Autolycus wrote: »

Nightblades are already viable. That being said, depending on the route they take, a rework of Grim Focus could prove beneficial. It's also one of the things that makes NB rotations and skill priorities interesting, and there are several methods revolving around the "ideal" way to prioritize it against other skills. It makes the rotation more challenging and skill selection more meaningful the way it is now. Considering they intend to "simply rotations" (are they still going to do that for other classes? /shrug), they might just change it for that reason alone.

Anyway, they'll have to be careful when they address it (as they have already stated they are looking at it), so as not to unbalance it in pvp. Assassin's Will procs hit very hard with a proper build and can take people down fast. Part of the "skill" behind playing a magblade is knowing when and how to string it in specifically because of its inherent limitations.

Autolycus wrote: »

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Nightblades are already viable. That being said, depending on the route they take, a rework of Grim Focus could prove beneficial. It's also one of the things that makes NB rotations and skill priorities interesting, and there are several methods revolving around the "ideal" way to prioritize it against other skills. It makes the rotation more challenging and skill selection more meaningful the way it is now. Considering they intend to "simply rotations" (are they still going to do that for other classes? /shrug), they might just change it for that reason alone.

Anyway, they'll have to be careful when they address it (as they have already stated they are looking at it), so as not to unbalance it in pvp. Assassin's Will procs hit very hard with a proper build and can take people down fast. Part of the "skill" behind playing a magblade is knowing when and how to string it in specifically because of its inherent limitations.

My focus here is on competitiveness. Nightblades are not competitive healers, tanks, DPS, or duelists. And they're certainly not going to be desirable for battlegrounds. They need help.

Considering they lack major mending or healing received; they're already at a disadvantage in terms of tanking, and healing. Therefore they should be superior to DKs, and Templars in terms of DPS.

Also due to the lack of major mending, and healing received, Nightblades are not very competitive in dueling (DKs are the undisputed top dogs in this). So they also need some damage buffs when they're not in stealth, and to compensate for this, we need to either remove or reduce stealth damage done to players.

That's all a matter of opinion. I want to say right off that there is truth to what you say, but respectfully disagree with much of it. I've seen magblades pulling 45-50k in buffed trial settings (in meta groups, and higher from stamblades) - but take this with a grain of salt, because it assumes ideal conditions. I tank with a NB in vMoL (it's my main), and have been tanking as a NB in all forms of content, including pvp tanking, since Early Access. I also have a solid dueling setup with which I have competed in dueling tournaments and placed within the top 3 multiple times. My opinion on dueling as a magblade is that the two most challenging setups to face are heavy armor DKs and proc set stamblade gankers. As such, I've spent a considerably higher amount of time facing those builds specifically to figure out how to beat them. I do agree that DKs are the undisputed champs of dueling (at least for NBs), because I have extensive experience dueling one of the best DK duelists I know (a credit to him, not a discredit to others, I probably haven't had the pleasure of dueling them frankly). But I've also beaten him several times. NBs are more difficult to play, but not as bad as people make them out to be. That doesn't mean I disagree that Grim Focus can help rebalance to level the playing field though.

The fact is, they are competitive. They just aren't widely believed to be. They are far better off than ~90% of the forums make them out to be, and I know many groups who would sooner take an experienced and well-geared NB (particularly magblade) over a stam DK or stamblade in a competitive trial. Their inherent survivability and reasonably high dps potential (even if a little lower than other magicka classes), even at range, makes them very attractive to groups learning more challenging fights, especially those who struggle to keep their stam dps alive.

Furthermore, Major Mending is unnecessary for tanking (I should know), and is accessible through resto staff as a healer, where it is also largely unnecessary, but very easy to maintain in a rotation through heavy attacks alone (specifically if using IA, where heavy attacks can fit seamlessly into the rotation for maximum up-time). I pride myself on using non-meta and unorthodox builds and classes for competitive content (I've also posted a few lengthy segments on DK healing), and I've seen much of this disproved first-hand. I'm not convinced that these things are true based on my own experience, but it's not a discredit to your opinions, just that mine is different.

With respect to Grim Focus specifically, this pretty much sums up what I think about it:

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I have said this often. This skill is the reason that Nightblades struggle in trials, and it is 2-fold. First it is supposed to be this great damage buff, but it is completely redundant with combat prayer. In other words, a good raid will already be giving it to you and it does NOT stack. So basically the buff is next to useless in a proper group (great when solo). Furthermore, firing the spectral bow requires 2 Globals so really, the damage is only half of what it hits for.

The latter portion regarding "efffectively" reducing the damage of Assassin's Will because it requires two globals is the real kicker. I can see the truth behind the "struggle" in trials, but I'd also suggest it's not as much of a struggle as it's made out to be. I believe that a significant portion of NBs who pull lower dps and then bench it against other magicka classes have a fair bit of room for improvement with respect to animation-cancelling and the way they string together and prioritize their skills, which is based primarily on my experience with teaching the rotations to aspiring NBs. And a really big part of forum bias against NBs don't see the whole picture; a great deal of it pertains directly to up-time on buffs provided by the rest of the group (note what Oreyn said here about Minor Berserk, b/c there's truth to that) The main point here is that we, the community, see posts about how amazing someone is in some build during some trial, and we tend to think we should "just be able to do that too." Well, some people can and are doing it, and the rest of us don't see it, so we are biased. Again though, this is not a direct discredit to these opinions; I do understand that perspective and acknowledge the truth of it to some extent.

One final thought on Grim Focus with respect to dueling, or pvp in general. Assassin's Will is the bread&butter of our burst damage, and to use it to its full potential requires combining it with hard CCs and other burst. Stringing these skills together appropriately is just as important for a NB as any other class (assuming we're talking a duelist setup, not a gank setup ofc). The second global on it takes precious time away from our burst rotation, forcing us to either slow down the burst, or forego the buff. That's counterproductive to the intended design of the skill imo, and changing it could benefit in pvp to a large extent. But it's important that they are careful when they address it, so as not to skew the balance too far. There's a fine line between this being counterproductive and too powerful, as I am able to consistently land 12-13k crits against full heavy-armor DKs.

STEVIL wrote: »

Like many powers which combine a buff and a damage effect the buffs value is totally dependent on circumstance.

if others are providing the group berserk then its just a two-click wait for it damage shot which isn't that viabl;e.
if you are solo, its a 20 second buff plus a big hit right before you refresh.

Auto-refresh wont solve that difference.

One way to address it is to give it a debuff to target instead of a buff to your damage. Still wont help if that debuff is one you get elsewhere so it would need to be rather unique.

But if it were me i would rework it into a "vampire" power kind of deal... where you take the light attack and heavy attack damage you do to the target for up to 20s (or less) and then on second click release x% of it as an attack (if target is targeted) or heal (if no target) with morphs that make it single target (higher X%) or AOE for either option.

think of it as a building and accumulating variant of siphoning attacks, building from the pain.