Nightblade tanks need some love

RavenSworn · February 2018

You guys might have me sold on the stamina steal idea though its a bit of an overkill don't you think? Leeching strikes + dodge stamina return passive + stamina steal shades. That would prove to be quite a combo for Stam blades dps, especially in pvp.

However, I wouldn't want to have all the tools of a tank or at least what is expected of a tank be handed to the nb. I want a nb tank to be excellent at certain parts of tanking but needing perhaps gear or perhaps a different weapon skill to complement the build. Homogeneous skills does not diversity make. If a nb tank needs to be slightly selfish in terms of tanking so be it as long as its viable for endgame.

aeowulf · February 2018

both would be too much, but ultimately it depends on the values they get back from them - if both only returned 1 stamina, then no, if either returned too much, then too much.

I prefer the idea of dodge because it helps just NB tanks a lot more than the other roles. Don't get me wrong, i do love all the other ideas, but they may help other NB roles too much. Also stamina steal does not help NB healer, and they may need help? no clue there on the state of that role. I think the targeting it the main issue with MO...

There are literally a ton of options, they could even make our shades proc SA - it's borderline buggy they don't if you read the description :P (The shades are mine, and thus their light attacks are also mine - that's a stretch though...)

But again, any changes need to be balanced correctly and too much in one direction would lead to more balance issues elsewhere. Which I think is the crux of the issues around PvE/PvP and all roles therein. All I know is with most balance changes come a seemingly lessening of class uniqueness, which should be avoided where possible.

RavenSworn · February 2018

aeowulf wrote: »

both would be too much, but ultimately it depends on the values they get back from them - if both only returned 1 stamina, then no, if either returned too much, then too much.

I prefer the idea of dodge because it helps just NB tanks a lot more than the other roles. Don't get me wrong, i do love all the other ideas, but they may help other NB roles too much. Also stamina steal does not help NB healer, and they may need help? no clue there on the state of that role. I think the targeting it the main issue with MO...

There are literally a ton of options, they could even make our shades proc SA - it's borderline buggy they don't if you read the description :P (The shades are mine, and thus their light attacks are also mine - that's a stretch though...)

But again, any changes need to be balanced correctly and too much in one direction would lead to more balance issues elsewhere. Which I think is the crux of the issues around PvE/PvP and all roles therein. All I know is with most balance changes come a seemingly lessening of class uniqueness, which should be avoided where possible.

That is actually a better idea, and its a 'fix' as well for shades damage. One thing though, shades deal magic damage, thus doesn't scale well with Stam nb tanks. Would you change its damage type? Perhaps disease? But still having that magicka cost.

aeowulf · February 2018

it would lead to further nerfs to NB DPS/healer roles as it would increase their gain too much. Unless there was a cooldown too... Tanks use shades for maim not damage - in fact i don't think shades are used by mag dps for damage either. It's so we can keep our stamina for blocking, but we loose minor heroism because of it.

of course then there are the issues of how much shades give back, vs cast cost, etc etc

We can't dictate what we want, but I feel there are more players than devs so the player 'idea pool' could be absolutely massive in comparison. The devs can then look at all these ideas and think 'that's cool, lets put it in', but it may even be more fitting for a different class than initially suggested. Once it's in, it would need balancing to everything else, & only they know the direction this game is going for sure

Suggesting shades is scaled off x stat is somewhat meaningless too, it may perform better currently than after a switch to something else. Wardens have two skills which scale off max health & my warden is health heavy. Neither skill perform like any stamina/mag skills.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

RavenSworn wrote: »

You guys might have me sold on the stamina steal idea though its a bit of an overkill don't you think? Leeching strikes + dodge stamina return passive + stamina steal shades. That would prove to be quite a combo for Stam blades dps, especially in pvp.

However, I wouldn't want to have all the tools of a tank or at least what is expected of a tank be handed to the nb. I want a nb tank to be excellent at certain parts of tanking but needing perhaps gear or perhaps a different weapon skill to complement the build. Homogeneous skills does not diversity make. If a nb tank needs to be slightly selfish in terms of tanking so be it as long as its viable for endgame.

I dont personally think we need the stamina on dodge passive either, shades is the only change I'd make.

leeching strikes is ok for dps but I'd hardly compare it to dark deal, bull netch, or mountains blessing/helping hands.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

RavenSworn wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

both would be too much, but ultimately it depends on the values they get back from them - if both only returned 1 stamina, then no, if either returned too much, then too much.

I prefer the idea of dodge because it helps just NB tanks a lot more than the other roles. Don't get me wrong, i do love all the other ideas, but they may help other NB roles too much. Also stamina steal does not help NB healer, and they may need help? no clue there on the state of that role. I think the targeting it the main issue with MO...

There are literally a ton of options, they could even make our shades proc SA - it's borderline buggy they don't if you read the description :P (The shades are mine, and thus their light attacks are also mine - that's a stretch though...)

But again, any changes need to be balanced correctly and too much in one direction would lead to more balance issues elsewhere. Which I think is the crux of the issues around PvE/PvP and all roles therein. All I know is with most balance changes come a seemingly lessening of class uniqueness, which should be avoided where possible.

That is actually a better idea, and its a 'fix' as well for shades damage. One thing though, shades deal magic damage, thus doesn't scale well with Stam nb tanks. Would you change its damage type? Perhaps disease? But still having that magicka cost.

Shades deal pathetic damage in the grand scheme of things, making it disease damage would change nothing. I'd be happy with them proccing the return from leeching attacks though, at least then I wouldnt have to constantly be spamming light attacks to take advantage of it.

aeowulf · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

leeching strikes is ok for dps but I'd hardly compare it to dark deal, bull netch, or mountains blessing/helping hands.

On paper it looks fine, but it's only comparable if you get the most efficient return from it, which means waiting 20 seconds and recasting perfectly. Those limitations put it in a bad place. Imagine making all sorc class DD spells not explode for 20 seconds... or needing to press block 20 secs before it's needed... (and people wonder why perma-block is a thing)

I think there's too much 'on paper' theory crafting from the devs, and not enough real world testing

This would be fine if they listened to the real world feedback from PTS but they don't seem to do that either. Group finder feedback should also be used, that's immune to 'whining' and that will show where there are big class/role based issues

RavenSworn · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

RavenSworn wrote: »

aeowulf wrote: »

both would be too much, but ultimately it depends on the values they get back from them - if both only returned 1 stamina, then no, if either returned too much, then too much.

I prefer the idea of dodge because it helps just NB tanks a lot more than the other roles. Don't get me wrong, i do love all the other ideas, but they may help other NB roles too much. Also stamina steal does not help NB healer, and they may need help? no clue there on the state of that role. I think the targeting it the main issue with MO...

There are literally a ton of options, they could even make our shades proc SA - it's borderline buggy they don't if you read the description :P (The shades are mine, and thus their light attacks are also mine - that's a stretch though...)

But again, any changes need to be balanced correctly and too much in one direction would lead to more balance issues elsewhere. Which I think is the crux of the issues around PvE/PvP and all roles therein. All I know is with most balance changes come a seemingly lessening of class uniqueness, which should be avoided where possible.

That is actually a better idea, and its a 'fix' as well for shades damage. One thing though, shades deal magic damage, thus doesn't scale well with Stam nb tanks. Would you change its damage type? Perhaps disease? But still having that magicka cost.

Shades deal pathetic damage in the grand scheme of things, making it disease damage would change nothing. I'd be happy with them proccing the return from leeching attacks though, at least then I wouldnt have to constantly be spamming light attacks to take advantage of it.

I doubt that they were meant to do excellent damage, they were single target and weren't scaled well with Stam dps (with obvious reasons, given how surprise attack are way better).

Silver_Strider · February 2018

No one uses Shades for damage, only the utility attached to it.

The problem with Dark Shades is that they're meant to be a damage morph but fail miserably in that department while Shadow Image has a very nice utility in its free teleport on top of offering the same utility as Dark Shades with similar or more damage, depending on the scenario. I fully support Dark Shades getting Minor Stamina Steal because it just isn't a good damage ability with little purpose as it currently is and because NB offer very little in group utility, outside of offheals and the occasional Veil.

While I would enjoy getting resources from dodging, RNG dodge is just too fickle to ever work in an effective way in PvE while not being totally broken in PvP that I could live without it.

victoriana-blue · February 2018

RavenSworn wrote: »

However, I wouldn't want to have all the tools of a tank or at least what is expected of a tank be handed to the nb. I want a nb tank to be excellent at certain parts of tanking but needing perhaps gear or perhaps a different weapon skill to complement the build. Homogeneous skills does not diversity make. If a nb tank needs to be slightly selfish in terms of tanking so be it as long as its viable for endgame.

I think the are two different problems here: as of this point, nb tanks have to be selfish and that makes us unwelcome in vet content. We don't have group shields unless we slot the (expensive) support ultimate, or good crowd control without gear (and even then it's soft cc, not hard cc), or resources to off-heal. I mean, I'm pretty much pug proof on base game vet dungeons - self heals, damage mitigation, some off damage with those heals - but that doesn't help me hold three heavy-hitting mobs in a group with a good healer. The tanking changes over the last year look like ZOS wants dps to take on some group buffing responsibilities, by way of making tanks need to be more selfish and use the wall ultimates; the problem is that dk & warden tanks can be useful in survival gear without warhorn, but nb tanks aren't.

The resource problem is complicated because we used to have utility through sap essence, but we don't have the resources for it anymore and path is situational (it doesn't help anyone else on big bosses or mobile bosses). ZOS wants us to stop permablocking and they keep hitting resources, but they really need to adjust the content instead - even three axes are a challenge to drop block on because of the way their heavies are spread out, so just saying "bring an off-tank" doesn't cut it.

(Oh shades. The tanking morph really needs an aoe pulse debuff, like a tinier volatile familiar - we have two shades, but because of pet ai they only attack the mob we heavy attacked.. And we don't have many opportunities to swap their targets within the 4 second debuff window. It feels like a waste, not awesome. I'd love aoe maim because that would help reduce damage to the group from enemies lower on the taunt priority list. Stamina steal would be awesome, but I don't think shades is the ability for it even if ZOS would relax their "stop permablocking" vision.)

aeowulf · February 2018

I think there is only problem here:

1) Us not knowing if the combat team are listening to player feedback, we are told they are but we literally never see replies to important topics. And if they are, why are they not telling us why they still want to proceed with the implementation. Does the convo go something like 'Hey combat team, your changes are going to remove NB tanks' Combat team: 'yeah that's cool, that's our plan' or combat team: 'oops we didn't spot that, too late now to change it, even though it's not on live yet'. The NB tank saga has been going on for a year now, and the only comment from @wrobel about NB (not directly tanks) started with 'um, yeah nightblades' Not exactly inspiring confidence. Is it too late for them to say oops we made an error with NB tanks, or NB tanks are where we want them, we just haven't balanced the other tanks yet so you'll just have to retire that toon for 12 months, or change role as the other tanks can tank end game. Some feedback on NB tanks from ZoS would REALLY go a long way right now.

This is really not like 'oh my bird is now dodgeable, the world will end' kinda post, this is the literal destruction of a class/role combination in end game, not that NB were really sought there in the first place

victoriana-blue · February 2018

aeowulf wrote: »

I think there is only problem here:

1) Us not knowing if the combat team are listening to player feedback, we are told they are but we literally never see replies to important topics. And if they are, why are they not telling us why they still want to proceed with the implementation. Does the convo go something like 'Hey combat team, your changes are going to remove NB tanks' Combat team: 'yeah that's cool, that's our plan' or combat team: 'oops we didn't spot that, too late now to change it, even though it's not on live yet'. The NB tank saga has been going on for a year now, and the only comment from @wrobel about NB (not directly tanks) started with 'um, yeah nightblades' Not exactly inspiring confidence. Is it too late for them to say oops we made an error with NB tanks, or NB tanks are where we want them, we just haven't balanced the other tanks yet so you'll just have to retire that toon for 12 months, or change role as the other tanks can tank end game. Some feedback on NB tanks from ZoS would REALLY go a long way right now.

This is really not like 'oh my bird is now dodgeable, the world will end' kinda post, this is the literal destruction of a class/role combination in end game, not that NB were really sought there in the first place

FWIW when I asked about the plans for nb tanks last summer, Wrobel answered, if indirectly. It was a live before HotR, and I'd asked in the discussion thread beforehand. That's where the tidbit about wanting the shadow tree to be the tanking tree came from. Wrobel knows we care about our nb tanks, and he probably has access to better data than we do. There's a plan.

Not that that helps us understand the plan or its progress. XD

It's been suggested elsewhere, but I would love to see the devs run vAA, even just the Mage in vAA, with a nightblade tank. If there's something we're all missing - a gear combo, a change to dps builds, whatever - it'd be good to have some pointers. Because you're absolutely right, this isn't a "My best skill was nerfed and I need to adapt," it's "People have dropped their nb tanks because we can't do the content and nothing in the last 4 updates brought us back."

kit_sune · February 2018

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

umagon · February 2018

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

That would make the skill useful for tankblades and we can’t have that now can we. I have lost count on how many times I have asked for a class based burst heal that can be useful on tankblades. I don’t even bother asking anymore because it seems it will be a cold day in hell before tankblades get one.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

umagon wrote: »

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

That would make the skill useful for tankblades and we can’t have that now can we. I have lost count on how many times I have asked for a class based burst heal that can be useful on tankblades. I don’t even bother asking anymore because it seems it will be a cold day in hell before tankblades get one.

Personally I just run resto staff back bar. Though, to be honest, I've never desperately needed a massive chunk of health back that I can recall (but I run with pretty competent healers most of the time, and all of the little bits of healing a nightblade has really add up. I've usually got refreshing path, lifesteal, funnel health, sap essence, and mutagen going all at the same time).

umagon · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

That would make the skill useful for tankblades and we can’t have that now can we. I have lost count on how many times I have asked for a class based burst heal that can be useful on tankblades. I don’t even bother asking anymore because it seems it will be a cold day in hell before tankblades get one.

Personally I just run resto staff back bar. Though, to be honest, I've never desperately needed a massive chunk of health back that I can recall (but I run with pretty competent healers most of the time, and all of the little bits of healing a nightblade has really add up. I've usually got refreshing path, lifesteal, funnel health, sap essence, and mutagen going all at the same time).

Run solo in pvp as a stam tankblade and you will understand my perspective.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

umagon wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

That would make the skill useful for tankblades and we can’t have that now can we. I have lost count on how many times I have asked for a class based burst heal that can be useful on tankblades. I don’t even bother asking anymore because it seems it will be a cold day in hell before tankblades get one.

Personally I just run resto staff back bar. Though, to be honest, I've never desperately needed a massive chunk of health back that I can recall (but I run with pretty competent healers most of the time, and all of the little bits of healing a nightblade has really add up. I've usually got refreshing path, lifesteal, funnel health, sap essence, and mutagen going all at the same time).

Run solo in pvp as a stam tankblade and you will understand my perspective.

There's the catch. I dont partake in pvp (at least not when I can avoid it, unfortunately have to for things like assault/support skill lines). Whenever I talk about a 'tank', I'm only referring to the pve side of things. Up until morrowind tanks didnt exist in pvp - you were just a tougher character to kill. Now we have one armor set that actually makes pvp tanking possible (vanguard's challenge) and hardly anyone uses it.

Ragnarock41 · February 2018

Sure, if they get their much needed nerfs for PvP, they could use some tanking buffs.

Otherwise no, they don't deserve yet another free buff.

umagon · February 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

That would make the skill useful for tankblades and we can’t have that now can we. I have lost count on how many times I have asked for a class based burst heal that can be useful on tankblades. I don’t even bother asking anymore because it seems it will be a cold day in hell before tankblades get one.

Personally I just run resto staff back bar. Though, to be honest, I've never desperately needed a massive chunk of health back that I can recall (but I run with pretty competent healers most of the time, and all of the little bits of healing a nightblade has really add up. I've usually got refreshing path, lifesteal, funnel health, sap essence, and mutagen going all at the same time).

Run solo in pvp as a stam tankblade and you will understand my perspective.

There's the catch. I dont partake in pvp (at least not when I can avoid it, unfortunately have to for things like assault/support skill lines). Whenever I talk about a 'tank', I'm only referring to the pve side of things. Up until morrowind tanks didnt exist in pvp - you were just a tougher character to kill. Now we have one armor set that actually makes pvp tanking possible (vanguard's challenge) and hardly anyone uses it.

PVP tanks are not about tanking one or more enemies in the sense that happens in pve. In pvp is more of a force multiplier role, pvp tanks’ job is to apply debuffs, crowd control, and herd (foolish ones) players into positions that their allies can take advantage of. It sounds a little like pve but the way it works it different.

In pvp healing is cut by 50% due battle spirit on top of the healing cut with major defile combined with the befoul champion point passive. Every other class has an option to dump either magicka or stamina to regain health.

Nightblades have no on demand burst healing options like the other classes. Templars have rushed ceremony, dragon knights have dragon blood, sorcerers have dark exchange, and wardens a whole skill line. And the only on demand stamina healing nightblades get is vigor and/or rally that’s it. With both mainly being heal over time and rally’s largest heal only happening after a long period of time.

When they changed agony, they could have made the base skill scale off health and cost magicka, one morph scale off of magicka and cost magicka, and the third scale off of stamina and cost stamina. Which would be useful to a wide range of nightblade builds including tank builds both pve and pvp. For example one could go health tank and push some magicka, or get around 32k health then go full into magicka or stamina.

But they didn’t do that what they did is create a skill that is only useful to magicka healer nightblade builds. So, out of three skills the base and the morphs only support one play style and role. It makes no sense what so ever to me to spend all that time changing the skill to something that has very limited use.

Also no one uses vanguard’s challenge because it has no real use in the context of the way pvp is played in this game. For pvp tanks puncture is to kill players not taunt them. Because it can be paired with infused weapons and the oblivion damage enchantment. And if you are wondering on a pvp tankblade puncture has a better cost to damage ratio in comparison to surprise attack. Plus, surprise attack does not trigger the oblivion damage enchantment.

RavenSworn · February 2018

victoriana-blue wrote: »

RavenSworn wrote: »

However, I wouldn't want to have all the tools of a tank or at least what is expected of a tank be handed to the nb. I want a nb tank to be excellent at certain parts of tanking but needing perhaps gear or perhaps a different weapon skill to complement the build. Homogeneous skills does not diversity make. If a nb tank needs to be slightly selfish in terms of tanking so be it as long as its viable for endgame.

I think the are two different problems here: as of this point, nb tanks have to be selfish and that makes us unwelcome in vet content. We don't have group shields unless we slot the (expensive) support ultimate, or good crowd control without gear (and even then it's soft cc, not hard cc), or resources to off-heal. I mean, I'm pretty much pug proof on base game vet dungeons - self heals, damage mitigation, some off damage with those heals - but that doesn't help me hold three heavy-hitting mobs in a group with a good healer. The tanking changes over the last year look like ZOS wants dps to take on some group buffing responsibilities, by way of making tanks need to be more selfish and use the wall ultimates; the problem is that dk & warden tanks can be useful in survival gear without warhorn, but nb tanks aren't.

The resource problem is complicated because we used to have utility through sap essence, but we don't have the resources for it anymore and path is situational (it doesn't help anyone else on big bosses or mobile bosses). ZOS wants us to stop permablocking and they keep hitting resources, but they really need to adjust the content instead - even three axes are a challenge to drop block on because of the way their heavies are spread out, so just saying "bring an off-tank" doesn't cut it.

(Oh shades. The tanking morph really needs an aoe pulse debuff, like a tinier volatile familiar - we have two shades, but because of pet ai they only attack the mob we heavy attacked.. And we don't have many opportunities to swap their targets within the 4 second debuff window. It feels like a waste, not awesome. I'd love aoe maim because that would help reduce damage to the group from enemies lower on the taunt priority list. Stamina steal would be awesome, but I don't think shades is the ability for it even if ZOS would relax their "stop permablocking" vision.)

Then I wonder why we do not change the group setup to accommodate different builds. There is definitely a 'best' way to do dungeons or trials, but it's not the only way. But the mindset of players are so hard to change when you don't follow the meta classes for each role.

I don't agree though that we can't hold our own in survival gear. We are still the perennial class to use tavas and dragon guard pumping that bolstering darkness / warhorn.

But I digress. We still need help in the nb tanking department. They have buffed(somewhat) for nb healers with the minor mending passive. NB tanks, both magicka and more importantly stamina, need some love too.

victoriana-blue · February 2018

kit_sune wrote: »

I personally think they should have made the malefic offering (the name escapes me) a heal that scales off of max health so high health nightblade tanks can push really good heals.

The health cost of Malevolent Offering will be halved in Dragon Bones, iirc, so we might see more people using it in PvE. That said, how many skills in this game cost one resource but scale off of another? I don't use it on my tank because I haven't invested in magicka damage or crit, and that makes it a very pathetic heal.

The skill trees really need work if ZOS wants to go through with the assassination -> dps, shadow -> tanking, siphoning -> healing. The dps spammable is in shadow, our only shadow CC is unblockable but chases mobs away (and both morphs are useful in PvP), the other stuns & snare are all dps abilities, etc. Doing this without nerfing nb pve dps will be a heck of a job...

RavenSworn wrote: »

victoriana-blue wrote: »

RavenSworn wrote: »

However, I wouldn't want to have all the tools of a tank or at least what is expected of a tank be handed to the nb. I want a nb tank to be excellent at certain parts of tanking but needing perhaps gear or perhaps a different weapon skill to complement the build. Homogeneous skills does not diversity make. If a nb tank needs to be slightly selfish in terms of tanking so be it as long as its viable for endgame.

I think the are two different problems here: as of this point, nb tanks have to be selfish and that makes us unwelcome in vet content. We don't have group shields unless we slot the (expensive) support ultimate, or good crowd control without gear (and even then it's soft cc, not hard cc), or resources to off-heal. I mean, I'm pretty much pug proof on base game vet dungeons - self heals, damage mitigation, some off damage with those heals - but that doesn't help me hold three heavy-hitting mobs in a group with a good healer. The tanking changes over the last year look like ZOS wants dps to take on some group buffing responsibilities, by way of making tanks need to be more selfish and use the wall ultimates; the problem is that dk & warden tanks can be useful in survival gear without warhorn, but nb tanks aren't.

The resource problem is complicated because we used to have utility through sap essence, but we don't have the resources for it anymore and path is situational (it doesn't help anyone else on big bosses or mobile bosses). ZOS wants us to stop permablocking and they keep hitting resources, but they really need to adjust the content instead - even three axes are a challenge to drop block on because of the way their heavies are spread out, so just saying "bring an off-tank" doesn't cut it.

(Oh shades. The tanking morph really needs an aoe pulse debuff, like a tinier volatile familiar - we have two shades, but because of pet ai they only attack the mob we heavy attacked.. And we don't have many opportunities to swap their targets within the 4 second debuff window. It feels like a waste, not awesome. I'd love aoe maim because that would help reduce damage to the group from enemies lower on the taunt priority list. Stamina steal would be awesome, but I don't think shades is the ability for it even if ZOS would relax their "stop permablocking" vision.)

Then I wonder why we do not change the group setup to accommodate different builds. There is definitely a 'best' way to do dungeons or trials, but it's not the only way. But the mindset of players are so hard to change when you don't follow the meta classes for each role.

I don't agree though that we can't hold our own in survival gear. We are still the perennial class to use tavas and dragon guard pumping that bolstering darkness / warhorn.

But I digress. We still need help in the nb tanking department. They have buffed(somewhat) for nb healers with the minor mending passive. NB tanks, both magicka and more importantly stamina, need some love too.

To me, selfish survival gear means gear like plague doctor, hist bark, and engine guardian, stuff with max stats & resist on the 2-5 pieces and which only benefit you; not ebon, dragon guard, or tava. Tava f'ex has two resource regen bonuses - one stamina, one magicka - and one is useless while blocking no matter which tanking weapon you're using, and the 5pc is mostly used for buffing. Don't get me wrong, I love bolstering darkness and I think it's tragically underrated, but in encounters like the axes having damage reduction doesn't really help if I'm out of my block resource, at which point I need to use the selfish wall ult or be sent flying. (And aedra forfend the tank doesn't give the dps their warhorns.

)

I'm all for dps learning to be more flexible though! When I pug people expect me to tank it in a certain way: take the bosses here, pull all the ranged adds out of there, need shards at this time, shield the group from that mechanic. And there are so many other ways to approach fights, like playing with ground-based aoes for aggro management, that don't rely on either a class skill or one monster set. At the very least it would make pledges more interesting. XD Instead of "aim here, aoe there, shards now" dps would have to be flexible enough to swap single target & aoe damage abilities (instead of the tank dragging everything to the centre of the room), and react to what's going on instead of using muscle memory while watching netflix. I understand that changing tanking strategies means that healers & dps need to change how they fight, and I don't blame progression groups for wanting to keep things consistent instead of constantly changing things, but the unspoken expectations about tanks aren't helping NB tanks at all.

NyassaV · February 2018

Revert Siphioning attacks @ZOS_Wrobel

Myconos · February 2018

To improve Nightblade Tanks (and to a lesser extent healers) without overly buffing their DPS, solo PVE, or PvP capabilities, three changes need to happen: They need a better way to get stamina back while holding block, they need some way to lock down mobs, and they need some form of group support.

I think the easiest one is for every fourth or so attack of each Dark Shades to count for Leeching Attacks and as a light attack for proccing enchants. It would help Nightblades get back some extra stamina while blocking and be able to debuff enemies.

For locking down enemies, Nightblades only have an Ultimate as an AOE crowd control that doesn't disperse enemies. Making the trap morph of fear root feared enemies would be a simple, thematic solution improving a skill that doesn't impact the skills use in PvP or solo PVE.

In terms of group support, Nightblade tanks (and healers) lack any synergy, and I would echo many others requests for adding a synergy to Refreshing Path. Something based on crit damage seems thematic, like giving someone Minor Force or applying a vulnerability to crits to a nearby enemy (i.e. the inverse of Impenetrable). Alternatively, given the name of Refreshing Path, it could give an ally the Minor regen buffs as a Synergy.

thedude33 · February 2018

Arobain wrote: »

in response to the replies to my comment, the build is not finished yes, but that does not mean it does not work, the build is not made for trials, and NONE of my builds are, i don't enjoy trials, and i have tried them

i was going to say that i dont think it would be able to tank vet dlc dungeons, but then i thought a little longer about it, and i'm unsure, based one what it has done so far, it should be able to do it fine

the tank build does perfectly fine as i said, for the content i myself play,(PvP and some pve) and what i have tested it so far on: ( Duels, Cyrodiil, a few vet dungeons, most normal dungeons )

all of my builds go through very intensive testing, so i'm not going to say its finished unless i'm absolutely sure, its looking very good, and if i had more time to play lately, it would probably be finished, but i do plan to bring it to vet dlc dungeons like bloodroot forge, and others when i have the time, and i feel its ready and works great in every other test i put it through before

now i was asked to share what i have so i will do that, i rarely show the entirety of a build i make but i'll share some of it

role: tank/dps ( leaning more towards tanking )
how: self healing, pets, large amounts of damage negation by percentage buffs ( minor/major protection) as well as cloak to disengage and recover if needed

front bar: refreshing path, invigorating drain, dark cloak, baleful mist, inner light ---- ULT > soul tether

because i'm completely paranoid for no reason at certain things, thats all i will share, i just want to state that the back bar does play an important role besides just buffs

This is for tanking, correct? I'm no expert, but in what world does a tank 'disengage' from an encounter, which sets the aggro onto one of the dps or healers?

victoriana-blue · February 2018

thedude33 wrote: »

Arobain wrote: »

in response to the replies to my comment, the build is not finished yes, but that does not mean it does not work, the build is not made for trials, and NONE of my builds are, i don't enjoy trials, and i have tried them

i was going to say that i dont think it would be able to tank vet dlc dungeons, but then i thought a little longer about it, and i'm unsure, based one what it has done so far, it should be able to do it fine

the tank build does perfectly fine as i said, for the content i myself play,(PvP and some pve) and what i have tested it so far on: ( Duels, Cyrodiil, a few vet dungeons, most normal dungeons )

all of my builds go through very intensive testing, so i'm not going to say its finished unless i'm absolutely sure, its looking very good, and if i had more time to play lately, it would probably be finished, but i do plan to bring it to vet dlc dungeons like bloodroot forge, and others when i have the time, and i feel its ready and works great in every other test i put it through before

now i was asked to share what i have so i will do that, i rarely show the entirety of a build i make but i'll share some of it

role: tank/dps ( leaning more towards tanking )
how: self healing, pets, large amounts of damage negation by percentage buffs ( minor/major protection) as well as cloak to disengage and recover if needed

front bar: refreshing path, invigorating drain, dark cloak, baleful mist, inner light ---- ULT > soul tether

because i'm completely paranoid for no reason at certain things, thats all i will share, i just want to state that the back bar does play an important role besides just buffs

This is for tanking, correct? I'm no expert, but in what world does a tank 'disengage' from an encounter, which sets the aggro onto one of the dps or healers?

He's talking about a PvP tank, so the "disengage" would be to escape enemy players long enough to get some resources back before jumping back into the fray.

Lynx7386 · February 2018

victoriana-blue wrote: »

thedude33 wrote: »

Arobain wrote: »

in response to the replies to my comment, the build is not finished yes, but that does not mean it does not work, the build is not made for trials, and NONE of my builds are, i don't enjoy trials, and i have tried them

i was going to say that i dont think it would be able to tank vet dlc dungeons, but then i thought a little longer about it, and i'm unsure, based one what it has done so far, it should be able to do it fine

the tank build does perfectly fine as i said, for the content i myself play,(PvP and some pve) and what i have tested it so far on: ( Duels, Cyrodiil, a few vet dungeons, most normal dungeons )

all of my builds go through very intensive testing, so i'm not going to say its finished unless i'm absolutely sure, its looking very good, and if i had more time to play lately, it would probably be finished, but i do plan to bring it to vet dlc dungeons like bloodroot forge, and others when i have the time, and i feel its ready and works great in every other test i put it through before

now i was asked to share what i have so i will do that, i rarely show the entirety of a build i make but i'll share some of it

role: tank/dps ( leaning more towards tanking )
how: self healing, pets, large amounts of damage negation by percentage buffs ( minor/major protection) as well as cloak to disengage and recover if needed

front bar: refreshing path, invigorating drain, dark cloak, baleful mist, inner light ---- ULT > soul tether

because i'm completely paranoid for no reason at certain things, thats all i will share, i just want to state that the back bar does play an important role besides just buffs

This is for tanking, correct? I'm no expert, but in what world does a tank 'disengage' from an encounter, which sets the aggro onto one of the dps or healers?

He's talking about a PvP tank, so the "disengage" would be to escape enemy players long enough to get some resources back before jumping back into the fray.

Which really doesn't belong in this thread since were obviously talking about trials and vet dungeon tanking.

ccfeeling · February 2018

In ESO , not every pet holds agro . It will affect the theory crafting if your build are related .

Shade doesn't hold agro . What I mean is...if you go invisible , mobs rush to dps / healer , or you ( cloak breaks easily by too many unknown reasons lol )
Sorc pet does hold agro , my Sorc tank tested it before in VWGT , my lovely pet was tanking the 1st boss when I'm in prison . They tanked over 10 sec until I unlocked

I'm not sure about Warden , but I believe it does .

jimijac0me · February 2018

ccfeeling wrote: »

I'm not sure about Warden , but I believe it does .

Wait, the netch????

Not having a dig at you but if it does that’s crazy!

Shades I can understand cause you can’t “target” them but the you can’t hit netch or shades so that seems broken!

Btw I’d use the twin shades in pvp if you could target them

ccfeeling · February 2018

Lol , I mean BEAR

aeowulf · February 2018

Myconos wrote: »

To improve Nightblade Tanks (and to a lesser extent healers) without overly buffing their DPS, solo PVE, or PvP capabilities, three changes need to happen: They need a better way to get stamina back while holding block, they need some way to lock down mobs, and they need some form of group support.

I have a feeling NB are exactly where ZoS intend wrt perma-block. The real issue with that is there are classes that are not, and because of that NB are at a massive disadvantage.The other issue is perception, it's almost irrelevant these days whether you need to perma-block or not, the fact is perception means if you don't perma-block you can't tank. Then there are fights like the axes, where it's needed <currently>. Was in vAA last night actually, and couldn't help wondering whether the changes to block cost are going to mean 2 tanks will be on the axes in future...