Why is nightblade the only class without a Damageshield or a Selfheal?

deepseamk20b14_ESO · March 2015

Never had an issue with self heals as NB. Rapid regen, PROPERLY timed funnel health, and potions always kept me alive. Match that with Harness Magicka, ward ally/healing ward, shadow image, and dark cloak I can always maneuver and let my HoTs get me back to health. Since I do a lot of damage I can usually do enough to not even care about other classes self heals. Properly timed fears, instead of going spam happy with it, can destroy anyone before they can self heal and whamo, hit'em with killers blade or impale. I don't mean to sound like a *** but it's a L2P issue if you're dieing from lack of burst self healing. Would I be opposed to a new NB burst self heal, of course not. But we have to play using what we have and honestly what we have is pretty nice.

LtCrunch · March 2015

Blur, Shadow Cloak, and Summon Shade are all good survivability tools.

Mark Target, Refreshing Path, Strife, Leeching Strikes, and Sap Essence are all great self-healing tools.

If that's not good enough for you then either re-roll a different class or use a resto staff or bone shield on your offbar.

Teargrants · March 2015

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

Farorin · March 2015

Sphinx2318 wrote: »

because you have excellent escapes.

Hahaha! If we nightblades had excellent escapes, this is the first I have heard of it in all my time playing.

Grim13 · March 2015

Sphinx2318 wrote: »

because you have excellent escapes.

BBBWWWWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAHAHAHAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHAAAAHHHHHAHAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I hope that was sarcastic.

Farorin · March 2015

technohic wrote: »

I am not a NB other than my several attempts to level one as an alt; but I really hope their goal is to NOT make them like the other classes with a direct self heal and some sort of shield or armor spam. I just hope they fix and improve what is there. I always see the abilities and think they sound great but find from trying and reading NBs post that they apparently are not so great and could use a lot of improvements.

That said; I also see plenty of very effective NBs without all the extra crap.

Totally agree, we don't need damage shields or heals anymore than we have, we just need our shadow cloak to work, and some more elusive/stealth oriented skills or passives to make up for lack of damage shields. That way, NB won't just be a weak copy, it will be what a NB is supposed to be, Elusive, sneaky, and high mobility, rather than just a one trick gank pony.

TheBucket · March 2015

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Bone Shield

150% Stamina Regen Build

2H/Sword and Board

You will thank me later when i post the build

This is referring to the build that @xsorusb14_ESO posted about here, right?

Not really a build he posted. Just a bunch of capable stamina recovery options that were already known.

Oh, you mean you're trying to come up with a cookie-cutter version.

Fair enough.

Not sure if you're trolling or serious. If he posts a good build and its effective like his others then thats great.

TheBucket · March 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

This

Tapio75 · March 2015

Hmm.. In a whole year.. I have maybe used 20 botles of potions on my NB

It does not seem to need that much potion heals even when doing VR content.. Then again i am Vampire and can Use Invigorating drain and Devouring swarm to heal... Fire is bad at times but drain helps there too ^^

Syldayan · March 2015

The new mark target is a very good heal , use this with some shadow cloak , drain power and dps and you can go a long way alive...

Darkonflare15 · March 2015

f

TheBucket wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

This

Umm not if you do not play pvp or have a high enough rank in the skills. So Vigor is not a answer plus it not even a night blade skill.
With rally not all stamina night blades use 2h so if you use bow or dual wield or one hand and shield you do not qualify unless you make a combo with these skills which are completely worthless if you use only one weapon. So this is not a option for night blades in general.

The only valid self heal that is actually available to all Night blades is a potion but that is available to everybody.

TheBucket · March 2015

Darkonflare15 wrote: »

f

TheBucket wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

This

Umm not if you do not play pvp or have a high enough rank in the skills. So Vigor is not a answer plus it not even a night blade skill.
With rally not all stamina night blades use 2h so if you use bow or dual wield or one hand and shield you do not qualify unless you make a combo with these skills which are completely worthless if you use only one weapon. So this is not a option for night blades in general.

The only valid self heal that is actually available to all Night blades is a potion but that is available to everybody.

Well the Heal still works after you stitch the bar from rally. Plenty of other healing options with that. You can even go Shadow Armor which im doing for the regen and use Soul Harvest for a quick heal.

GreyRanger · March 2015

danovic wrote: »

The hole siphon line is self heals and invisibility is your shield.

That would be more of a comfort if invisibility worked reliably.

Samadhi · March 2015

TheBucket wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Bone Shield

150% Stamina Regen Build

2H/Sword and Board

You will thank me later when i post the build

This is referring to the build that @xsorusb14_ESO posted about here, right?

Not really a build he posted. Just a bunch of capable stamina recovery options that were already known.

Oh, you mean you're trying to come up with a cookie-cutter version.

Fair enough.

Not sure if you're trolling or serious. If he posts a good build and its effective like his others then thats great.

Seriously feel his collection of information is entirely adequate for the average player to comprehend the merits and playstyle associated with stacking Stamina Regen and Stamina Cost Reduction glyphs, as well as providing good information on their sources.

If you are planning to take that sort of information and turning it into a specific build that people can copy and paste, that is cool too and I can respect that. It will probably help some people out, but cookie-cutter builds are not really my thing.
It is best for a player to weigh out what benefits him or her most on an individual basis.

TheBucket wrote: »

Darkonflare15 wrote: »

f

TheBucket wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

This

Umm not if you do not play pvp or have a high enough rank in the skills. So Vigor is not a answer plus it not even a night blade skill.
With rally not all stamina night blades use 2h so if you use bow or dual wield or one hand and shield you do not qualify unless you make a combo with these skills which are completely worthless if you use only one weapon. So this is not a option for night blades in general.

The only valid self heal that is actually available to all Night blades is a potion but that is available to everybody.

Well the Heal still works after you stitch the bar from rally. Plenty of other healing options with that. You can even go Shadow Armor which im doing for the regen and use Soul Harvest for a quick heal.

Shadow Armour referring to the Of Shadows/Shrouded Armour Set?
(Link)

Great set.
Used it on my Bosmer in 1.5 with Sword and Shield + Siphoning Spam with Soul Harvest to have great healing upkeep with the 5-piece bonus.

It is unfortunate that the build got hit with a nerf on the Ultimate generation changes.

Kingdinguhling · March 2015

Shadowy Disguise is an Amazing shield just have to tap it every so often and go invisible it works great at mitigating damage and NB has a lot better heals in 1.6

LilChihuahua · March 2015

Brandalf wrote: »

Blur, Shadow Cloak, and Summon Shade are all good survivability tools.

Mark Target, Refreshing Path, Strife, Leeching Strikes, and Sap Essence are all great self-healing tools.

If that's not good enough for you then either re-roll a different class or use a resto staff or bone shield on your offbar.

All these skills are too unreliable to be used for defensive / escape purposes.

- Blur: Very unreliable method of avoiding damage compared to a proper damage shield.
- Summon Shade: Mostly a situational escape to trip people up in PvP
- Shadow Cloak: Yea it's useful, when it works...

All these heals require you to damage / kill a target making them super unreliable compared to something like Green Dragon Blood and Templar skills which you can use in a pinch if you find yourself in trouble.

- Mark Target / Killers Blade: Probably the best NB self heal combo, HOWEVER this requires you to kill the target making it most suitable for PvE mob swarms where you can always kill something. It won't be effective when fighting bosses with massive amounts of health or in PvP where you won't always get the opportunity to kill someone to heal yourself.
- Strife: Stamina builds have a big disadvantage, also the HoT will be no life saver.
- Sap Essence: Healing was reduced, it has a fairly high cost and does moderate damage with moderate healing. Not an efficient / sustainable use of magicka for healing or AoE damage purposes, even when hitting multiple targets.
- Refreshing Path: The HoT is nothing significant, it's HoT is comparable to Blood Craze from DW.
- Leeching Strikes: If you ever played NB you'd know this is one of the most useless skills. For sustainability Siphoning Attacks is the only route to go. Why would I want to do light / heavy attacks to help sustain abilities when that is something you'd do already if you ran out of resources. The heals are petty, and with softcaps removed the damage penalty will be felt even harder.

SickDuck · March 2015

All other classes have some burst heal and/or shield abilities in their class skills that can save one's *ss in a hot situation. Magicka NBs while don't have those, at least can spam siphonings, class HoTs and resto staff skills efficiently to survive. Cloak has its issues and it costs quite some magicka, so it's more for magicka builds too.

Vigor is very strong HoT and would be a solution, petty that not all feel like to grind PvP for half a year or more to get something that's still worse than other classes' basic survival skills.

What left is 2H, with maybe S+B on the other bar for survival. It's good for solo PvE, but it's like telling sorcerers they need to use pets to achieve any acceptable DPS. Some may like it, some not.

Within a group with healers around, stamina NB has no such issues.

It's nice to see so many people who clearly never played one giving out honest and good advices. But I'd be happy to pay 100k gold for a video showing a DW/Bow stamina NB soloing (clearing all)... let's say Hircine's Haunt delve in Craglorn within 30 minutes.

TheBucket · March 2015

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBucket wrote: »

Bone Shield

150% Stamina Regen Build

2H/Sword and Board

You will thank me later when i post the build

This is referring to the build that @xsorusb14_ESO posted about here, right?

Not really a build he posted. Just a bunch of capable stamina recovery options that were already known.

Oh, you mean you're trying to come up with a cookie-cutter version.

Fair enough.

Not sure if you're trolling or serious. If he posts a good build and its effective like his others then thats great.

Seriously feel his collection of information is entirely adequate for the average player to comprehend the merits and playstyle associated with stacking Stamina Regen and Stamina Cost Reduction glyphs, as well as providing good information on their sources.

If you are planning to take that sort of information and turning it into a specific build that people can copy and paste, that is cool too and I can respect that. It will probably help some people out, but cookie-cutter builds are not really my thing.
It is best for a player to weigh out what benefits him or her most on an individual basis.

TheBucket wrote: »

Darkonflare15 wrote: »

f

TheBucket wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

This

Umm not if you do not play pvp or have a high enough rank in the skills. So Vigor is not a answer plus it not even a night blade skill.
With rally not all stamina night blades use 2h so if you use bow or dual wield or one hand and shield you do not qualify unless you make a combo with these skills which are completely worthless if you use only one weapon. So this is not a option for night blades in general.

The only valid self heal that is actually available to all Night blades is a potion but that is available to everybody.

Well the Heal still works after you stitch the bar from rally. Plenty of other healing options with that. You can even go Shadow Armor which im doing for the regen and use Soul Harvest for a quick heal.

Shadow Armour referring to the Of Shadows/Shrouded Armour Set?
(Link)

Great set.
Used it on my Bosmer in 1.5 with Sword and Shield + Siphoning Spam with Soul Harvest to have great healing upkeep with the 5-piece bonus.

It is unfortunate that the build got hit with a nerf on the Ultimate generation changes.

No. I was just saying a lot of players knew about the stack of stamina regeneration before he made that post. Was good public information though. My build has a lot of stamina regen. I just didnt see him using an effective build yet.

Good thing for Shadow Armor is it can be used in PvP now. Without loosing the protections

Darkonflare15 · March 2015

Imho I could care less about self heal or a damage shield. My problem is they did not change agony to OK ability. They hardly touch the skill and it is still worthless. There whole goal was to make a good abilities in 1.6. They fail when they did nothing for Agony. Which does not even fit in the siphoning line.

Cody · March 2015

danovic wrote: »

The hole siphon line is self heals and invisibility is your shield.

the invisibility works 30% of the time and all those heals in siphoning are HoTs that only do well for magicka builds.(and tbh they don't do well in to begin with)

Panda244 · March 2015

Cody wrote: »

danovic wrote: »

The hole siphon line is self heals and invisibility is your shield.

the invisibility works 30% of the time and all those heals in siphoning are HoTs that only do well for magicka builds.(and tbh they don't do well in to begin with)

Cody is right, for once

No but really, Swallow Soul is a HoT and not a very good one at that not to mention, Magicka builds only, Sap Essence was great back in 1.5, but again, only works for Magicka builds, the cloak, as Cody said, is broke. Horribly broke.

Grim13 · March 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

So what you're saying is: NBs have great heals... only, wait... those are available to everyone. So, they're not great NB heals.

kijima · March 2015

Why does my Mitsubishi Pajero tow 3 tonne and my 911 Porsche doesn't?

It's not the same question as the OP raised, but it's the same answer to both.

Teargrants · March 2015

Grim13 wrote: »

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

So what you're saying is: NBs have great heals... only, wait... those are available to everyone. So, they're not great NB heals.

I was talking about stam NBs, and yes they have an advantage in that area w/ 30% extra stam regen. Combine it w/ cloak/dodge/shielded assault, and you have a very high sustain as a stam NB.

Magicka NBs are stuck w/ resto & healing ward, but that's no different than sorcs - especially w/ the cast time on clanfear now.

Cody · March 2015

/sigh

ok peeps, its time to unleash a horrid truth upon you all; I have played a NB since beta, so what I am about to say is the truth. I am going to go thru each and every heal/damage shield y'all are telling us to use. This may be a long post, so grab your popcorn and get ready(panda, who seems to enjoy mocking me:) must be because he is jealous of my awesomeness:D)

shadow cloak

this ability works literally <30% of the time(I don't know how to do the "less than or equal" symbol on a keyboard:() sometimes it breaks for no reason, sometimes our own DoTs break it, sometimes it works for exactly 0.1 seconds; sometimes it won't even activate yet still cost the mana. A magicka based NB may be able to spam it, but not stamina NBs. Lets not forget the fact the freaking potion works better than the actual ability itself. If it were not for dark cloak, there would be no reason to use shadow cloak. It is not our "invincibility skill" even if it worked every time like it should, its only 3 seconds max, which can even be broken by a detect pot. Stop trying to pass it off as our "get out of jail free card" it is not.

all the siphoning skills, strife, sap essence, leeching strikes, etc.

strife and sap essence give OK heals at best, even then, for MAGICKA BUILDS ONLY. A stamina NB IS NOT GOING TO BENEFIT FROM STRIFE. Sap essence healing, according to what I have heard(have yet to test or see it myself) has been reduced, but even before 1.6 it only ever gave good heals when hitting multiple enemies at once. It was not, nor ever, was it a reliable self heal for an everyday situation. Leeching strikes restores TWO PERCENT per LIGHT AND/OR HEAVY ATTACK. TWO. PERCENT. LIGHT. OR. HEAVY. ATTACK. How is this a reliable self heal? Y'all cannot really be sitting there, having played Nightblades(which I assume y'all have since y'all are acting so knowledgeable about the class) and really be saying, that leeching strikes is a reliable self heal. Don't believe me? then ignore the stats on paper, slot the dang thing, and give it a go; see how useless leeching strikes is.

Vigor/Momentum
yes these are self heals(stamina in fact:)) but these are not NIGHTBLADE self heals. These are TWO HANDED AND ALLIANCE WAR SKILL LINE SELF HEALS. (heck 95% of this PvP community won't have vigor for the next 5 months anyhow, so im counting out Vigor.) This means the NB has to use skills outside of their class sets just to have a self heal; this shoudl not be the case. I should nto be forced to use a weapon or a skilline from outside my classes skilllines to have a reliable self heal;

Killers blade/mark target.

these are great self heals, but there is a problem.... YOU HAVE TO KILL YOUR ENEMIES TO GET THE HEALING. THIS DOES NOT WORK IN PVP. why? Because its not a "save heal" it only works WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY WON THE BATTLE; what if you don't win? What if your opponent does not just lay down and die and actually fights back? What if your opponent gets you to low health? What will you do? drink a potion? yeah, good luck with the 45 second cooldown and the removal of catalyst. Resto staff heals? that would work, but not every NB uses a resto staff(ill get to that later) so what? Relying on a self heal that requires you to already win the fight, thereby getting the heal, when you don't even need it heck in fact, these are USELESS in big boss battles/1v1s. THEY DO NOT KEEP YOU SUSTAINED, therefore, they are not RELIABLE self heals. next up: damage shields

Damage shields
so lets go over y'alls idea for the NB "damage shield"

Blur; no. just no. A miss chance is not equal to a full on damage shield. The extra armor is nice, but that is not a damage shield. I am tired of people trying to pass off Blur as the role of a damage shield; it does not fill the role; if y'all have actually played NBs and slotted and tried the ability, y'all would know this.(and again, I hope y'all have actually played a NB, even if its only for a short amount of time)

So what can a NB do for a damage shield? lets go over that.

Brawler, 2H

this DS sucks, its only good for PvE group killing, useless in PvP, it lasts one hit per enemy hit, so it goes down instantly.

shield charge; not a big shield, not even noticeable really, at least I never notice it

hardened ward

the resto staff magicka damage shield. Great damage shield, but it forces the NB to use a weapon skill just to get a damage shield(similar to the brawler and shield charge DS problems) the other three classes have their own damage shields; NBs should as well. a NB should not be forced to use a resto staff just to get their hands on a damage shield. The undaunted one is a godsend for stamina builds everywhere, not just NB stamina builds, so im leaving bone shield(or whatever its called) alone

Annulment

LA damage shield, only blocks spell damage, AND forces the NB to use LA to get it to its full effectiveness. Why should NBs be forced to use stuff they may not want to use to get Damage shields? why is this OK with people?

So NBs have to use stuff they may not want to use just to get self heals and damage shields, and y'alls excuse for it? "NBs have mark target and killers blade" again, does not sustain one in a fight, and, therefore, is UNRELIABLE.

"NBs have siphoning skills" only "good" for magicka based NBs, and even then they all suck. Strife especially; which heals based on 25% of the damage done(not even all of the damage done, just a quarter of it) and the block cast/damage shield stack meta makes it very difficult to make this heal work, and again, ONLY "GOOD" FOR MAGICKA NB BUILDS. Sap essence only works well in large groups, and leeching strikes restores a pathetic 2% per light and heavy attack ONLY. USELESS UNRELIABLE SELF HEALS.

NBs don't even have damage shields at all, they are forced to use weapons and armors they may not even want to use just to get their hands on a damage shield(same for self heals in fact) Why shoudl NBs be forced to use a resto staff or another skill line altogether to get a damage shield, yet the other three classes do not? Why is this fair?

"cloak is the NB get out of jail free card"

again, IT IS NOT. It works only 30% or less of the time; breaking on DoTS, breaking when near a keep, breaking after 0.5 seconds, breaking after 0.1 seconds, breaking when near ENEMIES, as in PLAYERS, not even turning the caster invisible sometimes, yet STILL COSTING THE MANA FOR THE USE, basically, it does not work; and if anyone says it does, they are lying or just VERY VERY LUCKY. and again, even if it did work 100% of the time, its a 2.9(may as well say 3) second invisibility spell, which is broken by a detection potion, which has a big range and a decent radius. If it was not for dark cloak, shadow cloak would be useless.

That it? did I miss anything? don't think so.

alright, that's the end of this long post that i'm sure most of y'all did not even read all the way thru(:D) im going to let y'all dwell in all of your ignorance and foolishness, hopefully y'all don;t stop ZOS from giving the NB class what it needs, but it, unfortunately, may be too late:(

oh and by "y'all" I mean the ones saying "NBs don't need a self heal/damage shield" I don't mean literally every person in this thread.

alright, goodnight all.

Panda244 · March 2015

Cody wrote: »

/sigh

ok peeps, its time to unleash a horrid truth upon you all; I have played a NB since beta, so what I am about to say is the truth. I am going to go thru each and every heal/damage shield y'all are telling us to use. This may be a long post, so grab your popcorn and get ready(panda, who seems to enjoy mocking me:) must be because he is jealous of my awesomeness:D)

shadow cloak

this ability works literally <30% of the time(I don't know how to do the "less than or equal" symbol on a keyboard:() sometimes it breaks for no reason, sometimes our own DoTs break it, sometimes it works for exactly 0.1 seconds; sometimes it won't even activate yet still cost the mana. A magicka based NB may be able to spam it, but not stamina NBs. Lets not forget the fact the freaking potion works better than the actual ability itself. If it were not for dark cloak, there would be no reason to use shadow cloak. It is not our "invincibility skill" even if it worked every time like it should, its only 3 seconds max, which can even be broken by a detect pot. Stop trying to pass it off as our "get out of jail free card" it is not.

all the siphoning skills, strife, sap essence, leeching strikes, etc.

strife and sap essence give OK heals at best, even then, for MAGICKA BUILDS ONLY. A stamina NB IS NOT GOING TO BENEFIT FROM STRIFE. Sap essence healing, according to what I have heard(have yet to test or see it myself) has been reduced, but even before 1.6 it only ever gave good heals when hitting multiple enemies at once. It was not, nor ever, was it a reliable self heal for an everyday situation. Leeching strikes restores TWO PERCENT per LIGHT AND/OR HEAVY ATTACK. TWO. PERCENT. LIGHT. OR. HEAVY. ATTACK. How is this a reliable self heal? Y'all cannot really be sitting there, having played Nightblades(which I assume y'all have since y'all are acting so knowledgeable about the class) and really be saying, that leeching strikes is a reliable self heal. Don't believe me? then ignore the stats on paper, slot the dang thing, and give it a go; see how useless leeching strikes is.

Vigor/Momentum
yes these are self heals(stamina in fact:)) but these are not NIGHTBLADE self heals. These are TWO HANDED AND ALLIANCE WAR SKILL LINE SELF HEALS. (heck 95% of this PvP community won't have vigor for the next 5 months anyhow, so im counting out Vigor.) This means the NB has to use skills outside of their class sets just to have a self heal; this shoudl not be the case. I should nto be forced to use a weapon or a skilline from outside my classes skilllines to have a reliable self heal;

Killers blade/mark target.

these are great self heals, but there is a problem.... YOU HAVE TO KILL YOUR ENEMIES TO GET THE HEALING. THIS DOES NOT WORK IN PVP. why? Because its not a "save heal" it only works WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY WON THE BATTLE; what if you don't win? What if your opponent does not just lay down and die and actually fights back? What if your opponent gets you to low health? What will you do? drink a potion? yeah, good luck with the 45 second cooldown and the removal of catalyst. Resto staff heals? that would work, but not every NB uses a resto staff(ill get to that later) so what? Relying on a self heal that requires you to already win the fight, thereby getting the heal, when you don't even need it heck in fact, these are USELESS in big boss battles/1v1s. THEY DO NOT KEEP YOU SUSTAINED, therefore, they are not RELIABLE self heals. next up: damage shields

Damage shields
so lets go over y'alls idea for the NB "damage shield"

Blur; no. just no. A miss chance is not equal to a full on damage shield. The extra armor is nice, but that is not a damage shield. I am tired of people trying to pass off Blur as the role of a damage shield; it does not fill the role; if y'all have actually played NBs and slotted and tried the ability, y'all would know this.(and again, I hope y'all have actually played a NB, even if its only for a short amount of time)

So what can a NB do for a damage shield? lets go over that.

Brawler, 2H

this DS sucks, its only good for PvE group killing, useless in PvP, it lasts one hit per enemy hit, so it goes down instantly.

shield charge; not a big shield, not even noticeable really, at least I never notice it

hardened ward

the resto staff magicka damage shield. Great damage shield, but it forces the NB to use a weapon skill just to get a damage shield(similar to the brawler and shield charge DS problems) the other three classes have their own damage shields; NBs should as well. a NB should not be forced to use a resto staff just to get their hands on a damage shield. The undaunted one is a godsend for stamina builds everywhere, not just NB stamina builds, so im leaving bone shield(or whatever its called) alone

Annulment

LA damage shield, only blocks spell damage, AND forces the NB to use LA to get it to its full effectiveness. Why should NBs be forced to use stuff they may not want to use to get Damage shields? why is this OK with people?

So NBs have to use stuff they may not want to use just to get self heals and damage shields, and y'alls excuse for it? "NBs have mark target and killers blade" again, does not sustain one in a fight, and, therefore, is UNRELIABLE.

"NBs have siphoning skills" only "good" for magicka based NBs, and even then they all suck. Strife especially; which heals based on 25% of the damage done(not even all of the damage done, just a quarter of it) and the block cast/damage shield stack meta makes it very difficult to make this heal work, and again, ONLY "GOOD" FOR MAGICKA NB BUILDS. Sap essence only works well in large groups, and leeching strikes restores a pathetic 2% per light and heavy attack ONLY. USELESS UNRELIABLE SELF HEALS.

NBs don't even have damage shields at all, they are forced to use weapons and armors they may not even want to use just to get their hands on a damage shield(same for self heals in fact) Why shoudl NBs be forced to use a resto staff or another skill line altogether to get a damage shield, yet the other three classes do not? Why is this fair?

"cloak is the NB get out of jail free card"

again, IT IS NOT. It works only 30% or less of the time; breaking on DoTS, breaking when near a keep, breaking after 0.5 seconds, breaking after 0.1 seconds, breaking when near ENEMIES, as in PLAYERS, not even turning the caster invisible sometimes, yet STILL COSTING THE MANA FOR THE USE, basically, it does not work; and if anyone says it does, they are lying or just VERY VERY LUCKY. and again, even if it did work 100% of the time, its a 2.9(may as well say 3) second invisibility spell, which is broken by a detection potion, which has a big range and a decent radius. If it was not for dark cloak, shadow cloak would be useless.

That it? did I miss anything? don't think so.

alright, that's the end of this long post that i'm sure most of y'all did not even read all the way thru(:D) im going to let y'all dwell in all of your ignorance and foolishness, hopefully y'all don;t stop ZOS from giving the NB class what it needs, but it, unfortunately, may be too late:(

oh and by "y'all" I mean the ones saying "NBs don't need a self heal/damage shield" I don't mean literally every person in this thread.

alright, goodnight all.

@Cody At the risk of being banned....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SYdjRVCR0

Cody · March 2015

Panda244 wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

/sigh

ok peeps, its time to unleash a horrid truth upon you all; I have played a NB since beta, so what I am about to say is the truth. I am going to go thru each and every heal/damage shield y'all are telling us to use. This may be a long post, so grab your popcorn and get ready(panda, who seems to enjoy mocking me:) must be because he is jealous of my awesomeness:D)

shadow cloak

this ability works literally <30% of the time(I don't know how to do the "less than or equal" symbol on a keyboard:() sometimes it breaks for no reason, sometimes our own DoTs break it, sometimes it works for exactly 0.1 seconds; sometimes it won't even activate yet still cost the mana. A magicka based NB may be able to spam it, but not stamina NBs. Lets not forget the fact the freaking potion works better than the actual ability itself. If it were not for dark cloak, there would be no reason to use shadow cloak. It is not our "invincibility skill" even if it worked every time like it should, its only 3 seconds max, which can even be broken by a detect pot. Stop trying to pass it off as our "get out of jail free card" it is not.

all the siphoning skills, strife, sap essence, leeching strikes, etc.

strife and sap essence give OK heals at best, even then, for MAGICKA BUILDS ONLY. A stamina NB IS NOT GOING TO BENEFIT FROM STRIFE. Sap essence healing, according to what I have heard(have yet to test or see it myself) has been reduced, but even before 1.6 it only ever gave good heals when hitting multiple enemies at once. It was not, nor ever, was it a reliable self heal for an everyday situation. Leeching strikes restores TWO PERCENT per LIGHT AND/OR HEAVY ATTACK. TWO. PERCENT. LIGHT. OR. HEAVY. ATTACK. How is this a reliable self heal? Y'all cannot really be sitting there, having played Nightblades(which I assume y'all have since y'all are acting so knowledgeable about the class) and really be saying, that leeching strikes is a reliable self heal. Don't believe me? then ignore the stats on paper, slot the dang thing, and give it a go; see how useless leeching strikes is.

Vigor/Momentum
yes these are self heals(stamina in fact:)) but these are not NIGHTBLADE self heals. These are TWO HANDED AND ALLIANCE WAR SKILL LINE SELF HEALS. (heck 95% of this PvP community won't have vigor for the next 5 months anyhow, so im counting out Vigor.) This means the NB has to use skills outside of their class sets just to have a self heal; this shoudl not be the case. I should nto be forced to use a weapon or a skilline from outside my classes skilllines to have a reliable self heal;

Killers blade/mark target.

these are great self heals, but there is a problem.... YOU HAVE TO KILL YOUR ENEMIES TO GET THE HEALING. THIS DOES NOT WORK IN PVP. why? Because its not a "save heal" it only works WHEN YOU HAVE ALREADY WON THE BATTLE; what if you don't win? What if your opponent does not just lay down and die and actually fights back? What if your opponent gets you to low health? What will you do? drink a potion? yeah, good luck with the 45 second cooldown and the removal of catalyst. Resto staff heals? that would work, but not every NB uses a resto staff(ill get to that later) so what? Relying on a self heal that requires you to already win the fight, thereby getting the heal, when you don't even need it heck in fact, these are USELESS in big boss battles/1v1s. THEY DO NOT KEEP YOU SUSTAINED, therefore, they are not RELIABLE self heals. next up: damage shields

Damage shields
so lets go over y'alls idea for the NB "damage shield"

Blur; no. just no. A miss chance is not equal to a full on damage shield. The extra armor is nice, but that is not a damage shield. I am tired of people trying to pass off Blur as the role of a damage shield; it does not fill the role; if y'all have actually played NBs and slotted and tried the ability, y'all would know this.(and again, I hope y'all have actually played a NB, even if its only for a short amount of time)

So what can a NB do for a damage shield? lets go over that.

Brawler, 2H

this DS sucks, its only good for PvE group killing, useless in PvP, it lasts one hit per enemy hit, so it goes down instantly.

shield charge; not a big shield, not even noticeable really, at least I never notice it

hardened ward

the resto staff magicka damage shield. Great damage shield, but it forces the NB to use a weapon skill just to get a damage shield(similar to the brawler and shield charge DS problems) the other three classes have their own damage shields; NBs should as well. a NB should not be forced to use a resto staff just to get their hands on a damage shield. The undaunted one is a godsend for stamina builds everywhere, not just NB stamina builds, so im leaving bone shield(or whatever its called) alone

Annulment

LA damage shield, only blocks spell damage, AND forces the NB to use LA to get it to its full effectiveness. Why should NBs be forced to use stuff they may not want to use to get Damage shields? why is this OK with people?

So NBs have to use stuff they may not want to use just to get self heals and damage shields, and y'alls excuse for it? "NBs have mark target and killers blade" again, does not sustain one in a fight, and, therefore, is UNRELIABLE.

"NBs have siphoning skills" only "good" for magicka based NBs, and even then they all suck. Strife especially; which heals based on 25% of the damage done(not even all of the damage done, just a quarter of it) and the block cast/damage shield stack meta makes it very difficult to make this heal work, and again, ONLY "GOOD" FOR MAGICKA NB BUILDS. Sap essence only works well in large groups, and leeching strikes restores a pathetic 2% per light and heavy attack ONLY. USELESS UNRELIABLE SELF HEALS.

NBs don't even have damage shields at all, they are forced to use weapons and armors they may not even want to use just to get their hands on a damage shield(same for self heals in fact) Why shoudl NBs be forced to use a resto staff or another skill line altogether to get a damage shield, yet the other three classes do not? Why is this fair?

"cloak is the NB get out of jail free card"

again, IT IS NOT. It works only 30% or less of the time; breaking on DoTS, breaking when near a keep, breaking after 0.5 seconds, breaking after 0.1 seconds, breaking when near ENEMIES, as in PLAYERS, not even turning the caster invisible sometimes, yet STILL COSTING THE MANA FOR THE USE, basically, it does not work; and if anyone says it does, they are lying or just VERY VERY LUCKY. and again, even if it did work 100% of the time, its a 2.9(may as well say 3) second invisibility spell, which is broken by a detection potion, which has a big range and a decent radius. If it was not for dark cloak, shadow cloak would be useless.

That it? did I miss anything? don't think so.

alright, that's the end of this long post that i'm sure most of y'all did not even read all the way thru(:D) im going to let y'all dwell in all of your ignorance and foolishness, hopefully y'all don;t stop ZOS from giving the NB class what it needs, but it, unfortunately, may be too late:(

oh and by "y'all" I mean the ones saying "NBs don't need a self heal/damage shield" I don't mean literally every person in this thread.

alright, goodnight all.

@Cody At the risk of being banned....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SYdjRVCR0

who names themselves smokey? lol. that still makes me laugh:)

jelliedsoup · March 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

Wtf is this? Stam NBs have great heals, spam Rally and Vigor. Dodge and cloak along with bone shield help mitigate dmg.

half of the skills you said have nothing to do with nb.

SexyVette07 · March 2015

Let's all reroll DK since they are the chosen of this game....

jelliedsoup · March 2015

SexyVette07 wrote: »

Let's all reroll DK since they are the chosen of this game....

Apparently threy have no finisher. It's true. Talons and lash may have killed me once but thats all just roll and dodge. it's true. it's true.

The Dk dept at zos must have the hard arse who is everyone is scared of..

You can imagine the meetings. we want flappy flappy not just to defend but to atrack as well.

Anyone got a problem with that?