There are more than a couple reasons why stamblades are so effective.

-getting the "jump" on you with ambush.
-surprise attack for major fracture.
-Soul harvest for increased damage and healing debuff.
-No CP counter to mighty (or to be precise no offsetting CP ability, the armor buffs are a counter but are very ineffective)
-having a very reliable cc (mass hysteria)
-20% dodge chance (double take)
-Rally/vigor
-dark cloak.
-Sharpened maces

Keep in mind all damage sources above are physical damage, to which you will have extremely lowered resistance to once they are on you.

Also keep in mind that's 8 of 12 ability slots as well. It's not a "sypher" build, but for the most part you won't see too much variance from stamblades having all those abilities slotted.

Take all that and add vampire and you have the most effective single target "assassin" in pvp.

Is it a bit much? It's single minded in it's goal of "ganking" people. It's certainly extremely powerful bordering on overpowered in the environment of IC where it has the ability to avoid all pve content and just take out other players. It's certainly not OP in cyro, where it's strength is often not very important (killing single targets).

If pressed for an opinion on whether or not it's really OP, I'd retort with it's synergies are a bit much; I guess in a nutshell, it's a build built around synergy of abilities. All physical damage with the ability to cripple physical resistance. Even soul harvest, which reads as magic damage is actually on physical... The biggest obstacle to surviving or winning versus a stamblade is post-soul harvest, and a stamblade has to tools to be pretty certain of getting it on you and finishing you while you are debuffed to hell for their damage, coupled with increased damage from soul harvest and decreased healing.

PS the fact that soul harvest costs 50 ultimate is another "problem" when facing a nightblade that's focusing you.

I will always be in favor of high damage single target attacks, Magicka or Stamina.

Reduce damage on single target attacks? Then there will be even less point in running anything besides Steel Tornado. And there is already little point, unless the only PVP you do is ganking in IC. Please, let's not make single target damage obsolete! I don't wanna spin to win!

The hardest single target hit I've taken (that I remember), was a 9.7k Crystal Frag just the other night. I remember because I was surprised how fast I died. That's how rare it is these days...

Alucardo wrote: »

Sometimes it feels like these forums are just used by people to vent their anger after losing a fight #SayNoToNerfs

Pretty much. There is nothing at all about those images that scream broken. The fact the guy was spamming surprise attack and just about nothing else and got a kill speaks volumes about the OP.

What was OP doing during all of that? I guess we'll never know.

Is it really that NB or Sorc are OP, or is that DK's and to a lesser extent Templars are out-dated and need to be reworked to be more current?

It's not what people want to hear, but update after next is claimed by ZOS to have a strong focus on class balance. Asking for nerfs based on what the meta is like now is counter intuitive. We don't know what will change with that update.

Nerfing Surprise Attack's damage by 15% will cause NB's to be near useless in PVE since it's their main damage skill there too, like it is in PVP. Interestingly enough DK and Templar might not get the help they need, since NB will not be as strong. This would leave Sorc holding the bag and the likely candidate for the next round of nerfs.

The answer is to update DK and Templar, then re-examine NB and Sorc if needed.

The weirdest thing to me about these death recaps are that the "characters" seem to have just numbers and not names.

So.... 36, 31, 19 and 8 got together for a kill fest?

Or is this some kind of editing thing?


So... secret AGENT [NB] they've given him a number and they've taken away his name....

Docmandu wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Nerfing Surprise Attack's damage by 15% will cause NB's to be near useless in PVE since it's their main damage skill there too, like it is in PVP. Interestingly enough DK and Templar might not get the help they need, since NB will not be as strong. This would leave Sorc holding the bag and the likely candidate for the next round of nerfs.

That's easy to fix.. since the NBs in this thread bring up jabs as being just as powerful, just turn SA in a channeled attack, then you keep your PvE / PvP damage. I'd be funny to read the cries when that would happen.. so maybe they're not exactly equal as some claim, else why would anyone be against it, right?

You get that jabs is an aoe, right?

I suspect the issue is if I get killed because of fear and spamming an attack within seconds I feel cheated if I have a battle and appear to be holding my own but lose in a close match I feel his just better than me

RoxyPhoenix wrote: »

I think the problem is that all of those high damage skills are spammable. If you got a skill that does tons of damage, is instant and adds some cool effects on top of that, why wouldnt you use it again and again. Yes its stupid, yes it hurts gameplay but every one who plays pvp knows it works too good to be simply ignored.

Personally i think EVERY skill in game should have a penalty implied for extensive using. It could be anything from increased cost to increased cast time, whatever, the point is that it would stop mindless spamming skills.

This is really not an answer that can be applied to the game without completely reworking combat.

Barring certain ultimates, most players have 10 slots to work with. They need to find room for not only damage skills but also utility like mitigation, buffs, healing, CC, etc. Typically this leaves 2-4 slots remaining for damage skills. Commonly players use a gap closer and/or execute, both of which are highly situational. This leaves very few slots for damage dealing skills. Players use few strictly damage skills because that is all they have room for.

A death reel is only a small glimpse of a fight. It's barely a sentence of a story. Blank out the names and we don't know if it was 1 player spamming a skill or 4+ were steamrolling someone. Think about it logically for a moment. If it was 4 or more numbers were the real victor. If it's 1 player using a single skill and nothing else. No heals, no CC, nothing. Why did the person being attacked put up no resistence? Why was a player able to crank one skill over and over unopposed?

Farorin wrote: »

Please, no more nerfing.

How about this, if someone has a problem with an ability, why not propose a positive solution to it, so rather than a negative (nerfing) instead, propose to strengthen a weak or useless move that the other classes have to compensate?

Nerfing isn't negative. If you have one class that's outperforming all others, but everywhere else in the game the other classes are right in line with the games intended difficulty, you either nerf the one class that's out of line, or buff all the other classes, and then all the content that those other classes were balanced within. Essentially you either lower one variable or raise everything else, but the end result is the same. Which do you think is the more sane option?

Lutallo wrote: »

I main a Templar and I can't kill good Stam Nightblades, so i've stopped playing PvP because 9/10 people are Stam Nightblades lol.
They out-dps my healing, plus one Soul Harvest and i'm completely done.
I can't out-dps their attacks with my jabs, most of them are too maneuverable anyway.
In my squishy light armour I can't defend against their physical attacks, plus my regen/cost is too low in heavy armour.
I don't have enough stamina to block or dodge roll.
Magicka Templars have no AoE CC or even a good single target CC. Spears Shards take too long to hit the ground and Javelin is a stamina morph.
If this was any other game there would be a valid counter, but I can't find a counter for Magick Templar vs Stam NB.

Are NB's OP or are Templars garbage? Maybe a bit of both.

Soul harvest healdebuff = Purge.
You can purge way more than he can healdebuff you.

CP5 wrote: »

Farorin wrote: »

Please, no more nerfing.

How about this, if someone has a problem with an ability, why not propose a positive solution to it, so rather than a negative (nerfing) instead, propose to strengthen a weak or useless move that the other classes have to compensate?

Nerfing isn't negative. If you have one class that's outperforming all others, but everywhere else in the game the other classes are right in line with the games intended difficulty, you either nerf the one class that's out of line, or buff all the other classes, and then all the content that those other classes were balanced within. Essentially you either lower one variable or raise everything else, but the end result is the same. Which do you think is the more sane option?

I would prefer buffing the lacking classes instead of nerfing all into the boring state of magicka dk.

Master_Kas wrote: »

Lutallo wrote: »

I main a Templar and I can't kill good Stam Nightblades, so i've stopped playing PvP because 9/10 people are Stam Nightblades lol.
They out-dps my healing, plus one Soul Harvest and i'm completely done.
I can't out-dps their attacks with my jabs, most of them are too maneuverable anyway.
In my squishy light armour I can't defend against their physical attacks, plus my regen/cost is too low in heavy armour.
I don't have enough stamina to block or dodge roll.
Magicka Templars have no AoE CC or even a good single target CC. Spears Shards take too long to hit the ground and Javelin is a stamina morph.
If this was any other game there would be a valid counter, but I can't find a counter for Magick Templar vs Stam NB.

Are NB's OP or are Templars garbage? Maybe a bit of both.

Soul harvest healdebuff = Purge.
You can purge way more than he can healdebuff you.

CP5 wrote: »

Farorin wrote: »

Please, no more nerfing.

How about this, if someone has a problem with an ability, why not propose a positive solution to it, so rather than a negative (nerfing) instead, propose to strengthen a weak or useless move that the other classes have to compensate?

Nerfing isn't negative. If you have one class that's outperforming all others, but everywhere else in the game the other classes are right in line with the games intended difficulty, you either nerf the one class that's out of line, or buff all the other classes, and then all the content that those other classes were balanced within. Essentially you either lower one variable or raise everything else, but the end result is the same. Which do you think is the more sane option?

I would prefer buffing the lacking classes instead of nerfing all into the boring state of magicka dk.

I agree, and I don't believe the game is at a point where there is only one thing that stands out so significantly over everything else that a nerf would bring much to balance, so many things are slightly over or under preforming for that. But nerfs have their place, no matter ones feelings after the nerf passes. That is unless people don't personally mind number inflation.

eliisra wrote: »

tist wrote: »

Yeah stam blades hit like a truck right now but they should.. The problem is they have too much survivability and sustain.

Yeah, compared to other classes rocking stamina dmg oriented builds, you have superior survivability, better sustain and magicka dumps as stamblade. Also why majority of the Cyrodiil population plays it.

Other stamina builds cant use their main class defensive skills and mechanics as frequently or even at all, since to costly, scaling of magicka or health. While everyone, including NB's, has access to Vigor + Rally.

But the dmg itself is similar to stamina builds. I use to eat 12-14k Surprise Attacks on a daily basis back in 1.6, basically 2 shot if you didn't perma block + stack shields. So this isn't so bad.

superior survivalbility? No. Definitely not, damage? yes.

The spamming needs to be dealt with, for sure. I am tired of this game favoring one playstyle over the other. First it was perma block LA magicka builds, now its "spam X ability" stamina builds. Balance needs to be as close as possible, this certainly is nowhere near as close as possible.

Yeah take our SA, take our cloak...take everything we have... at this time I go fishing only.

What all the nerf-people have to think of is that many skills not only pvp... so you nerf them, a NB will become near useless in pve for some reason too.

I'm a stamina nightblade (only char I have since release), and I kill in pvp... and I GET killed in pvp... I've no god-mode like some ppl here thinking NB have. If I get killed, I have done something wrong... and NOT because my enemy is OP (ok...maybe of CP differences a bit... ).

I've met many templars, dragonknights and mages (sure) in IC they have killed me fast or after a nice fight (I do so too...).

I'm not a friend of the "L2P", but thats what I do... trying to optimize my setup every day. And that is a point every class can do.

There good players out there in any class, so sorry to all whiners... if THEY can deal with other classes...ask yourself why you not. I'ts not about "NB OP".

Sry about my english... I can't hear these crying anymore...