.
However, in most dungeons (even at low levels) you are not alone.

So anyone else passing through using AOEs or shooting at that target, will break your "rooted" enemy out of CC. So will you when using AoEs.

Worse, it promotes the idea to new players that taking one target out off a fight is a valid tactic. It is NOT.

It works for low level mobs (of 2 or 3), but later on you will face larger mobs (6++) and there this skill utterly fails.

Worst, soloing is not the way to go for later, see group dungeons, undaunted challenges, trials, PvP etc. This skill runs counter to that, promotes the wrong concept and trains the wrong tactics.

Therefore remove it already!

It's near worthless in situation where it could be used and it's a complete waste of time, resources and skill points later on promoting the wrong idea and tactics for anything past level 30+.

As a suggestion for replacement (although blur and it's morphs could also be a candidate for this) make it a skill (probably with a new name) that reflects stuns back on caster instead.

Similar to the cost, cast time and duration of DKs reflective scale for ranged attacks (this includes any nerfs to RS) the basic ability would stun the stunner, but instead of also reflecting the - completely over powered for RS - damage, give some health to the NB. For the morphs, one would in addition give also magicka, the other stamina in addition to health.

This would follow the rock, paper, scissors logic by providing an alternative way to counter stuns other than by "breaking free".

And as especially NBs have no fast healing skill at all during combat (most are only after a successful kill, which - perma (re-)stunned - is not going to happen)
they are the prime candidate for such a skill.

Also would give all the "stun to death" spamming folks something to worry about in a fight, read better re-think that strategy and learn to play and not just stun the opposition so they got no chance whatsoever to retaliate.

And yes this removes that "I win" button for those in PvP very intentionally.

And to all those who think that this is overpowered: Please remember that the skill is purely defensive, without someone else using a stun it does nothing!

And if you try to stun some using it, eat your own stun. And in any case, the damage done as part of that stun would still pass through and is only mitigated by the health recovery not cancelled or - gasp - reflected.

So this is not like DKs reflective scale where you would get up to 125% of the damage back no matter what you do, unless you are a DK who can also reflect that back. But there have been countless thread on that, so no need to repeat it here.

Lynx7386 · December 2014

If the intention of Agony was to take out one single target in a group fight, it should not break on damage from any source, i.e. any AOE will break it.

You should consider the implications before suggesting something like this.

A group of 4 nightblades, with such a change to agony, would be able to stun 4 enemies for 12 seconds and simultaneously aoe them down without fear of taking any damage in return.

Control abilities are not meant to be used in conjunction with area damage abilities.

Glory · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

If the intention of Agony was to take out one single target in a group fight, it should not break on damage from any source, i.e. any AOE will break it.

You should consider the implications before suggesting something like this.

A group of 4 nightblades, with such a change to agony, would be able to stun 4 enemies for 12 seconds and simultaneously aoe them down without fear of taking any damage in return.

Control abilities are not meant to be used in conjunction with area damage abilities.

God this is so right. It would be amazing to have, since packs of nightblades would roam and CC everyone to death.

Also, burn an enemy player's stamina, CC lock them and they're basically dead.

While these consequences of making agony not break from damage would be hilarious, it'd be ridiculously broken (in a "too good" way).

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO · December 2014

ebethke_ESO wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

If the intention of Agony was to take out one single target in a group fight, it should not break on damage from any source, i.e. any AOE will break it.

You should consider the implications before suggesting something like this.

A group of 4 nightblades, with such a change to agony, would be able to stun 4 enemies for 12 seconds and simultaneously aoe them down without fear of taking any damage in return.

Control abilities are not meant to be used in conjunction with area damage abilities.

God this is so right. It would be amazing to have, since packs of nightblades would roam and CC everyone to death.

Also, burn an enemy player's stamina, CC lock them and they're basically dead.

While these consequences of making agony not break from damage would be hilarious, it'd be ridiculously broken (in a "too good" way).

First off, the idea here was NOT to remove the "breaks from any source", but to replace that piece of j*nk with something completely different, which isn't even a CC!

However, in answer to your post, the duration of any CC ability in PvP is almost meaningless. Any Player will (try to) break free within a second or less as long as stamina is still available. Once stamina is gone, you will be dead within 1-3 seconds anyway, especially as a Nightblade without any instant heal skill.
Furthermore, even in PvE your example is also not valid: Agony - even in case the breaks on damage would be removed - has a cast time of 1.2 seconds. Using this for anything but an opener (and in speed runs even there) is a HUGE drop in DPS. Worse, as most bosses (and even some mobs) are CC immune, who in their right mind would even consider using it in a group, especially as the skill would be still single target, while the DK ability gives you the same result for an area! Instantly! Repeatedly!

And while this one agrees with your statement: "Control abilities are not meant to be used in conjunction with area damage abilities." this is certainly not true for any other CC. Just head over to PvP - any PvP - and watch folks spamming stuns (preferably over an area, like talons), standard of mights (AoE) and/or bat swarms (AoE) no end for highest kill to resource use ratio and a nice heal thrown in as a bargain. So this type of play is currently the 'state of the art'.

If it had been ZOS intention that CC should not be used with AoEs then any AoE (and certainly bat swarm and morphs) should remove any CC in the area when activated for the whole duration they are active. While a good idea, currently this is anything but the case.

To come back to the original argument: Agony is the worst skill in the game.
Not just because it is sub-par to any other CC, but because it promotes a tactic that has no viable place in the game after about level 30 or so given the current game mechanics.

Replace it already. (preferably not with another stupid CC, see above)

Lynx7386 · December 2014

FYI, talons is not a stun, it's a root, you're still able to fight and use all of your abilities while affected by it. The same goes for encase. This is why these abilities dont break on damage.

frostbreeze · December 2014

funny that you dont compare it to sorcs rune prison :P Which is aso utterly useless!Or dks petrify :P but no no buff nbs more

Cody · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

FYI, talons is not a stun, it's a root, you're still able to fight and use all of your abilities while affected by it. The same goes for encase. This is why these abilities dont break on damage.

stop defending agony. It is the worst NB skill in the entire game, and needs replacement.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO · December 2014

hardly surprising given the thread title, wouldn't you say?
Although, for sure and by the same logic, those roots are hardly useful for large mobs / higher level dungeons / bosses, they're not nearly as bad as Agony is
That one is a real pain, hence the name, no?

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Cody wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

FYI, talons is not a stun, it's a root, you're still able to fight and use all of your abilities while affected by it. The same goes for encase. This is why these abilities dont break on damage.

stop defending agony. It is the worst NB skill in the entire game, and needs replacement.

I'm not defending it, just pointing out that you folks are basing your argument on a false comparison rather than on the fact that, like similar abilities, agony sucks.

Maybe if you made a thread about single target CC sucking (not just agony, but including petrify and rune prison), you'd get a little more credibility. The fact that you're trying to compare agony to talons or encase, which are two entirely different skill types, ruins your own argument.

Cody · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

FYI, talons is not a stun, it's a root, you're still able to fight and use all of your abilities while affected by it. The same goes for encase. This is why these abilities dont break on damage.

stop defending agony. It is the worst NB skill in the entire game, and needs replacement.

I'm not defending it, just pointing out that you folks are basing your argument on a false comparison rather than on the fact that, like similar abilities, agony sucks.

Maybe if you made a thread about single target CC sucking (not just agony, but including petrify and rune prison), you'd get a little more credibility. The fact that you're trying to compare agony to talons or encase, which are two entirely different skill types, ruins your own argument.

i myself never made the comparison between agony, talons, and encase. I simply said agony sucks, which it does.

I also said there is no reason to use it, which is also true. It breaks as soon as the victim takes damage, meaning the only purpose it serves is to keep someone out of the fight, completly useless in PvP seeing as how most players know to roll/CC break,(not to mention PvP is dominated by AOE blobs) and not worth using in PvE when one could use Fear or a weapon ability with similar effects instead.

Either it needs to have its duration decreased to around 4 seconds and NOT break on damage done, or Agony simply needs to be replaced with a better ability.
There is no need to compare it to encase and talons; the way the ability itself works makes Agony a completly useless ability.

TheBull · December 2014

What makes it so bad is the 1.5 second cast time. If attemoting to cast against a blocking, riding, knocked down, basically any target that's not already just standing there, it wont even cast. You are stuck doing the 1.5 second cast animation over and over. No other skill like it in the game.

Lynx7386 · December 2014

Well, to be fair dark flare works fine and it has a 1.5 second cast time as well.

The problem, as mentioned, is that it serves no purpose with the way this game is set up. I agree that it should be replaced entirely, along with similar abilities.

My Suggestions:

Agony (Keeps the same name)
Instant Cast
Deals X damage over 10 seconds to the target. While the target is afflicted by agony, your spellpower against the target is increased by Y.

Morph 1: Prolonged Suffering
Increases the duration of the effect to 20 seconds.

Morph 2: [/b]Malefic Wreath[/b]
Your spellpower is also increased against other enemies within 10 meters of the target.

This gives us a spell power buff for the caster nightblades (who are the most common users of the siphoning tree), and turns it into another damage over time effect which can stack with cripple, lending to warlock-style casting feel.

Rune Prison -> Rune Wall
Instant Cast
Summons a runic wall in front of you with X health. Projectiles directed at you while you remain within 5 meters of the wall will hit the wall instead.

Morph 1: Runic Shell
Instead of summoning a wall, the runes are summoned in a ring that moves with you.

Morph 2: Runic Curse
Instead of summoning a wall, the runes are summoned around your target, causing all projectiles and spells to be reflected back at them.

A more defensive option for sorcs, particularly those who arent just interested in running away from a fight. It's something like the ice wall summoned by npcs, but one morph will let it move with you and the other functions more like the templar's eclipse.

Petrify
Instant Cast
Stuns the target for 3 seconds.

Morph 1: Fossilize
1.5 second cast
Stuns all enemies within 10 meters of the target for 3 seconds.

Morph 2: Shattering Rocks
Critical hits against a petrified enemy cause the effect to shatter, dealing X damage to the target and all nearby enemies.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO · December 2014

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Well, to be fair dark flare works fine and it has a 1.5 second cast time as well.

The problem, as mentioned, is that it serves no purpose with the way this game is set up. I agree that it should be replaced entirely, along with similar abilities.

We agree on that, but the siphoning skills are not just by magicka NBs you know. They are one way to get some heal or get through a block or (in PVE soloing) get some more health back even at reduced DPS.

Frankly speaking, the classes should be distinctive. Therefore adding something to NB, which is already present for other classes, no thanks.

What NB is lacking is some sort of 'fast' self-heal during combat and/or damage shield as a class ability. However, by the same reasoning, that ability should not be a copy of something already present for other classes!

Hence the proposal to reflect stuns and roots and providing a heal each time those are used against a NB, with the morphs either providing magicka or stamina in addition to health.

And sorry, no thanks for hi-jacking the thread to start talking about other skills, either. Seriously, why don't you make your own thread for those?
After all, your points there are quite valid for these abilities, even though both classes do have roots that work and can be useful, which is not the case for NB.

To summarize the above: Agony (and its morphs) suck. Replace it with something worthwhile and different.

Draehl · January 2015

Might I suggest this be completely reworked away from a CC and become a health sacrifice skill? It would have interesting synergy with the NB healing skills and act as a sort of counter-point to Strife.

Agony: 3s channel (dark energy beam). Damages the target for a large amount, you are also damaged for 30% of this amount.

Morph1: Instant cast, but you are damaged for 40%

Morph2: You gain immovable + minor reduced damage taken while channeling.

DDuke · January 2015

Since this ability breaks from any damage, I think it should be unbreakable by the default break CC available to everyone.

That way it could be used strategically, without it becoming too OP (e.g. you have a 1vX fight and you want to CC someone until you kill his buddies).

LegacyDM · January 2015

Make it an instant cast and turn the stun into root. Problem solved. If DK can get an instant cast root why can't NB? I wanna perm lock people with root and burst them down when they run out of stamina from constantly dodge rolling.

ThatHappyCat · January 2015

DDuke wrote: »

Since this ability breaks from any damage, I think it should be unbreakable by the default break CC available to everyone.

That way it could be used strategically, without it becoming too OP (e.g. you have a 1vX fight and you want to CC someone until you kill his buddies).

How would you feel if you could do nothing but stare at your screen for 12 seconds?

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

Make it an instant cast and turn the stun into root. Problem solved. If DK can get an instant cast root why can't NB? I wanna perm lock people with root and burst them down when they run out of stamina from constantly dodge rolling.

It's called Crippling Grasp.

Draehl · January 2015

Or just keep things simple. Make it a very high damage cast-time DoT. Remove the CC. One morph could apply the lesser damage received debuff, the other could cause the target to take damage when they deal damage like a debuff version of Spiked Armor.

LegacyDM · January 2015

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Since this ability breaks from any damage, I think it should be unbreakable by the default break CC available to everyone.

That way it could be used strategically, without it becoming too OP (e.g. you have a 1vX fight and you want to CC someone until you kill his buddies).

How would you feel if you could do nothing but stare at your screen for 12 seconds?

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

Make it an instant cast and turn the stun into root. Problem solved. If DK can get an instant cast root why can't NB? I wanna perm lock people with root and burst them down when they run out of stamina from constantly dodge rolling.

It's called Crippling Grasp.

Crippling grasp isn't really instant cast considering you have to wait for the spell to travel to its target and the immobilize only works for 1.5 secs (if it even takes hold, by the time it gets there, the opponent just blocks, wasting the spell) compared to burning talons which is 4 ******* seconds and an actual instant area cast. How many NB do you know can keep someone perma locked using crippling grasp?

No, what I am advocating for is an instant cast like reapers mark. Just reduce the cast time of prolonged suffering to instant cast and increase the immobilization time.

Look, NB need a better range CC. If my proposal above is to powerful I would even support removing or reducing the damage the spell outputs in favor of getting a good instant cast ranged cc.

Draehl · January 2015

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Since this ability breaks from any damage, I think it should be unbreakable by the default break CC available to everyone.

That way it could be used strategically, without it becoming too OP (e.g. you have a 1vX fight and you want to CC someone until you kill his buddies).

How would you feel if you could do nothing but stare at your screen for 12 seconds?

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

Make it an instant cast and turn the stun into root. Problem solved. If DK can get an instant cast root why can't NB? I wanna perm lock people with root and burst them down when they run out of stamina from constantly dodge rolling.

It's called Crippling Grasp.

Crippling grasp isn't really instant cast considering you have to wait for the spell to travel to its target and the immobilize only works for 1.5 secs (if it even takes hold, by the time it gets there, the opponent just blocks, wasting the spell) compared to burning talons which is 4 ******* seconds and an actual instant area cast. How many NB do you know can keep someone perma locked using crippling grasp?

No, what I am advocating for is an instant cast like reapers mark. Just reduce the cast time of prolonged suffering to instant cast and increase the immobilization time.

Look, NB need a better range CC. If my proposal above is to powerful I would even support removing or reducing the damage the spell outputs in favor of getting a good instant cast ranged cc.

Whatever is done to Agony I would hope it keeps a cast-time (at least one of the morphs) as NB is severely lacking a hard hitting (DoT or nuke) cast-time spell. The benefit of a spell having a cast time is that's factored into the balance and you can make it much stronger. The skill must be used more tactically with greater/risk reward than just spamming Funnel Health while constantly running around. Plus opening from Shadow Cloak with a cast-time spell would be such a fun and effective combo. I understand you probably want a long duration immobilize for the purposes of a Stamina or melee NB, but as a caster NB I feel like we're very much lacking in the skill-cap department because so many of our skills are instant. I want to see more risk/reward for NB casters as we just feel too safe/easy right now.

Maybe if the base skill is a cast-time 5s immobilize with a DoT. One morph could make it instant, the other morph could make the DoT beastly.

LegacyDM · January 2015

Draehl wrote: »

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Since this ability breaks from any damage, I think it should be unbreakable by the default break CC available to everyone.

That way it could be used strategically, without it becoming too OP (e.g. you have a 1vX fight and you want to CC someone until you kill his buddies).

How would you feel if you could do nothing but stare at your screen for 12 seconds?

joshdm2001_ESO wrote: »

Make it an instant cast and turn the stun into root. Problem solved. If DK can get an instant cast root why can't NB? I wanna perm lock people with root and burst them down when they run out of stamina from constantly dodge rolling.

It's called Crippling Grasp.

Crippling grasp isn't really instant cast considering you have to wait for the spell to travel to its target and the immobilize only works for 1.5 secs (if it even takes hold, by the time it gets there, the opponent just blocks, wasting the spell) compared to burning talons which is 4 ******* seconds and an actual instant area cast. How many NB do you know can keep someone perma locked using crippling grasp?

No, what I am advocating for is an instant cast like reapers mark. Just reduce the cast time of prolonged suffering to instant cast and increase the immobilization time.

Look, NB need a better range CC. If my proposal above is to powerful I would even support removing or reducing the damage the spell outputs in favor of getting a good instant cast ranged cc.

Whatever is done to Agony I would hope it keeps a cast-time (at least one of the morphs) as NB is severely lacking a hard hitting (DoT or nuke) cast-time spell. The benefit of a spell having a cast time is that's factored into the balance and you can make it much stronger. The skill must be used more tactically with greater/risk reward than just spamming Funnel Health while constantly running around. Plus opening from Shadow Cloak with a cast-time spell would be such a fun and effective combo. I understand you probably want a long duration immobilize for the purposes of a Stamina or melee NB, but as a caster NB I feel like we're very much lacking in the skill-cap department because so many of our skills are instant. I want to see more risk/reward for NB casters as we just feel too safe/easy right now.

Maybe if the base skill is a cast-time 5s immobilize with a DoT. One morph could make it instant, the other morph could make the DoT beastly.

Yeah I could support this approach. I am a caster Stygian dual dagger nightblade that relies on burst and to be honest I don't feel like I have enough damage output. I try to supplement my burst with cc but it has been fairly disappointing because the ccs are so lackluster. Especially when everyone in cyrodil is running around with shield spells, sword and board, and 3500+ hp. A ranged nuke spell would help.