DerpyShadowz wrote: »

Mag Nightblade FotM in PvE

LiquidPony wrote: »

Mordenkainen wrote: »

So instead of buffing the NBs magicka skills a little to make them PvE-wise just a little more viable compared to literally any other class.

We get 1 more required attack to fire Assassins Will. And the change of being able to fire it multiple times from a single cast is so braindead it hurts reading this.

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

Yes, let's add more complication to the class that already requires you to have parkinson to play it effectively. A+ Horse dung.

How do you imagine NB players ZOS? Do we have to drink 50 cans of energy drinks a day to play this class 'right' ?

Seriously, if you want your players to do this weaving *** more and more with each patch, fix its animation hiccups.

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

NBs? We need to do the light attack weaving *** dance for about half of the performance of a skill another class needs to push only 1 button for. Getting the spectral bow also takes ages compared to just press the crystal frags button.

And those 8% from minor berserk the skill grants not even remotely evens this out. If it would, people would actually ask for NBs for trials.

@Mordenkainen ... ... I just almost can't even ...

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

You got a source for that?

Yolo sorc parse, where the max frag proc was a little over 50k:
http://image.prntscr.com/image/50d05e9517704ad58a77e5a668384d02.png

Magblade parse, same boss, where the max Assasin's Will proc was 61k (and the buff/debuff uptime is much worse in this group):
https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32790959/vmol_boss1_46k.png

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

This sounds like a L2P issue. Weaving is important for many game mechanics. Siphoning, Spectral Bow, Maelstrom staves, BSW/Scathing uptime, etc. If you can't weave, then roll a heavy attack build.

Sorcs are preferred over magblades because: Liquid Lightning, Volatile Familiar, and Ward. Nothing to do with Frag procs.

VierulSquirrel wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

Some target dummy numbers:

Lightning heavy attacks take 2.5 seconds to fully channel
With 75 points in Tenacity, they restore 4140 Magicka, equaling 1656 per second, or an additional 828 Magicka regen while spamming heavy attacks.

Fire heavy attacks take 2.18 seconds to fully charge
With 75 points in Tenacity, they restore 3218 Magicka, equaling 1476 per second, or an additional 738 Magicka regen while spamming heavy attacks.

It also seems like Lightning heavy attacks still do more overall damage than fire, though I'm using a template Sorc, so my numbers could be skewed.

I like how you didn't even mention frost staves because in their current state they are a joke. Fix them or take them out completely

t3hdubzy wrote: »

Has anyone tried cloak on a stamblade in pts with no cost reduction? I can get 3 maybe 4 right now if i run prismatic glyphs, but with a lot of points in cost reduction.

Draqone wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

So I just read all nine pages too see what the feedback was... yeah that was about 90% people whining with nothing useful and 10% actually useful feedback.

Now I remember why I never read these threads past page two.

Turelus And there are those like us, whining about people whining!

Turelus wrote: »

Draqone wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

So I just read all nine pages too see what the feedback was... yeah that was about 90% people whining with nothing useful and 10% actually useful feedback.

Now I remember why I never read these threads past page two.

Turelus And there are those like us, whining about people whining!

Kinda yeah, was more a statement of how much I hate these threads because I hate people. I have played a lot of MMO games, I have seen a lot of radical changes and I don't ever remember seeing a community this whiny.

Turelus wrote: »

Draqone wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Draqone wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

So I just read all nine pages too see what the feedback was... yeah that was about 90% people whining with nothing useful and 10% actually useful feedback.

Now I remember why I never read these threads past page two.

Turelus And there are those like us, whining about people whining!

Kinda yeah, was more a statement of how much I hate these threads because I hate people. I have played a lot of MMO games, I have seen a lot of radical changes and I don't ever remember seeing a community this whiny.

EVE Online.

Actually it was better than this. I mean there were complaints with stuff like the Jump Changes and Fozzie Sov and clearly angry people but over all there were less post which were this bad.
Generally there were a lot of good posts and critical questions which CCP would answer over the threads, might have changed in the last year since I stopped posting/reading but yeah, this is worse.

Astrid_V wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

So... You'll make another changes, and won't allow us to first test it on PTS, report bugs and give feedback about it because all these changes will go straight into Live server...?

Oh jeez.

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

General

• Increased the damage of Light Attacks by 15%.
• Decreased the damage of Heavy Attacks by 15%.
• Increased the resources restored by fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 30%.
• Reduced the cast time of fully-charged Bow Heavy Attacks by 10%.
• Reduced the cast time of fully-charged Flame and Frost Heavy Attacks by 12.5%.
  Developer Comments:
  There are two goals with all the changes listed above. First, we want the damage difference between Light Attack weaving and Heavy Attack weaving to be more prominent. Light Attacks should be the clear winner when you are trying to maximize damage per second, while Heavy Attacks should deal less damage per second in exchange for restoring resources.
  
  Second, we want to speed up some of the slowest Heavy Attacks while also increasing the amount of resources all Heavy Attacks restore. This should improve the combat feel of winding up some of the slower Heavy Attacks, while also allowing all builds to restore their resources faster and with less Heavy Attacks needed.

So, Obviously my old school medium attack weave build just got a 30% nerf relative to a light attack build here. That probably comes out to something like a 3k dps swing between those who use light attacks (most folks) and those with medium attacks. Light was already a bit higher dps so I am not sure what motivation of this is. The only real advantage to medium attacks was that on funnel health, which has a slower animation than other spamables, you got a little more damage on the medium charge to offset a bit the cost of the slow cast time. So, for a few mNB's this is a class nerf as well as an utter destruction of the basis of every build you ever had since 1.5 and all the timings you learned. RIP me

As for the cast time changes. It looks like they go from ~2.2 to ~1.9 seconds. This is probably aimed at making frost tanking a little faster and flame staffs a little more competitive with shock in the full heavy portion of the rotation now required. This will not work as I understand shock restores magica on every tick so it is much better if you have to interrupt a full heavy to deal with a mechanic as you will still get some resources back. I certainly think that a shock / fire build is probably best for everything now if it wasn't already. The only reason I did fire / fire was medium attacks and that is not a thing anymore.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Nightblade

• Assassination
  • Grim Focus:
    • You can now fire multiple Assassin’s Will or Assassin’s Scourge bow procs from a single cast of this ability and its morphs.
    • Increased the amount of Light or Heavy Attacks needed to obtain an Assassin’s Will or Assassin’s Scourge bow proc to 5 attacks from 4.
  • Merciless Resolve (Grim Focus morph): Reduced the duration of the snare from this morph’s Assassin’s Will bow proc to 3 seconds from 5 seconds.
    Developer Comments:
    Allowing you to fire multiple Assassin’s Will procs from a single cast of Grim Focus should streamline the ability usage by eliminating the need to recast it early. We’ve increased the amount of attacks needed to obtain a proc slightly, but the net result should be an increase in Nightblade PvE DPS with the extra global cooldowns.

So focus is actually even trickier to use now as there is something extra to keep track of and it must be front barred. I say extra to keep track of because the duration of focus didn't used to matter. You simply recast it once every rotation of whichever DOT you put it on the bar with. It was kind of like a choose your own duration DOT except it functioned only as a self buff with what amounted to a dps neutral cast. Now you can proc it several times but that does not refresh the cast so you need another buff timing bar up that has another odd duration. It doesn't play very efficiently with twisting path or the 8 second DOTs so I expect you will just go with one extra proc and not try to get too cute with trying to get 2 extra off. This is especially since you have very oddly timed full heavies to fit in. Front bar might be shock staff with focus, twisting, funnel, magelight shield. Back might be flame staff with crippling, impale, wall, magelight and something else where siphoning used to be (maybe shield again.)

As for siphoning, They said in ESO live that it is getting a buff. Realistically, I don't think it will make the bar regardless. If the buff is not enough to make full sustain without channeled heavies being necessary than it really serves no purpose since the full heavy channels will return more than enough resources without it. To make siphoning worth running it would have to be at least it's former strength and that seems pretty unlikely. I just don't think active resource management (ability use, group buffs, and synergizing) is going to be a thing any more. It is simply not efficient and passive resource management (full heavies in your rotation) is very strong and has little dps cost. Yes, I did deliberately word this the opposite of how ZOS did when they used their doubblespeak. The thing is that we really did actively manage resources before in that we changed what we cast and did depending on what our levels are. Now it will be passive in the sense that our stock behavior will always provide plenty of resources. This will not, however, make play easier as the differing ability cast times and rhythms between a full heavy ability sequence and a light attack one will add a lot of complexity especially when rotations feature a bunch of differently timed DOT's and therefore the heavy ability sequences will have to be well timed and dynamic in there placement.

In summery, it looks like mNB will be another bit more complex to play by having another buff timer to have to try to actively manage at odd timings. This will be added to the fact that there will now be full heavy channels and light weaves in the rotation that will feel very different from each other and also land at slightly different timings each rotation. This all adds up to significantly more complexity and therefore player performance divergence (opposite of ZOS stated goal.) This is true of other classes as well though to a lesser extent. As to whether mNB is closer to functional in comparative dps I do not yet know as the sorc pet changes did not happen this update. Without pet giving sorc a gear advantage and another DOT the buffs to mNB might bring it close. I actually think it might be reasonably functional if you perfectly handle the significantly tricky new timings in the rotation. This new rotation is very complex though and will largely have to be relearned from scratch so I am not sure how many will try mNB.

It is astounding how virtually every change has added more layers of complexity of timing to the optimal rotation when ZOS stated goal for some time has been the opposite. When I look at these new half full heavy and half light rotations with all their DOTs and Procs I just think damn, that is some complex stuff. I can't even tell you where in your third 8 second major rotation duration each full heavy and focus proc, will land and if there will be a focus reapply. It boggles the mind. Ideally you are now sinking a 5 attack (cast time will vary), two 8 second, a 11.5 second, and a 20 second cast with full heavies that need to average probably 1 every 15 seconds and are 2.2 seconds (shock staff) long which shouldn't delay any of the other casts. I can't even figure that out on paper. Just think about that. You created this mess.

Anyhow, my build is completely wrecked and I have little desire to continue though yet another complete teardown and rebuild of the basic combat system only to still be up against cheat engine in PVP and PVE.

Not to mention: With the nigh-complete removal of Sustain from the game, you probably won't have enough resources (even with weaving in Heavy Attacks) to complete all of the necessary rotations in order to get everything to fire off correctly.