Nightblade Siphoning Attack nerf (DKs/Templars, we're in the same boat).

kadar · April 2017

A friend is in PTS atm looking at the new Siphoning Strikes. Currently Siphoning Attacks does this:

After the "change":

Leeching Strikes (Siphoning Strikes morph): This morph now converts the ability into a Stamina ability and causes your Light and Heavy Attacks to restore Stamina based on your character level.
Siphoning Attacks (Siphoning Strikes morph): This morph now causes your Light and Heavy Attacks to also restore Magicka based on your character level.
Increased the duration of this ability and its morphs to 20 seconds from 15 seconds.

My initial thought was, okay neat-- that's a buff. We'll get our primary resource + health to compensate for NB's meh healing. Turns out: the current value for health return is ~1495, and for Stamina (Magicka) it's ~356.... That is 1/3rd the primary resource return of the current live version and the heal proc is halved in Cryodiil. In addition, the last clause that adds an additional 10% chance to proc for further resource return on direct damage attacks is removed.

Based on this information, the resource management nerfs to Templar and DK make a lot more sense. Nightblade is right there with you guys (Sorcs are MIA this round of nerfs?). I'm not sure this ability will be worth slotting after the update, much require further testing I suppose. I'm generally in support of the sustain-nerf trend that ZOS is on, but it's A LOT at once... Once again, are sweeping, dramatic, systemic nerfs/changes really good for this game?

ZOS (can any1 help me out with tags so the right folks at Zeni see this?), Please reevaluate the effectiveness of this ability as a sustain and healing tool. In Cryodiil this is going to net us ~700 health per light attack. That's less than 700 HPS when weaving perfectly, and in any practical scenario, far less than that. Nightblades are in need of better healing, but this iteration of this ability will not do much to help improve overall surviveability (the stated purpose for this change).

UPDATE: The second wave of PTS changes brought us:

Shadow Barrier: Increased this passive ability’s base duration of Major Ward and Major Resolve to 3/6 seconds from 2/4 seconds.
Developer Comments:
Increasing the duration of this passive’s bonuses will improve the overall survivability of Nightblades. Heavy Armor, tank-focused Nightblades in particular should have a much smoother time maintaining nearly consistent uptime on these buffs with a combinations of abilities such as Refreshing Path or Summon Shades.

Siphoning Strikes: Fixed an issue where the heal from this ability and its morphs could not critically strike.

arkansas_ESO · April 2017

@Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

kadar · April 2017

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

@Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Arigato, Senpai.

Vapirko · April 2017

I really dont think there was a sustain problem in Cyrodiil other than relating to CP. Azura's Star is fine. There are no unkillable builds. But instead we get a CP raise. ok.

bubbygink · April 2017

If it is only going to be restoring 350ish magicka per LA then it will probably take 7-8 LAs to even cover the cost it took to cast Siphoning Attacks. This is going to crush our sustain. 750 health per LA in PvP will be nice for sure but this is a massive nerf for magblade which was already in a tough spot. Our great sustain had been one of our few advantages over Mag Sorc and other classes.

Our sustain was nerfed far more than any other classes. SA used to give about 1300 resources per LA when factoring in the 10% chance for extra restore. Now we only get about 25% of that. That is a HUGE nerf.

Subversus · April 2017

@bubbygink exactly. And it's not like they didn't keep poking our sustain for the past 2 patches...

getemshauna · April 2017

Nightblade has no good sides after this patch.

NightbladeMechanics · April 2017

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/336539/proposed-alternative-to-the-siphoning-attacks-leeching-strikes-changes-and-why

Durham · April 2017

Lol Stam DK was wiped out ....Magicka DK less so.... so I feel ya

arkansas_ESO · April 2017

Vapirko wrote: »

I really dont think there was a sustain problem in Cyrodiil other than relating to CP. Azura's Star is fine. There are no unkillable builds. But instead we get a CP raise. ok.

I agree--I feel like ZOS could have just removed cost reduction and regen CP and then maybe given heavy's Constitution a slight nerf, or given the 1h&s ulti a slightly higher cost, and called it good. Instead we've gotten sweeping changes, and now ZOS is going to have to spend most of this PTS cycle putting out the fires they've just created instead of fixing long-standing issues.

kadar · April 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/336539/proposed-alternative-to-the-siphoning-attacks-leeching-strikes-changes-and-why

Awesome, will read!

NightbladeMechanics · April 2017

The_Outsider wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/336539/proposed-alternative-to-the-siphoning-attacks-leeching-strikes-changes-and-why

Awesome, will read!

Just my take on the change

kadar · April 2017

bubbygink wrote: »

If it is only going to be restoring 350ish magicka per LA then it will probably take 7-8 LAs to even cover the cost it took to cast Siphoning Attacks. This is going to crush our sustain. 750 health per LA in PvP will be nice for sure but this is a massive nerf for magblade which was already in a tough spot. Our great sustain had been one of our few advantages over Mag Sorc and other classes.

Our sustain was nerfed far more than any other classes. SA used to give about 1300 resources per LA when factoring in the 10% chance for extra restore. Now we only get about 25% of that. That is a HUGE nerf.

Yup, this skill wasn't even cut in half, it was reduced to less than 1/3rd it's previous resource return...Why should we use it when it takes so long even recover the cost of casting it in the first place? And for Stamblades it's no longer even a usefull Magicka dump now that it costs your primary resource to restore you primary...

hesobad · April 2017

Siphoning Strikes:
This ability now causes your Light and Heavy Attacks to restore Health instead of Magicka or Stamina.
Increased the duration of this ability and its morphs to 20 seconds from 15 seconds.
Developer Comments:
Spoilerhide
This is a significant reduction to the Magicka and Stamina restored by these abilities, but the addition of Health restore should give Nightblades more healing to improve their survivability.

LMFAO this is a joke right??? How is nerfing their resource sustain going to help them survive?? No resources = dead Nightblade... RIP nightblades, hope you all had fun in vMA. That's dead and gone now!

Dragath · April 2017

as a mdk i'd like to create a character with 6 arms, 6 legs and 2 heads, so i can wear enough sets to sustain when morrowind hits the live servers.
the changes are to severe overall.

kadar · April 2017

hesobad wrote: »

Siphoning Strikes:
Developer Comments:
Spoilerhide
This is a significant reduction to the Magicka and Stamina restored by these abilities, but the addition of Health restore should give Nightblades more healing to improve their survivability.

How is nerfing their resource sustain going to help them survive?? No resources = dead Nightblade... RIP nightblades

Right, and this is one of the major reasons I think the new version of this skill needs tweaking: It simply will have no effect on survivability, especially in Cyrodiil where NB is really hurting for it.

Siphoning's cool and unique return of your secondary resource pool actually improved our survivability. mNBs were able to used their improved Stamina gain to block/dodge/CC break occassionally allowing them to use food or glyphs to try to close the power gap between them and the other Magicka classes. Stamina NBs used their increased Magicka return to improve utility through buff management, CC, and Shades.

I was willing to trade that for healing! But that was before I saw how low the new health/resource values are, and that the health is cut by BattleSpirit and can't crit.

NightbladeMechanics · April 2017

The more I think about this change and digest the patch notes as a whole, the more worried I become. I need to get on pts and play it out.

FrancisCrawford · April 2017

gethemshauna wrote: »

Nightblade has no good sides after this patch.

Especially if Concealed Weapon no longer takes you above 100% of base footspeed. (Assuming Night's Silence/Vampire/whatever.) Concealed Weapon and Cloak, taken together, are exactly what make Nightblade thieves fun to play.

It seems that a huge fraction of what I've been enjoying in this game is to be removed.

Pinging @Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom in the hope that one of them will confirm/disconfirm whether thief fun is being taken out of the game.

kadar · April 2017

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

gethemshauna wrote: »

Nightblade has no good sides after this patch.

Especially if Concealed Weapon no longer takes you above 100% of base footspeed. (Assuming Night's Silence/Vampire/whatever.) Concealed Weapon and Cloak, taken together, are exactly what make Nightblade thieves fun to play.

It seems that a huge fraction of what I've been enjoying in this game is to be removed.

Pinging @Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom in the hope that one of them will confirm/disconfirm whether thief fun is being taken out of the game.

Could you link the note/comment you're referencing? I haven't heard of this one.

NightbladeMechanics · April 2017

The_Outsider wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

gethemshauna wrote: »

Nightblade has no good sides after this patch.

Especially if Concealed Weapon no longer takes you above 100% of base footspeed. (Assuming Night's Silence/Vampire/whatever.) Concealed Weapon and Cloak, taken together, are exactly what make Nightblade thieves fun to play.

It seems that a huge fraction of what I've been enjoying in this game is to be removed.

Pinging @Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom in the hope that one of them will confirm/disconfirm whether thief fun is being taken out of the game.

Could you link the note/comment you're referencing? I haven't heard of this one.

Same. What's changing with Concealed?

bubbygink · April 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

The more I think about this change and digest the patch notes as a whole, the more worried I become. I need to get on pts and play it out.

@NightbladeMechanics Let us console peasants know how the changes play out on PTS (assuming you mean the regular PTS and not the whole top secret NDA one).

I just don't know what I am going to run in no-cp battlegrounds that will allow me to compete. I just don't know what advantage a Magblade has over a Mag Sorc now. I'd like to try out 2 Pirate Skelly + 5 Necro + 5 Lich with trifood - so really just switching out clever for lich and witchmothers for trifood from my current build. But I'm not sure the sustain would be there. I suppose I could utilize both siphoning attacks and elemental drain. I could use a recovery or cost reduction jewelry glyph but then my spell damage would get very low. I hate using Atro mundus because it is so inefficient compared to thief or shadow but it may be something I end up considering.

Since I can't use PTS I am going to try out some builds in Azura's without using siphoning attacks and instead using ele drain (since that currently offers similar resource return to what SA will in Morrowind) to approximate the Battleground environment for next patch. I'll be sure to share if I find any combinations that I feel work.

Rianai · April 2017

I guess he is refering to this:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*]Fixed an issue where abilities and bonuses that allow you to ignore the Movement Speed penalty from sneak would stack, causing you to sneak at extremely high speeds.

It only mentiones the sneak movement penalty, not additional speed buffs, so it shouldn't affect concealed weapon, but who knows ...

kadar · April 2017

Rianai wrote: »

I guess he is refering to this:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*]Fixed an issue where abilities and bonuses that allow you to ignore the Movement Speed penalty from sneak would stack, causing you to sneak at extremely high speeds.

It only mentiones the sneak movement penalty, not additional speed buffs, so it shouldn't affect concealed weapon, but who knows ...

Hmmm. I may try to test it to see later tonight. If I can ever clear enough space to DL this damn PTS. 80 GB of free space?! Damn....lol.

ljb2k5_ESO · April 2017

If the sustain problem needed addressing why not try some smaller changes first? Changing it this much is super drastic, and tips the problem from sustain flood to sustain drought, and since ZOS is attacking this issue with so many changes, they won't be able to rationally and accurately identify at which point they went too far. Consider it like a science experiment, where you have a single variable and a control, they will have no idea which changes worked or which ones created a new problem, because they changed way too many variables to try to correct this problem.

Also was the sustain problem equally bad for all classes? Stamina builds look gutted here, were they all problematic? This isn't a good move. Even if you like the direction, you can't honestly think ZOS going 200 mph headlong at it thus making a new, and likely worse, problem instead of a solution is sensible. Not to mention it completely devalues all the effort people have been putting into their builds for however long.

Changes are better made with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.

kadar · April 2017

ljb2k5_ESO wrote: »

If the sustain problem needed addressing why not try some smaller changes first? Changing it this much is super drastic, and tips the problem from sustain flood to sustain drought, and since ZOS is attacking this issue with so many changes, they won't be able to rationally and accurately identify at which point they went too far. Consider it like a science experiment, where you have a single variable and a control, they will have no idea which changes worked or which ones created a new problem, because they changed way too many variables to try to correct this problem.

Also was the sustain problem equally bad for all classes? Stamina builds look gutted here, were they all problematic? This isn't a good move. Even if you like the direction, you can't honestly think ZOS going 200 mph headlong at it thus making a new, and likely worse, problem instead of a solution is sensible. Not to mention it completely devalues all the effort people have been putting into their builds for however long.

Changes are better made with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.

Agreed 100%. Unfortunately that isn't how ZOS balances their game. Given that, I'm hoping to raise awareness enough (in the player base and the devs) that these changes get looked at again and tweaked (positively) before the update goes live.

kadar · April 2017

Updated OP to include 1st PTS update changes.

Solnai · April 2017

I would suggest everyone who is concerned about the proposed changes to NB actually log on the PTS and test it out for yourselves. From my own experience (setup Bone Pirate Tatters, Agility Weapons (Weapon Damage enchants). vMA weapons (bow, daggers, maul) and using the drink from the Jester Festival) I really didn't run into too many issues with sustain (testing done a target skeleton). I still want to test a few things out in vMA and with other content but to be honest the changes aren't crippling to the class at all from what I've seen so far. I plan to do some additional testing throughout the week on my magblade and stamblade as well as the other classes I have but once again the PTS is open to everyone except those on consoles. If you are concerned I would log into the PTS and test for yourself.

NightbladeMechanics · April 2017

Solnai wrote: »

I would suggest everyone who is concerned about the proposed changes to NB actually log on the PTS and test it out for yourselves. From my own experience (setup Bone Pirate Tatters, Agility Weapons (Weapon Damage enchants). vMA weapons (bow, daggers, maul) and using the drink from the Jester Festival) I really didn't run into too many issues with sustain (testing done a target skeleton). I still want to test a few things out in vMA and with other content but to be honest the changes aren't crippling to the class at all from what I've seen so far. I plan to do some additional testing throughout the week on my magblade and stamblade as well as the other classes I have but once again the PTS is open to everyone except those on consoles. If you are concerned I would log into the PTS and test for yourself.

That build wouldn't use Siphoning Attacks on live either. Why should we expect a high regen drink stamblade build to need it?

The Siphoning Attacks changes are relevant to brawly stamblades and mageblades with lower regen builds. Speak from their perspectives.

Also I'll point out before someone says "well just build more regen" that a high regen mageblade build won't kill people unless the patch really guts sustain and forces everyone into light and medium armor with high sustain builds. That's entirely possible, but we don't know for sure yet. I will also add that if that turns out to be the case, mageblade build and play style uniqueness is out the window. We'll basically be building like sorcs, and playing like sorcs who don't use mines, wards, or streak. At least those of us who choose not to relegate ourselves to bombing and ganking, which is hardly PvP in the first place.

kadar · April 2017

Solnai wrote: »

I would suggest everyone who is concerned about the proposed changes to NB actually log on the PTS and test it out for yourselves. From my own experience (setup Bone Pirate Tatters, Agility Weapons (Weapon Damage enchants). vMA weapons (bow, daggers, maul) and using the drink from the Jester Festival) I really didn't run into too many issues with sustain (testing done a target skeleton). I still want to test a few things out in vMA and with other content but to be honest the changes aren't crippling to the class at all from what I've seen so far. I plan to do some additional testing throughout the week on my magblade and stamblade as well as the other classes I have but once again the PTS is open to everyone except those on consoles. If you are concerned I would log into the PTS and test for yourself.

I agree it's important to test these things. But this post is more about the Siphoning Attacks skill itself than overall Nightblade performance. I'm sure NBs will be quite functional after the update.

The issue is, the new SA is horrendous on paper, providing abyssmally low sustain and healing. In any practical scenario SA will be even worse because it requires you to successfully land light/heavy attacks to get any benefit. In addition it now costs your primary resource to gain back small amounts of primary resource meaning there is a payment period where you will just try to recover the cost of casting the skill itself. Miss a single light attack for any reason (mechanics, CC, roll, shuffle, repositioning) and that period will be very long indeed. And then there's the opportunity cost of slotting/using the skill at all.