Autolycus wrote: »

CurvedSwords123 wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

esoub17_ESO30 wrote: »

Autolycus wrote: »

Don't take me the wrong way (I intend a constructive tone here), but why are you intentionally imposing a 2600 cost upon yourself for a 50% chance at getting 2k back? You can just light attack one of the X mobs you have surrounding you and recover 1024 without spending anything. This restores over 10X as much as it costs to block if built properly and can be combined with a skill in the same GCD.

Currently, SA + Sapping twice on a 5 pack is statistically the same resource return as SA + light attacking twice. The difference is that Sap hits everything in short range at once, building damage and heal agro.

Puncture x 5 costs more than double the resource of 1 Sap, takes longer, and requires you to melee each mob. While you're hitting the first 4 mobs, there's a good chance DPS or heals have pulled agro on the 5th mob, so now you're running it down or using Inner Fire to taunt it at range.

Still, my point is not that one method is better than the other... it's that other tanks have an AE agro/CC option that remains viable on test. Ours is basically lost if we're forced to LA for resources. Weather we could manage using single target skills is beside the point since other tanks can do that too.

You really believe Sap is completely useless without a resource proc chance? We have always done light attacks for resources. That comment makes no sense as light attacks are and always have been the core component of NB sustain. As I mentioned in my original post, the proc chance is supplementary and has historically always been overkill when we could sustain literally everything with just light attacks.

Puncture x5 with light attack cancels is more efficient than Sap spam. Puncture for me is approximately 1300 stam cost and a light attack cancel is 1024 restored; multiply both by 5 and take the difference for the net cost, which is just under 1400 stam. So after 6 whole seconds into the pull you are now down only 1400 stamina. It doesn't take any longer to do Pierce + light attack cancel than it does to Sap + light attack, as all are limited to the same global cooldown restrictions. But Puncture also forces aggro and applies Fracture/Breach and affords the same chance at the 10% resource return throughout the process, so if you get a single one of those Punctures to proc it becomes a net gain. The chance on a single Puncture for that proc is a lot lower yes, but it's also half the cost of Sap and provides a lot of utility. There are reasons to do an occasional Sap if you're looking for Sap utility, but that's not the primary objective of tanking. Buffs, debuffs, and aggro are the primary objectives, so to this end, Sap is not a primary tanking utility.

I've been tanking on the PTS in dungeons and trials and I assure you that Sap is still equally as effective as an AoE aggro generator, heal, and damage ability as it has always been. Those NB tanks who have learned to get along without spamming Sap for resources are going to be just fine, but those who don't use light attacking effectively on live are going to have a very difficult time in Morrowind; I've seen this first-hand already. Managing resources on boss fights is actually quite easy; it's the group pulls that hard to manage.

I get that you don't have to agree but I'm telling you how it is on PTS, not what I think is going to happen. I tied it back to how it is on live to demonstrate the gap that needs to be filled, and to help people understand that relying on procs via Sap is not even possible anymore. I'd hoped with this information that those of you relying on this proc chance would take my advice and use the time you have left on live to get used to sustaining without it. I've already made many changes to my build on PTS and begun stress-testing it. Survivability as a NB tank got better (though I don't think it was necessary) but resource management tanked, not because of the loss of that proc chance, but because light attack return values plummeted.

Will that 10% proc chance be missed? Of course it will, it's not like I don't see the value of it, or like I never use it at all. But that's not the primary function of the skill; it is supplementary and unnecessary for us. I would take the light attack component over the proc chance any day. Frankly, if they would just remove the up-front cost of SA and LS on the PTS versions this would be totally okay. If there's an up-front cost then the per-attack return benefit needs to be increased. The proc chance is just whatever, we can easily live without that.

If you're doing so well as an NB tank after Morrowind, how about u disclose ur build?

I've already disclosed my build and maintain it regularly as updates release. You'll have to wait patiently for the "official" update to the guide with all the exact details, as I don't usually update my guide until I've had plenty of time on live to ensure my setup is actually complete. You should already be aware that NBs had changes the day Early Access went live, and this post pre-dates that patch. Some things need to be worked out still, however I can say that I've been doing fine with my current setup under the new constraints already, so anyone looking at this guide and building from it as-is shouldn't have a difficult time with some practice. The fundamentals of NB tanking have not changed, we simply have to monitor our resources more closely.

In the meantime, I've answered a few of the questions people have for me about my thoughts on how to manage these changes already. Feel free to check out my guide for yourself. As always, this simply what I do, and when I designed this guide, I did so with the intent that people could adjust it to their liking, which is why I disclosed so much information about the concepts surrounding the class, rather than just telling everyone exactly what to do and pretending there are no alternative options.

Some preliminary thoughts that haven't made it onto the thread yet include magicka drain poisons and potentially a change in recommended sets, which I haven't finished going through yet. Also, NB sustain is better now since the quoted post due to the changes with Siphoning Strikes acting more like Rally, in that it gives a portion of resources back based on duration of the buff.

The new trial is a different kind of beast to conquer, and how exactly a NB tank fits into the group makeup is going to be different in HoF than in other trials. I'm also simultaneously working on a Warden build, and I may put together a guide for it as well if time permits, especially if I think people will benefit from having it.

Edit: One more thing I forgot to mention is that CP changed pretty dramatically in this update, and my CP allocation got a total makeover. I have a rough draft of all my CP already, but I'm not at home right now to superimpose that to my guide. This post serves as a good reminder to do that, though, so thanks!