They're invincible, so there's no counter if they are permanent.

If you give Nightblades the ability to have some kind of a summon build, then they'd have to give something to the Dragonknights as well to even it out.

I love my shades but I really wish their damage was higher.
Then again, I only really use the Archer morph to cheese people with magnum shot off of high places. Like the bridge leading to Castle Alessia in Cyrodiil. I've kept those Slaughterfish well feed.

I don't think it should be permanent, but the shades should do some respectable damage when summoned.

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

I would prefer to avoid toggles, which is basically what you're suggesting. I would argue for an even shorter duration before a longer one, personally. I respect the fact that many will disagree, but from a tanking perspective, if I intend to use shades for minor maim I have to reapply it every 10s anyway. As it is right now, it functions perfectly in cyrodiil as-is imho.

Interesting. I'm interested in two comments in your post:

1) Why you would argue for a shorter duration? It's certainly a unique thought.

2) I always intend to use shades for my tank, but then feel like I'm missing out because Heroic Slash gives me both main and ultimate regeneration. Is there a reason you use shades over Heroic Slash? Maybe you use them to proc the shadow passives?

That probably came of fairly confusing. I don't want a shorter duration, I was only trying to point out that, in some cases, a longer duration would be, in effect, as useful as a shorter one. It's different from build to build. But from a tank perspective, anything longer than 10s is pretty much just dead time on the skill, because if shades is used to keep Major Ward/Resolve active, it has to be cast every 10s anyway.

In practice, there are other ways to maintain Ward/Resolve and I'm not necessarily saying that changing it to a longer duration is a bad thing. I think that in cyrodiil (I don't just tank, have a few different builds) sometimes the duration does feel a little short, because it will expire just before I teleport back to it. But honestly I feel this is what keeps the skill in check. If it were a toggle skill (as the title suggests) we would be able to teleport wherever and whenever we want, and that just doesn't speak to balance.

Edit: Forgot to answer the second question. I don't use shades for tanking, I use Deep Slash (not Heroic) because Siphoning Attacks has 3x the chance to proc when I use it vs. Heroic Slash. I run 5x Tavas, 5x Footman, 2x Blood Spawn and I generate tons of ultimate in this setup without Heroic Slash. (for example, I can have 3 aggressive war horns for my group during molag kena)

I use this ability quite a bit and i would not want it turned to a toggle and thus req slots on both bars. Yeah, i know technicalky sorc summons now are not called toggles but if i need it slotted twice, same diff. If it were toggle then would need to be killable etc and just.., why?

I think its duration is sufficient for most purposes. Have not had probs due to too much use in combat having to recast.

But iirc its mechanics i think or suspect what the op is after is eliminating the following: shades require a target to fire right now AND triggers the enemy as if attacked. So, shades is or uses a combat action. As a toggle it cld be pre-launched not provoking aggro and then your first wake-up call would be your hvy attack weave of long cast time this or that.

At least iirc thst firing of original shade req tsrget and aggros.

Removing target/aggro would beva serious upgrade for a skill that seems very useful now.

Imo ymmv

On the flip side, I can see how permanent shades would work really well for making a warlock-themed magicka nightblade (staff/siphoning build)

I like them perfectly the way they are now.