NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

With my rotation, Grim Focus is always near the top of my DPS parses. 25k dps in those two seconds is fine for one ability that deals damage, grants minor berserk, and I believe regen as well? Plus with your DoTs up, your DPS will be higher than 25k in your example. In my opinion it is fine where it is, although it could have a tweak, such as this suggestion:

davey1107 wrote: »

Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights?

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

I read your post. Here is the part where you make your suggestion, this time bolded so you don't have to think at all:

Attackopsn wrote: »

Had a request to make this a thread after posting a reply on a thread in the gd, hopefully this sees some love!

In PvE, it's the strongest yet most infrequent burst damage ability, but it isn't a good sustained DPS ability due to the second cast required after it is shot to reactivate it. If they changed it so that when you shot it the ability would reactivate in the same cast it would not affect it's burst DPS at all but put Magicka Nightblade in a slightly better place for sustained DPS. If they have an issue with this becoming a free source of Minor Berserk, then just make it cost it's activation cost when shot, I would find it quite bizarre if anyone actually complained about that.

Again, just in case someone out their actually doesn't understand what is wrong with this ability and is planning to post a very uneducated reply to this thread, allow me to explain. Merciless Resolve needs to be activated, which we can be generous and hope that you activated this before the fight and therefore not losing any single target dps yet. After four weaves, it needs to be shot, and let's say it hits for 50,000 damage, the fact that you have to spend a second global cooldown reapplying it means that it only did 25000 dps over that 2 second period.

This ability also has a very clunky 0.1s channel that not only means that you cannot block cast it, but it gets cancelled occasionally in it's awkward cast and overall just has a very unsatisfying feeling in the initial stages of operation.

In pvp, it is more difficult to acquire the proc for this than something like Crystal Fragments, yet this ability has a slower travel time than Crystal Fragments, leading it to be often rolled away from with ease unless you use Mass Hysteria before casting it, and it is much more risky to shoot than Crystal Fragments due to its highly unnecessary channel time. They should remove the channel time and slightly decrease the travel time.

In PvE, Magicka Nightblades often use many dots that last eight seconds long, (Wall of Elements, Crippling Grasp). The mandatory dot that does not meet this criteria is Twisting Path. Recently Zenimax buffed this ability in damage, which was a great step in the right direction, however this ability will either create a very awkward alternating rotation with the placement of your Twisting Path at the end or beginning of your dot reapplication, or will be statically reapplied in a less efficient manner assimilating it into the same 8s timers that your other dots use. To make this ability less awkward, they should decrease the duration of Twisting Path to 8s, but increase its damage equivalent to the 3.5s it loses by this change to fairly compensate the player.

There may be more changes needed, though these are what I believe to be the biggest issues with the class.

Removing the second cast on the skill is dumbing it down by removing the decision making required when recasting it. You don't understand because you're only concerned with your single target dps, which is one small sphere of the game which does not care as much for mechanical diversity.

Removing the .1 second channel time on the shot would have a less severe effect on the skill, but it would still dilute the mechanical depth of one of nightblade's most iconic and unique class mechanics.

We're already losing Siphoning Attacks, which is another. Don't shoot me twice, please.

Want to remove the invisibility on cloak too? I bet some people find that hard to play against, and we don't like things to be hard in this game anymore. Nerf it all.

Edit: if you want higher dps parses, which mageblade needs, don't target the elephant in the room -- i.e. the most complex mechanic that you have trouble or find clunky. Assume for a moment that those mechanics serve a purpose in another sphere of the game where you are inexperienced. Try learning about the game as a whole, and target buffs to your dps that do not affect other players and play styles negatively. Try to minimize your collateral damage. Twisting Path could get buffed, shade could get buffed, hell, the other morph of cripple could gain damage and lose its speed changes, or the other morph of agony could be made to plop out a small ground aoe that lasts 12 seconds. PvPers wouldn't bat an eye at any of those changes, but you'd get your dps buffs. Everyone's happy, and mageblade doesn't become even more of a trash can class than it already is in PvP.

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

I read your post. Here is the part where you make your suggestion, this time bolded so you don't have to think at all:

Attackopsn wrote: »

Had a request to make this a thread after posting a reply on a thread in the gd, hopefully this sees some love!

In PvE, it's the strongest yet most infrequent burst damage ability, but it isn't a good sustained DPS ability due to the second cast required after it is shot to reactivate it. If they changed it so that when you shot it the ability would reactivate in the same cast it would not affect it's burst DPS at all but put Magicka Nightblade in a slightly better place for sustained DPS. If they have an issue with this becoming a free source of Minor Berserk, then just make it cost it's activation cost when shot, I would find it quite bizarre if anyone actually complained about that.

Again, just in case someone out their actually doesn't understand what is wrong with this ability and is planning to post a very uneducated reply to this thread, allow me to explain. Merciless Resolve needs to be activated, which we can be generous and hope that you activated this before the fight and therefore not losing any single target dps yet. After four weaves, it needs to be shot, and let's say it hits for 50,000 damage, the fact that you have to spend a second global cooldown reapplying it means that it only did 25000 dps over that 2 second period.

This ability also has a very clunky 0.1s channel that not only means that you cannot block cast it, but it gets cancelled occasionally in it's awkward cast and overall just has a very unsatisfying feeling in the initial stages of operation.

In pvp, it is more difficult to acquire the proc for this than something like Crystal Fragments, yet this ability has a slower travel time than Crystal Fragments, leading it to be often rolled away from with ease unless you use Mass Hysteria before casting it, and it is much more risky to shoot than Crystal Fragments due to its highly unnecessary channel time. They should remove the channel time and slightly decrease the travel time.

In PvE, Magicka Nightblades often use many dots that last eight seconds long, (Wall of Elements, Crippling Grasp). The mandatory dot that does not meet this criteria is Twisting Path. Recently Zenimax buffed this ability in damage, which was a great step in the right direction, however this ability will either create a very awkward alternating rotation with the placement of your Twisting Path at the end or beginning of your dot reapplication, or will be statically reapplied in a less efficient manner assimilating it into the same 8s timers that your other dots use. To make this ability less awkward, they should decrease the duration of Twisting Path to 8s, but increase its damage equivalent to the 3.5s it loses by this change to fairly compensate the player.

There may be more changes needed, though these are what I believe to be the biggest issues with the class.

Removing the second cast on the skill is dumbing it down by removing the decision making required when recasting it. You don't understand because you're only concerned with your single target dps, which is one small sphere of the game which does not care as much for mechanical diversity.

Removing the .1 second channel time on the shot would have a less severe effect on the skill, but it would still dilute the mechanical depth of one of nightblade's most iconic and unique class mechanics.

We're already losing Siphoning Attacks, which is another. Don't shoot me twice, please.

Want to remove the invisibility on cloak too? I bet some people find that hard to play against, and we don't like things to be hard in this game anymore. Nerf it all.

Edit: if you want higher dps parses, which mageblade needs, don't target the elephant in the room -- i.e. the most complex mechanic that you have trouble or find clunky. Assume for a moment that those mechanics serve a purpose in another sphere of the game where you are inexperienced. Try learning about the game as a whole, and target buffs to your dps that do not affect other players and play styles negatively. Try to minimize your collateral damage. Twisting Path could get buffed, shade could get buffed, hell, the other morph of cripple could gain damage and lose its speed changes, or the other morph of agony could be made to plop out a small ground aoe that lasts 12 seconds. PvPers wouldn't bat an eye at any of those changes, but you'd get your dps buffs. Everyone's happy, and mageblade doesn't become even more of a trash can class than it already is in PvP.

First of all, I do understand. Assuming that I don't understand how the core burst ability to Magicka Nightblade functions simply because I am discussing its issues in sustained dps absolutely has zero correlation to burst pve or pvp scenarios. To clarify, since this is a forum page where people struggle with public dungeons and you will obviously want an example, yes in a situation where you are fighting a player, and for example, use a meteor, then wait one second, fear, then shoot merciless without reapplying it to use another ability takes some refinement over where an ordinary or mediocre nightblade would immediately reapply it after this. Yes, in a short fight, such as the ones found mostly in vma or in other areas such as bursting down an add like a suneater you would not want to reapply merciless, and that requires an educated decision to increase your performance.

Please do not condescend me in your unfounded belief that I do not understand this class. Yes, I know what this change would entail, and yes, it would make some scenarios less complicated, but you are most definitely exaggerating the level of experience and strategy it requires to make a decision such as the one you complain we would lose. If either suggested change were to be made, it would be a significant improvement in the mechanics of the ability.

Ironically, and somewhat off topic, you tried to condescend and belittle what I knew about this class by stating I thought it was too complicated (which is definitely not the point of this post and I encourage you to work on your reading comprehension skills), but you literally used cloak as an example of something that a player of the ability you perceive that I have to find overpowered. That's really cute. Cloak has probably been on of the most unreliable and weakest abilities in a non bomblades toolkit for half of a year, and is used by zero top tier magicka nightblades in duels.

Finally, yes I do agree that a change to an ability like Twisting Path would have less impact on pvp and would be a less controversial ability to change for them in pve. Seriously though, naming yourself Nightblademechanics doesn't and most definitely didn't grant you the ultimate opinion on the changes here, and while I regret resorting to a negative interaction with another player, you went too out of your way to be derogatory for me to avoid it. I do not have "trouble" with Merciless Resolve either, I just do not believe it is a well designed ability in comparison to Crystal Fragments.

Except that is is beautifully and deliberately designed the way it is. It works smoothly and has perfect checks in place to compensate the fact that it is one of the highest damage single target nukes in the game. It just has complicated mechanics, drawing PvEers like yourself to target it when complaining about mageblade's low dps.

If you understand class balance so well, then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place? That is where your arguments will all fall apart. I condescend to you because you are yet another in a long line of PvEers making the same tired, uninformed, and poorly thought out suggestion to help mageblade dps. Your idea is not new, you are not special, and the fact that you came up with this idea on your own and thought it worth proposing here shows me that you play the game in a bubble. Balancing should not be done from a bubble.

Edit: I wrote balancing isn't done in a bubble, but then I realized that much of ZOS' internal balance testing is actually done in a bubble on their internal server.

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

I read your post. Here is the part where you make your suggestion, this time bolded so you don't have to think at all:

Attackopsn wrote: »

Had a request to make this a thread after posting a reply on a thread in the gd, hopefully this sees some love!

In PvE, it's the strongest yet most infrequent burst damage ability, but it isn't a good sustained DPS ability due to the second cast required after it is shot to reactivate it. If they changed it so that when you shot it the ability would reactivate in the same cast it would not affect it's burst DPS at all but put Magicka Nightblade in a slightly better place for sustained DPS. If they have an issue with this becoming a free source of Minor Berserk, then just make it cost it's activation cost when shot, I would find it quite bizarre if anyone actually complained about that.

Again, just in case someone out their actually doesn't understand what is wrong with this ability and is planning to post a very uneducated reply to this thread, allow me to explain. Merciless Resolve needs to be activated, which we can be generous and hope that you activated this before the fight and therefore not losing any single target dps yet. After four weaves, it needs to be shot, and let's say it hits for 50,000 damage, the fact that you have to spend a second global cooldown reapplying it means that it only did 25000 dps over that 2 second period.

This ability also has a very clunky 0.1s channel that not only means that you cannot block cast it, but it gets cancelled occasionally in it's awkward cast and overall just has a very unsatisfying feeling in the initial stages of operation.

In pvp, it is more difficult to acquire the proc for this than something like Crystal Fragments, yet this ability has a slower travel time than Crystal Fragments, leading it to be often rolled away from with ease unless you use Mass Hysteria before casting it, and it is much more risky to shoot than Crystal Fragments due to its highly unnecessary channel time. They should remove the channel time and slightly decrease the travel time.

In PvE, Magicka Nightblades often use many dots that last eight seconds long, (Wall of Elements, Crippling Grasp). The mandatory dot that does not meet this criteria is Twisting Path. Recently Zenimax buffed this ability in damage, which was a great step in the right direction, however this ability will either create a very awkward alternating rotation with the placement of your Twisting Path at the end or beginning of your dot reapplication, or will be statically reapplied in a less efficient manner assimilating it into the same 8s timers that your other dots use. To make this ability less awkward, they should decrease the duration of Twisting Path to 8s, but increase its damage equivalent to the 3.5s it loses by this change to fairly compensate the player.

There may be more changes needed, though these are what I believe to be the biggest issues with the class.

Removing the second cast on the skill is dumbing it down by removing the decision making required when recasting it. You don't understand because you're only concerned with your single target dps, which is one small sphere of the game which does not care as much for mechanical diversity.

Removing the .1 second channel time on the shot would have a less severe effect on the skill, but it would still dilute the mechanical depth of one of nightblade's most iconic and unique class mechanics.

We're already losing Siphoning Attacks, which is another. Don't shoot me twice, please.

Want to remove the invisibility on cloak too? I bet some people find that hard to play against, and we don't like things to be hard in this game anymore. Nerf it all.

Edit: if you want higher dps parses, which mageblade needs, don't target the elephant in the room -- i.e. the most complex mechanic that you have trouble or find clunky. Assume for a moment that those mechanics serve a purpose in another sphere of the game where you are inexperienced. Try learning about the game as a whole, and target buffs to your dps that do not affect other players and play styles negatively. Try to minimize your collateral damage. Twisting Path could get buffed, shade could get buffed, hell, the other morph of cripple could gain damage and lose its speed changes, or the other morph of agony could be made to plop out a small ground aoe that lasts 12 seconds. PvPers wouldn't bat an eye at any of those changes, but you'd get your dps buffs. Everyone's happy, and mageblade doesn't become even more of a trash can class than it already is in PvP.

First of all, I do understand. Assuming that I don't understand how the core burst ability to Magicka Nightblade functions simply because I am discussing its issues in sustained dps absolutely has zero correlation to burst pve or pvp scenarios. To clarify, since this is a forum page where people struggle with public dungeons and you will obviously want an example, yes in a situation where you are fighting a player, and for example, use a meteor, then wait one second, fear, then shoot merciless without reapplying it to use another ability takes some refinement over where an ordinary or mediocre nightblade would immediately reapply it after this. Yes, in a short fight, such as the ones found mostly in vma or in other areas such as bursting down an add like a suneater you would not want to reapply merciless, and that requires an educated decision to increase your performance.

Please do not condescend me in your unfounded belief that I do not understand this class. Yes, I know what this change would entail, and yes, it would make some scenarios less complicated, but you are most definitely exaggerating the level of experience and strategy it requires to make a decision such as the one you complain we would lose. If either suggested change were to be made, it would be a significant improvement in the mechanics of the ability.

Ironically, and somewhat off topic, you tried to condescend and belittle what I knew about this class by stating I thought it was too complicated (which is definitely not the point of this post and I encourage you to work on your reading comprehension skills), but you literally used cloak as an example of something that a player of the ability you perceive that I have to find overpowered. That's really cute. Cloak has probably been on of the most unreliable and weakest abilities in a non bomblades toolkit for half of a year, and is used by zero top tier magicka nightblades in duels.

Finally, yes I do agree that a change to an ability like Twisting Path would have less impact on pvp and would be a less controversial ability to change for them in pve. Seriously though, naming yourself Nightblademechanics doesn't and most definitely didn't grant you the ultimate opinion on the changes here, and while I regret resorting to a negative interaction with another player, you went too out of your way to be derogatory for me to avoid it. I do not have "trouble" with Merciless Resolve either, I just do not believe it is a well designed ability in comparison to Crystal Fragments.

Except that is is beautifully and deliberately designed the way it is. It works smoothly and has perfect checks in place to compensate the fact that it is one of the highest damage single target nukes in the game. It just has complicated mechanics, drawing PvEers like yourself to target it when complaining about mageblade's low dps.

If you understand class balance so well, then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place? That is where your arguments will all fall apart. I condescend to you because you are yet another in a long line of PvEers making the same tired, uninformed, and poorly thought out suggestion to help mageblade dps. Your idea is not new, you are not special, and the fact that you came up with this idea on your own and thought it worth proposing here shows me that you play the game in a bubble. Balancing should not be done from a bubble.

Edit: I wrote balancing isn't done in a bubble, but then I realized that much of ZOS' internal balance testing is actually done in a bubble on their internal server.

It being complicated again has nothing to do with my complaint. It having to be casted two times to deal damage once halving it's damage per use is my complaint, so please do not generalize my complaint with some other group of people that you probably had a very circular and non-constructive argument with (I can already see that's where this is leading, you are obviously just a special snowflake and over-exaggerate the complexity of this class because it helps sate your ego) leading to no where. I already made a suggestion, so did someone else, maybe you should try to read and understand those suggestions before going nuclear about how the game is being dumbed down. My suggestion isn't a new one? That's not surprising, maybe that's because it actually makes sense, that's typically how things go, don't they?

If your argument truly is "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place", then I'm not even going to continue replying to you because you are an idiot. That goes both ways, I could easily say something just as stupid by stating "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of maintaining a 'complex and skillful playstyle' without damaging single target dps and their overall usefulness in PvE in the first place". I could even stoop to your level even further derailing the point of this post and mimic your semantics by asking you to define what important pvp mechanics are and how is Merciless Resolve's awkward design relevant to them, but I won't because your an idiot. I gave more than one suggestion too, and like I said as well, I have pvped plenty on Magicka Nightblade, and I can already tell you know little about that too ironically enough, if you are playing a cloak build using Merciless Resolve unless you are some kind of gank build comboing with Merciless and Heavy Attacks.

sigh... eso forums

The double cast is part of its complexity. You can't separate the two just to try to back-peddle out of a lost argument.

Speculating about my past debates is pointless. Go read them yourself. I have gone into much more detail about mageblade micro mechanics in past discussions.

Your suggestion isn't a new one because it's an easy conclusion to come to. "Oh no, this ability is difficult. Nerf it!" There's a reason ZOS doesn't take community votes on balance issues.

I already made my suggestions to increase class dps while maintaining mechanical depth in this thread -- buff path and shade dps, and rework malefic wreath and debilitate into strong PvE-oriented dots. Read please. I gave more detailed suggestions for those ability reworks in the last PTS discussions. Or it might have even been the One Tamriel PTS. It's been a long time.

I already explained why merciless' mechanics are important to PvP play patterns, but I can elaborate. Assassin's will does lots of damage. Therefore, assassin's will needs a mechanical limitation to keep you from spamming it instead of swallow soul. The 4 light attacks serve to space your procs apart by several seconds, and having to recast the buff to access another proc puts a one global cooldown stall on your momentum in the fight. Momentum is very important to the mageblade play style. Seeing as you just fired off one of the strongest nukes in the game, you're likely to have strong momentum after using assassin's will. It would snowball your momentum and control of the fight if you could simply fire another assassin's will a few seconds after the last...over and over and over with no pause. The recast forces a slight pause which makes you relieve pressure on the opponent for a second. That may seem insignificant for you, but the result in PvP is making the mageblade value each proc as a one shot, one kill sort of mechanic instead of an I-shoot-this-every-4-seconds machine gun of 20k crits.

For comparison, frag's limiting mechanic is rng. You know frag has a pretty generous proc chance, but you never really know when it's going to proc. This causes players to value frags more than if it were "procs after every third ability," saving each one for just the right moment to fire.

The unpredictability of a frag proc works in the sorc kit because the rest of his combo is telegraphed to the opponent via curse's timer. He pew pews casually until a frag procs, and then he sets up a combo. Mageblades, however, do not have telegraphed burst. The mageblade's combo is always ready to go as long as the assassin's will is primed. Making the merciless proc predictably allows the mageblade to plan his combos moves in advance -- in other words, in fast paced fights, the nightblade can still keep track of his merciless procs before they even happen and plan to fire off combos immediately as the merciless procs, or even plan his light attack weaves in his combo such that the merciless procs at just the time he needs to fire it. If rng were involved, he would not be able to do this, and the mageblade play style would become much slower and clunkier.

Using psychology to balance powerful ability mechanics and create unique play patterns. lol There really is an elegance to it.

But I'm worst mageblade NA. What do I know?

Edit: mageblade ganker trying to combo stuff with merciless? Ew...good luck with that.

Twisting Path doesn't scale with Thaumaturge... That's also a lot of damage lost up front

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

I read your post. Here is the part where you make your suggestion, this time bolded so you don't have to think at all:

Attackopsn wrote: »

Had a request to make this a thread after posting a reply on a thread in the gd, hopefully this sees some love!

In PvE, it's the strongest yet most infrequent burst damage ability, but it isn't a good sustained DPS ability due to the second cast required after it is shot to reactivate it. If they changed it so that when you shot it the ability would reactivate in the same cast it would not affect it's burst DPS at all but put Magicka Nightblade in a slightly better place for sustained DPS. If they have an issue with this becoming a free source of Minor Berserk, then just make it cost it's activation cost when shot, I would find it quite bizarre if anyone actually complained about that.

Again, just in case someone out their actually doesn't understand what is wrong with this ability and is planning to post a very uneducated reply to this thread, allow me to explain. Merciless Resolve needs to be activated, which we can be generous and hope that you activated this before the fight and therefore not losing any single target dps yet. After four weaves, it needs to be shot, and let's say it hits for 50,000 damage, the fact that you have to spend a second global cooldown reapplying it means that it only did 25000 dps over that 2 second period.

This ability also has a very clunky 0.1s channel that not only means that you cannot block cast it, but it gets cancelled occasionally in it's awkward cast and overall just has a very unsatisfying feeling in the initial stages of operation.

In pvp, it is more difficult to acquire the proc for this than something like Crystal Fragments, yet this ability has a slower travel time than Crystal Fragments, leading it to be often rolled away from with ease unless you use Mass Hysteria before casting it, and it is much more risky to shoot than Crystal Fragments due to its highly unnecessary channel time. They should remove the channel time and slightly decrease the travel time.

In PvE, Magicka Nightblades often use many dots that last eight seconds long, (Wall of Elements, Crippling Grasp). The mandatory dot that does not meet this criteria is Twisting Path. Recently Zenimax buffed this ability in damage, which was a great step in the right direction, however this ability will either create a very awkward alternating rotation with the placement of your Twisting Path at the end or beginning of your dot reapplication, or will be statically reapplied in a less efficient manner assimilating it into the same 8s timers that your other dots use. To make this ability less awkward, they should decrease the duration of Twisting Path to 8s, but increase its damage equivalent to the 3.5s it loses by this change to fairly compensate the player.

There may be more changes needed, though these are what I believe to be the biggest issues with the class.

Removing the second cast on the skill is dumbing it down by removing the decision making required when recasting it. You don't understand because you're only concerned with your single target dps, which is one small sphere of the game which does not care as much for mechanical diversity.

Removing the .1 second channel time on the shot would have a less severe effect on the skill, but it would still dilute the mechanical depth of one of nightblade's most iconic and unique class mechanics.

We're already losing Siphoning Attacks, which is another. Don't shoot me twice, please.

Want to remove the invisibility on cloak too? I bet some people find that hard to play against, and we don't like things to be hard in this game anymore. Nerf it all.

Edit: if you want higher dps parses, which mageblade needs, don't target the elephant in the room -- i.e. the most complex mechanic that you have trouble or find clunky. Assume for a moment that those mechanics serve a purpose in another sphere of the game where you are inexperienced. Try learning about the game as a whole, and target buffs to your dps that do not affect other players and play styles negatively. Try to minimize your collateral damage. Twisting Path could get buffed, shade could get buffed, hell, the other morph of cripple could gain damage and lose its speed changes, or the other morph of agony could be made to plop out a small ground aoe that lasts 12 seconds. PvPers wouldn't bat an eye at any of those changes, but you'd get your dps buffs. Everyone's happy, and mageblade doesn't become even more of a trash can class than it already is in PvP.

First of all, I do understand. Assuming that I don't understand how the core burst ability to Magicka Nightblade functions simply because I am discussing its issues in sustained dps absolutely has zero correlation to burst pve or pvp scenarios. To clarify, since this is a forum page where people struggle with public dungeons and you will obviously want an example, yes in a situation where you are fighting a player, and for example, use a meteor, then wait one second, fear, then shoot merciless without reapplying it to use another ability takes some refinement over where an ordinary or mediocre nightblade would immediately reapply it after this. Yes, in a short fight, such as the ones found mostly in vma or in other areas such as bursting down an add like a suneater you would not want to reapply merciless, and that requires an educated decision to increase your performance.

Please do not condescend me in your unfounded belief that I do not understand this class. Yes, I know what this change would entail, and yes, it would make some scenarios less complicated, but you are most definitely exaggerating the level of experience and strategy it requires to make a decision such as the one you complain we would lose. If either suggested change were to be made, it would be a significant improvement in the mechanics of the ability.

Ironically, and somewhat off topic, you tried to condescend and belittle what I knew about this class by stating I thought it was too complicated (which is definitely not the point of this post and I encourage you to work on your reading comprehension skills), but you literally used cloak as an example of something that a player of the ability you perceive that I have to find overpowered. That's really cute. Cloak has probably been on of the most unreliable and weakest abilities in a non bomblades toolkit for half of a year, and is used by zero top tier magicka nightblades in duels.

Finally, yes I do agree that a change to an ability like Twisting Path would have less impact on pvp and would be a less controversial ability to change for them in pve. Seriously though, naming yourself Nightblademechanics doesn't and most definitely didn't grant you the ultimate opinion on the changes here, and while I regret resorting to a negative interaction with another player, you went too out of your way to be derogatory for me to avoid it. I do not have "trouble" with Merciless Resolve either, I just do not believe it is a well designed ability in comparison to Crystal Fragments.

Except that is is beautifully and deliberately designed the way it is. It works smoothly and has perfect checks in place to compensate the fact that it is one of the highest damage single target nukes in the game. It just has complicated mechanics, drawing PvEers like yourself to target it when complaining about mageblade's low dps.

If you understand class balance so well, then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place? That is where your arguments will all fall apart. I condescend to you because you are yet another in a long line of PvEers making the same tired, uninformed, and poorly thought out suggestion to help mageblade dps. Your idea is not new, you are not special, and the fact that you came up with this idea on your own and thought it worth proposing here shows me that you play the game in a bubble. Balancing should not be done from a bubble.

Edit: I wrote balancing isn't done in a bubble, but then I realized that much of ZOS' internal balance testing is actually done in a bubble on their internal server.

It being complicated again has nothing to do with my complaint. It having to be casted two times to deal damage once halving it's damage per use is my complaint, so please do not generalize my complaint with some other group of people that you probably had a very circular and non-constructive argument with (I can already see that's where this is leading, you are obviously just a special snowflake and over-exaggerate the complexity of this class because it helps sate your ego) leading to no where. I already made a suggestion, so did someone else, maybe you should try to read and understand those suggestions before going nuclear about how the game is being dumbed down. My suggestion isn't a new one? That's not surprising, maybe that's because it actually makes sense, that's typically how things go, don't they?

If your argument truly is "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place", then I'm not even going to continue replying to you because you are an idiot. That goes both ways, I could easily say something just as stupid by stating "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of maintaining a 'complex and skillful playstyle' without damaging single target dps and their overall usefulness in PvE in the first place". I could even stoop to your level even further derailing the point of this post and mimic your semantics by asking you to define what important pvp mechanics are and how is Merciless Resolve's awkward design relevant to them, but I won't because your an idiot. I gave more than one suggestion too, and like I said as well, I have pvped plenty on Magicka Nightblade, and I can already tell you know little about that too ironically enough, if you are playing a cloak build using Merciless Resolve unless you are some kind of gank build comboing with Merciless and Heavy Attacks.

sigh... eso forums

The double cast is part of its complexity. You can't separate the two just to try to back-peddle out of a lost argument.

Speculating about my past debates is pointless. Go read them yourself. I have gone into much more detail about mageblade micro mechanics in past discussions.

Your suggestion isn't a new one because it's an easy conclusion to come to. "Oh no, this ability is difficult. Nerf it!" There's a reason ZOS doesn't take community votes on balance issues.

I already made my suggestions to increase class dps while maintaining mechanical depth in this thread -- buff path and shade dps, and rework malefic wreath and debilitate into strong PvE-oriented dots. Read please. I gave more detailed suggestions for those ability reworks in the last PTS discussions. Or it might have even been the One Tamriel PTS. It's been a long time.

I already explained why merciless' mechanics are important to PvP play patterns, but I can elaborate. Assassin's will does lots of damage. Therefore, assassin's will needs a mechanical limitation to keep you from spamming it instead of swallow soul. The 4 light attacks serve to space your procs apart by several seconds, and having to recast the buff to access another proc puts a one global cooldown stall on your momentum in the fight. Momentum is very important to the mageblade play style. Seeing as you just fired off one of the strongest nukes in the game, you're likely to have strong momentum after using assassin's will. It would snowball your momentum and control of the fight if you could simply fire another assassin's will a few seconds after the last...over and over and over with no pause. The recast forces a slight pause which makes you relieve pressure on the opponent for a second. That may seem insignificant for you, but the result in PvP is making the mageblade value each proc as a one shot, one kill sort of mechanic instead of an I-shoot-this-every-4-seconds machine gun of 20k crits.

For comparison, frag's limiting mechanic is rng. You know frag has a pretty generous proc chance, but you never really know when it's going to proc. This causes players to value frags more than if it were "procs after every third ability," saving each one for just the right moment to fire.

The unpredictability of a frag proc works in the sorc kit because the rest of his combo is telegraphed to the opponent via curse's timer. He pew pews casually until a frag procs, and then he sets up a combo. Mageblades, however, do not have telegraphed burst. The mageblade's combo is always ready to go as long as the assassin's will is primed. Making the merciless proc predictably allows the mageblade to plan his combos moves in advance -- in other words, in fast paced fights, the nightblade can still keep track of his merciless procs before they even happen and plan to fire off combos immediately as the merciless procs, or even plan his light attack weaves in his combo such that the merciless procs at just the time he needs to fire it. If rng were involved, he would not be able to do this, and the mageblade play style would become much slower and clunkier.

Using psychology to balance powerful ability mechanics and create unique play patterns. lol There really is an elegance to it.

But I'm worst mageblade NA. What do I know?

Edit: mageblade ganker trying to combo stuff with merciless? Ew...good luck with that.

I already disproved what you said. Read what I wrote, read what others here have written, I'm not going to waste any more breath re-explaining in a circular fashion why you are wrong. It's all here, while I'm busy today maybe you can work on your reading comprehension skills and just try to figure it out this time instead of posting the same tired predictable nonsense while ignoring all the points made in the posts on this topic since I've already tried explaining it multiple times to you and you clearly don't absorb any of the information. Maybe even read what was recently written by Izaki, who makes another good point.

Edit: I didn't say that I gank with Merciless, I was trying to give a nightblade of your tier of misinformation and ego an exit strategy because you are literally so misinformed to the point where you pride yourself on merciless proccing but insinuate that you run cloak. Yeah okay bro, who needs shades when you can cloak right in front of the person and get aoed/gap closed out of your cloak instantly lmao.

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Attackopsn wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

NO. Making Grim Focus automatically refresh would make it function exactly like Crystal Frag in practice. 33% frag proc chance is a frag after every 3 abilities on average. A merciless proc after every 4 light attacks is after every 3 abilities. Making Grim Focus easier to use would demand nerfs, else every mageblade would become merciless machine guns. Do you really want me running around shooting off merciless after every 3rd ability without caring for being punished for it?? That recast is a buffer in mageblades' momentum that makes them more careful with how they set up and when they fire merciless. You can't have an ability deal that much damage and not have some mechanical complexities.

In the name of class and play style diversity, NO. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to dumb down this ability. Practice with it instead of ***ing about it.

elium85 wrote: »

I'll never understand why Twisting Path has such an odd length (especially with the passive buffs to duration). If it was 8 seconds, it would make a complicated rotation so much smoother.

Twisting Path's duration is the same length as the duration as the armor buffs while wearing 7 heavy. The buffs get longer per each piece of heavy armor.

davey1107 wrote: »

Grim focus is one of the most complex skills in the game. I think it's almost the "last ability standing" from an earlier philosophy of having abilities with more complicated mechanics. As others have gotten simpler, this one stands out as awkward for the reasons you mention.

I'm not sure precisely what would make it feel more useful...maybe an automatic proc to the spectral bow? Maybe allow multiple bows per cast since the duration is far longer than it takes to get four lights? I'm not sure. But on ESO Live we were promised a major overhaul "in the patch after Homestead," so it's a little disappointing that it didn't show up on PTS last week.

"This ability is complex. Please make it easier to use so I don't have to l2p."

I already broke down every argument for simplifying Grim Focus during the last PTS cycle. Just stop already. I'm so over this movement to simplify and dumb the game down. I'm all for closing the dps gap between the bottom and top ends of the skill spectrum, but diluting mechanics is NOT the way to do it.

Path and shade damage buffs would be great. Those don't affect PvP nearly at all and keep rotations exciting to learn and execute in PvE. Taking the recast off of Grim Focus breaks a fundamental class mechanic.

What I am asking doesn't dumb down the ability, it increases its single target dps. Please read my post, thank you, have a nice day.

I read your post. Here is the part where you make your suggestion, this time bolded so you don't have to think at all:

Attackopsn wrote: »

Had a request to make this a thread after posting a reply on a thread in the gd, hopefully this sees some love!

In PvE, it's the strongest yet most infrequent burst damage ability, but it isn't a good sustained DPS ability due to the second cast required after it is shot to reactivate it. If they changed it so that when you shot it the ability would reactivate in the same cast it would not affect it's burst DPS at all but put Magicka Nightblade in a slightly better place for sustained DPS. If they have an issue with this becoming a free source of Minor Berserk, then just make it cost it's activation cost when shot, I would find it quite bizarre if anyone actually complained about that.

Again, just in case someone out their actually doesn't understand what is wrong with this ability and is planning to post a very uneducated reply to this thread, allow me to explain. Merciless Resolve needs to be activated, which we can be generous and hope that you activated this before the fight and therefore not losing any single target dps yet. After four weaves, it needs to be shot, and let's say it hits for 50,000 damage, the fact that you have to spend a second global cooldown reapplying it means that it only did 25000 dps over that 2 second period.

This ability also has a very clunky 0.1s channel that not only means that you cannot block cast it, but it gets cancelled occasionally in it's awkward cast and overall just has a very unsatisfying feeling in the initial stages of operation.

In pvp, it is more difficult to acquire the proc for this than something like Crystal Fragments, yet this ability has a slower travel time than Crystal Fragments, leading it to be often rolled away from with ease unless you use Mass Hysteria before casting it, and it is much more risky to shoot than Crystal Fragments due to its highly unnecessary channel time. They should remove the channel time and slightly decrease the travel time.

In PvE, Magicka Nightblades often use many dots that last eight seconds long, (Wall of Elements, Crippling Grasp). The mandatory dot that does not meet this criteria is Twisting Path. Recently Zenimax buffed this ability in damage, which was a great step in the right direction, however this ability will either create a very awkward alternating rotation with the placement of your Twisting Path at the end or beginning of your dot reapplication, or will be statically reapplied in a less efficient manner assimilating it into the same 8s timers that your other dots use. To make this ability less awkward, they should decrease the duration of Twisting Path to 8s, but increase its damage equivalent to the 3.5s it loses by this change to fairly compensate the player.

There may be more changes needed, though these are what I believe to be the biggest issues with the class.

Removing the second cast on the skill is dumbing it down by removing the decision making required when recasting it. You don't understand because you're only concerned with your single target dps, which is one small sphere of the game which does not care as much for mechanical diversity.

Removing the .1 second channel time on the shot would have a less severe effect on the skill, but it would still dilute the mechanical depth of one of nightblade's most iconic and unique class mechanics.

We're already losing Siphoning Attacks, which is another. Don't shoot me twice, please.

Want to remove the invisibility on cloak too? I bet some people find that hard to play against, and we don't like things to be hard in this game anymore. Nerf it all.

Edit: if you want higher dps parses, which mageblade needs, don't target the elephant in the room -- i.e. the most complex mechanic that you have trouble or find clunky. Assume for a moment that those mechanics serve a purpose in another sphere of the game where you are inexperienced. Try learning about the game as a whole, and target buffs to your dps that do not affect other players and play styles negatively. Try to minimize your collateral damage. Twisting Path could get buffed, shade could get buffed, hell, the other morph of cripple could gain damage and lose its speed changes, or the other morph of agony could be made to plop out a small ground aoe that lasts 12 seconds. PvPers wouldn't bat an eye at any of those changes, but you'd get your dps buffs. Everyone's happy, and mageblade doesn't become even more of a trash can class than it already is in PvP.

First of all, I do understand. Assuming that I don't understand how the core burst ability to Magicka Nightblade functions simply because I am discussing its issues in sustained dps absolutely has zero correlation to burst pve or pvp scenarios. To clarify, since this is a forum page where people struggle with public dungeons and you will obviously want an example, yes in a situation where you are fighting a player, and for example, use a meteor, then wait one second, fear, then shoot merciless without reapplying it to use another ability takes some refinement over where an ordinary or mediocre nightblade would immediately reapply it after this. Yes, in a short fight, such as the ones found mostly in vma or in other areas such as bursting down an add like a suneater you would not want to reapply merciless, and that requires an educated decision to increase your performance.

Please do not condescend me in your unfounded belief that I do not understand this class. Yes, I know what this change would entail, and yes, it would make some scenarios less complicated, but you are most definitely exaggerating the level of experience and strategy it requires to make a decision such as the one you complain we would lose. If either suggested change were to be made, it would be a significant improvement in the mechanics of the ability.

Ironically, and somewhat off topic, you tried to condescend and belittle what I knew about this class by stating I thought it was too complicated (which is definitely not the point of this post and I encourage you to work on your reading comprehension skills), but you literally used cloak as an example of something that a player of the ability you perceive that I have to find overpowered. That's really cute. Cloak has probably been on of the most unreliable and weakest abilities in a non bomblades toolkit for half of a year, and is used by zero top tier magicka nightblades in duels.

Finally, yes I do agree that a change to an ability like Twisting Path would have less impact on pvp and would be a less controversial ability to change for them in pve. Seriously though, naming yourself Nightblademechanics doesn't and most definitely didn't grant you the ultimate opinion on the changes here, and while I regret resorting to a negative interaction with another player, you went too out of your way to be derogatory for me to avoid it. I do not have "trouble" with Merciless Resolve either, I just do not believe it is a well designed ability in comparison to Crystal Fragments.

Except that is is beautifully and deliberately designed the way it is. It works smoothly and has perfect checks in place to compensate the fact that it is one of the highest damage single target nukes in the game. It just has complicated mechanics, drawing PvEers like yourself to target it when complaining about mageblade's low dps.

If you understand class balance so well, then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place? That is where your arguments will all fall apart. I condescend to you because you are yet another in a long line of PvEers making the same tired, uninformed, and poorly thought out suggestion to help mageblade dps. Your idea is not new, you are not special, and the fact that you came up with this idea on your own and thought it worth proposing here shows me that you play the game in a bubble. Balancing should not be done from a bubble.

Edit: I wrote balancing isn't done in a bubble, but then I realized that much of ZOS' internal balance testing is actually done in a bubble on their internal server.

It being complicated again has nothing to do with my complaint. It having to be casted two times to deal damage once halving it's damage per use is my complaint, so please do not generalize my complaint with some other group of people that you probably had a very circular and non-constructive argument with (I can already see that's where this is leading, you are obviously just a special snowflake and over-exaggerate the complexity of this class because it helps sate your ego) leading to no where. I already made a suggestion, so did someone else, maybe you should try to read and understand those suggestions before going nuclear about how the game is being dumbed down. My suggestion isn't a new one? That's not surprising, maybe that's because it actually makes sense, that's typically how things go, don't they?

If your argument truly is "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of increasing PvE dps without encroaching on important PvP mechanics in the first place", then I'm not even going to continue replying to you because you are an idiot. That goes both ways, I could easily say something just as stupid by stating "then why not suggest a better idea which achieves your goal of maintaining a 'complex and skillful playstyle' without damaging single target dps and their overall usefulness in PvE in the first place". I could even stoop to your level even further derailing the point of this post and mimic your semantics by asking you to define what important pvp mechanics are and how is Merciless Resolve's awkward design relevant to them, but I won't because your an idiot. I gave more than one suggestion too, and like I said as well, I have pvped plenty on Magicka Nightblade, and I can already tell you know little about that too ironically enough, if you are playing a cloak build using Merciless Resolve unless you are some kind of gank build comboing with Merciless and Heavy Attacks.

sigh... eso forums

The double cast is part of its complexity. You can't separate the two just to try to back-peddle out of a lost argument.

Speculating about my past debates is pointless. Go read them yourself. I have gone into much more detail about mageblade micro mechanics in past discussions.

Your suggestion isn't a new one because it's an easy conclusion to come to. "Oh no, this ability is difficult. Nerf it!" There's a reason ZOS doesn't take community votes on balance issues.

I already made my suggestions to increase class dps while maintaining mechanical depth in this thread -- buff path and shade dps, and rework malefic wreath and debilitate into strong PvE-oriented dots. Read please. I gave more detailed suggestions for those ability reworks in the last PTS discussions. Or it might have even been the One Tamriel PTS. It's been a long time.

I already explained why merciless' mechanics are important to PvP play patterns, but I can elaborate. Assassin's will does lots of damage. Therefore, assassin's will needs a mechanical limitation to keep you from spamming it instead of swallow soul. The 4 light attacks serve to space your procs apart by several seconds, and having to recast the buff to access another proc puts a one global cooldown stall on your momentum in the fight. Momentum is very important to the mageblade play style. Seeing as you just fired off one of the strongest nukes in the game, you're likely to have strong momentum after using assassin's will. It would snowball your momentum and control of the fight if you could simply fire another assassin's will a few seconds after the last...over and over and over with no pause. The recast forces a slight pause which makes you relieve pressure on the opponent for a second. That may seem insignificant for you, but the result in PvP is making the mageblade value each proc as a one shot, one kill sort of mechanic instead of an I-shoot-this-every-4-seconds machine gun of 20k crits.

For comparison, frag's limiting mechanic is rng. You know frag has a pretty generous proc chance, but you never really know when it's going to proc. This causes players to value frags more than if it were "procs after every third ability," saving each one for just the right moment to fire.

The unpredictability of a frag proc works in the sorc kit because the rest of his combo is telegraphed to the opponent via curse's timer. He pew pews casually until a frag procs, and then he sets up a combo. Mageblades, however, do not have telegraphed burst. The mageblade's combo is always ready to go as long as the assassin's will is primed. Making the merciless proc predictably allows the mageblade to plan his combos moves in advance -- in other words, in fast paced fights, the nightblade can still keep track of his merciless procs before they even happen and plan to fire off combos immediately as the merciless procs, or even plan his light attack weaves in his combo such that the merciless procs at just the time he needs to fire it. If rng were involved, he would not be able to do this, and the mageblade play style would become much slower and clunkier.

Using psychology to balance powerful ability mechanics and create unique play patterns. lol There really is an elegance to it.

But I'm worst mageblade NA. What do I know?

Edit: mageblade ganker trying to combo stuff with merciless? Ew...good luck with that.

Yeah... You're only talking Magblades here. But stamblades also use Relentless focus in PvE (or do they? its so terrible that most don't bother). What's your suggestion for making this ability viable for both NB specs in both PvE and PvP? See you only talk about magblades and how giving them extra class DoTs will just solve the issue, but the issue isn't just magblade. Its both specs of the class that are underperforming compared to all other classes. Aside from the execute and Grim Focus, there's nothing that both specs use as class skills. So a quick and easy buff to both specs in PvE is to just buff the abilities that both specs use. The execute is almost fine as it is. So that leaves Grim Focus.

You are absolutely right. I know mageblade a bit better, so that's the perspective I was talking from. However, I should always address both stamina and magicka class issues in balance discussions.

Hmmm let's spin this so it accommodates stamblade too.

On the one hand, all stamina damage is lower than magicka damage on average, right? Therefore some non-class buffs are warranted. ZOS has changed caltrops. I think changes to trapping webs could be promising as well. I have been meaning to make a post on that, actually...

As for class changes, ZOS could rework both malefic wreath and debilitate into stamina dots, and buff twisting path and shade for magicka. They could buff the damage of relentless too. Stamblade does not use relentless in its rotation because the damage is lower than on merciless and not worth fitting in. That proc is hardly ever used in PvP either since surprise attack's damage is already so high. I could get behind buffing assassin's scourge a bit. Stamblade builds would gain a whole new dimension of play.

thankyourat wrote: »

@NightbladeMechanics I feel like increasing the timer or making it permanent until use would only be a buff for solo PvP. 1v1 I don't really think it needs a buff I've killed people in under 5 seconds with it in duels. Solo open world though if I'll taking alot of pressure and need to reposition too often sometimes it's hard to find any use of the ability. (This concept changes for me if I have at least one other person with me though)

I think magblade is a difficult class to balance because of merciless. If you buff merciless to where magblades are casting bows with a uptime that rivals spammable dps the class will be too strong. On the flip side if you buff spammable dps to where a magblade can kill players without merciless then magblade would be too strong because it would have merciless as overkill.

I think making the change of the buff timer on grim focus would make it to where merciless isn't too strong. (cause honestly it's up all the time in 1v1 anyway I won't speak for anyone else but I know once I fire the bow if my opponent isn't in execute range I immediately recast it). You would still have than one shot one kill sort of gameplay where you still need to time it with other abilities and if you waste it you would have to rebuild it. I think this would feel more like a quality of life change than an actual buff.

I think the only other option would be too increase the damage of all the dots a magblade has to increase pressure without increasing The spammable dps. This way merciless wouldn't be such overkill as it would be if say concealed weapon got a damage increase (concealed does need a cost decrease though)

I mean, sure ZOS could buff the timer and let you hold your proc indefinitely. I just don't see how that would "fix" mageblade's core issues in PvP or PvE. I just don't think that buff would actually change anything.

And there's the question of what happens if you hold the proc for longer than the buff duration would typically last. Do you keep your minor berserk after firing the proc, or does the buff fall off? If you keep it, then for how long? Does the buff timer stop ticking when procced? It all just seems...unnecessary to me compared to dealing with snares and roots and PvE dps deficiencies.

I would prefer to see twisting path's damage buffed, shade's damage buffed, refreshing path made to give allies major expedition, double take granting momentary snare and root immunity, and other changes that impact day to day gameplay more strongly.

Oh here's a random idea. What if they made the double shade morph more aggressive? One shade stays the same, a dark grey-red color applying minor maim as usual. The other shade, however, could be a dark blue-grey color and apply a damage debuff like minor vulnerability or minor fracture + breach. In the case of the minor penetration debuffs, it would need to apply both to be usable by both stam and magicka nightblade, encourage hybrid builds, and provide more utility for PvE. Thoughts on that?

thankyourat wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

thankyourat wrote: »

@NightbladeMechanics I feel like increasing the timer or making it permanent until use would only be a buff for solo PvP. 1v1 I don't really think it needs a buff I've killed people in under 5 seconds with it in duels. Solo open world though if I'll taking alot of pressure and need to reposition too often sometimes it's hard to find any use of the ability. (This concept changes for me if I have at least one other person with me though)

I think magblade is a difficult class to balance because of merciless. If you buff merciless to where magblades are casting bows with a uptime that rivals spammable dps the class will be too strong. On the flip side if you buff spammable dps to where a magblade can kill players without merciless then magblade would be too strong because it would have merciless as overkill.

I think making the change of the buff timer on grim focus would make it to where merciless isn't too strong. (cause honestly it's up all the time in 1v1 anyway I won't speak for anyone else but I know once I fire the bow if my opponent isn't in execute range I immediately recast it). You would still have than one shot one kill sort of gameplay where you still need to time it with other abilities and if you waste it you would have to rebuild it. I think this would feel more like a quality of life change than an actual buff.

I think the only other option would be too increase the damage of all the dots a magblade has to increase pressure without increasing The spammable dps. This way merciless wouldn't be such overkill as it would be if say concealed weapon got a damage increase (concealed does need a cost decrease though)

I mean, sure ZOS could buff the timer and let you hold your proc indefinitely. I just don't see how that would "fix" mageblade's core issues in PvP or PvE. I just don't think that buff would actually change anything.

And there's the question of what happens if you hold the proc for longer than the buff duration would typically last. Do you keep your minor berserk after firing the proc, or does the buff fall off? If you keep it, then for how long? Does the buff timer stop ticking when procced? It all just seems...unnecessary to me compared to dealing with snares and roots and PvE dps deficiencies.

I would prefer to see twisting path's damage buffed, shade's damage buffed, refreshing path made to give allies major expedition, double take granting momentary snare and root immunity, and other changes that impact day to day gameplay more strongly.

Oh here's a random idea. What if they made the double shade morph more aggressive? One shade stays the same, a dark grey-red color applying minor maim as usual. The other shade, however, could be a dark blue-grey color and apply a damage debuff like minor vulnerability or minor fracture + breach. In the case of the minor penetration debuffs, it would need to apply both to be usable by both stam and magicka nightblade, encourage hybrid builds, and provide more utility for PvE. Thoughts on that?

All of those changes would be higher on my list of things to change as well. with merciless being close to the bottom. everyone was arguing over grim focus so I thought I would join in lol. Adding snare and root immunity to blur would be my number 1 change as well as making shade not require a target. I'm also dying for a reason to use agony over flame clench or fear. The other morph to shade could be cool if I wanted to play a tankier magblade I would definitely use it on my fasallas build.

What I been saying since last patch is increase the dot damage on agony to rival crippling grasp and make it do a small amount of up front damage and increase the execute threshold of impale to atleast 35%, and for all magblade dots to be applied to multiple targets at a time. If this was done I don't think merciless would have to be touched at all

Shade not requiring a target might be op since part of shade's power is balanced by how telegraphed it is...but it would be SO fun to be able to place one outside of the enemy's range of view, or in preparation for a gank or something. I'd vote yes on that change, but I'd brace for nerfs. lol

Omg agony... Poor, poor agony... I love that skill. So much potential squandered by the fact that any little dot tick will break the cc before you can do anything with it. Cripple, path, entropy, flame reach, any ally damage.....like, come on ZOS. At the very least, agony needs a minimum damage threshold before the cc breaks, like fossilize, except both of those abilities' thresholds should be slightly higher than fossilize's current one imo. Agony does still go through block, so at least we still have that.