Siphoning strikes / siphoning attacks / leeching strikes lost their usefulness when they were changed for morrowind, and subsequently brought about the death of the nightblade tank.

At the very minimum, I would like to see the resource cost for these abilities swapped to be opposite the resource restored. The morph they restores stamina should cost magicka to cast, and vice versa.

Currently it takes a minimum of 9 light attacks to simply recover the cost of the ability, making it far less useful as a resource management tool than it should be.

Incap you are missing incap.
Please ZoS just remove the stun of the ability. Leave major defile only for Incap and remove it from Soul Harvest and Base Skill.
The skill does way too much and with its CC it makes NB burst too lethal in PvP. This change wouldn't affect PvE in any way but would make stamnb more balanced as they are currently downright overperfoming.

The new Agony skill is annoying because when fighting an enemy while other players are around you'll always target them making you unable to attack the enemy.

Power Extraction is still the weakest aoe i can think of.
1. make both morphs grant their major damage buffs on activation and not on hit so you can buff up outside of combat.
2. Rework PE as it's currently really bad. But don't make it too strong

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Debilitate is useless
Dark Shades is useless
Power Extraction is borderline useless
Debilitate is borderline useless
Offerings is too situational and risky
Siphoning Attacks is too slow to restore resources.

Siphoning is no way weak or anything it's not the old ability that was borderline op. You could run with 0 regeneration and be at full resources all the time that was just stupid

BohnT wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Debilitate is useless
Dark Shades is useless
Power Extraction is borderline useless
Debilitate is borderline useless
Offerings is too situational and risky
Siphoning Attacks is too slow to restore resources.

Siphoning is no way weak or anything it's not the old ability that was borderline op. You could run with 0 regeneration and be at full resources all the time that was just stupid

I said slow to restore resources, which it is since it requires 9 light attacks to break even. Don't put words in my mouth.

@Beardimus

Yes. Hopefully to be used by other reps as a template, and for the Nightblade reps to work off of.

@BohnT

In regards to incap, while the initial assumption is that it over performs, that necessarily shouldn't be the avenue to approach it from. Rather, that it takes the place of the cloak+Concealed Weapon synergy (stun+ off-balance from invisible/stealth). Favoring a more straightforward approach rather than playing to the class's theme of stealth.

@Silver_Strider
Dark Shades: Is this because the shades themselves mainly focus a single target between the two of them, and this functionality pales compared to the mobility attained from the opposing morph, shadow image?

Power Extraction: I don't use this, but I'm under the assumption that it's a skill that favors large groups of enemies rather than a single target? Is it under performing in comparison to a skill such as Steel Tornado, as the Major Brutality gained from this skill is more generally obtained from other sources?

Debilitate: Yep, the morph essentially makes it a double of the Executioner Passive. With the skill functioning more as a buff/debuff ability better suited for a single tougher target, having a morph with such minimal return seems... Unnecessary.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Izaki

However, spending the same resource you want to gain seems a bit unintuitive. The return values themselves could be tweaked accordingly.

Nah its fine imo.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Izaki

And I agree. However, that doesn't mean that the point is invalid. It's likely to be deemed a non-issue.

Well you do have a point, but if the skill does it's job more that well, why change it?

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Dark Shades: Is this because the shades themselves mainly focus a single target between the two of them, and this functionality pales compared to the mobility attained from the opposing morph, shadow image?

Power Extraction: I don't use this, but I'm under the assumption that it's a skill that favors large groups of enemies rather than a single target? Is it under performing in comparison to a skill such as Steel Tornado, as the Major Brutality gained from this skill is more generally obtained from other sources?

Debilitate: Yep, the morph essentially makes it a double of the Executioner Passive. With the skill functioning more as a buff/debuff ability better suited for a single tougher target, having a morph with such minimal return seems... Unnecessary.

@Avran_Sylt
Dark Shades suffers from both its mobility and that the shades usually only attack the same target. Some bosses are highly mobile (Entire Lord Warden fight) or have mechanics requiring them to reposition (Targeting the protectors during Saint Olms in AS). These factors makes Dark Shades not only very limited in their utility (which is already being applied by Heroic Slash in most cases by the tank, further reducing their usefulness) but also their damage suffers drastically for it. Shadow Image, being ranged will often out DPS them while offering the same utility AND a free teleport.

Power Extraction suffers from pure redundancy. It's damage and range are both inferior to Steel Tornado and Major Brutality is gotten for much more meaningful gains with any of the alternative methods for it (Potions grant a plethora of different effects on top of the Brutality, Forward Momentum provides snare removal/immunity, and Hidden Blade does more damage, is ranged and snares the target). The defile proc chance hardly justifies it being so lackluster and the cost doesn't help it either.

Debilitate suffers from being a lackluster Crippling blast. You can apply it to multiple targets sure, but unless you can kill them to get the resource return before it wears off, you better off with Crippling Blast for the root and greater damage.

Easy Cloak fix: after you cloaked once you can't cloak for another 5 seconds. Give it the Streak treatment and make every additional use within [amount of time] weaker/more punishing.

My opinions, even if i'm not an expert player. Nightblade is in a good spot at the moment. Its DPS is strong so i would not buff it. I would probably change the less chosen morphs to help tanks and healers, in particular:
- Incap is too strong. Either reduce its effect or increase the cost. i prefer the latter
- Blur and morphs are used almost by no one. Maybe we need to redesign the ability. Make it more useful for tanks?
- Reaper's mark is kinda meh. Make it give more debuff to be more useful for group play.
- Dark shades is useless. Remove the minor maim from the shades and give them some useful abilities (interrupting, lifesteal/magicksteal, breach, vulnerability, mangle, idk)
- Malevolent offering it's heading in the right direction, but need some work. Maybe one morph could become a burst heal.
- Drain power could be buffed a little to become useful for tanks again maybe

ascan7 wrote: »

My opinions, even if i'm not an expert player. Nightblade is in a good spot at the moment. Its DPS is strong so i would not buff it. I would probably change the less chosen morphs to help tanks and healers, in particular:
- Incap is too strong. Either reduce its effect or increase the cost. i prefer the latter
- Blur and morphs are used almost by no one. Maybe we need to redesign the ability. Make it more useful for tanks?
- Reaper's mark is kinda meh. Make it give more debuff to be more useful for group play.
- Dark shades is useless. Remove the minor maim from the shades and give them some useful abilities (interrupting, lifesteal/magicksteal, breach, vulnerability, mangle, idk)
- Malevolent offering it's heading in the right direction, but need some work. Maybe one morph could become a burst heal.
- Drain power could be buffed a little to become useful for tanks again maybe

why would you use blur when you already dodge/absorb %80 of the incoming damage?
The ability is fine. Nb being too strong at escaping prevents people from even considering it.

Blur is a nice ability that allows creative builds like heavy tava's to work. It doesn't need any buffs or nerfs.

Recent convo with @Dorrino
(Some statements are infered, others direct quote)

-"incap is overloaded, this is intentional, but not the best design."
-"grim focus stacks falling off, deliberate, but awkward design."
-"cloak is overtuned and undertuned"
-"disguise crit heals allows nb to heal in med outside of tk. Stupid mechanics, but not alternative in the majority of builds"
-"porting to shade can port you inside terrain"

Med nightblade needs a defensive buff at the cost of stealth power, or a choice to choose one or the other.
(Ex: "Dark cloak granting Major Protection" instead).

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/361522/single-target-skills-with-aoe-components-break-cloak-in-pvp

Things I would like to see improved are the lack of a class self-based burst heal and improvements in the classes tanking capabilities. As tankblade I rarely use the shadow skills branch, as the tools are inferior to the weapon, guild, and alliance war skills.

Consuming darkness cannot outperform dawn breaker (pvp) and war horn (pve). Furthermore, the bolstering darkness morph is kind of useless. Last time I checked the character isn’t getting a full 30% additional damage reduction due to diminishing returns. And both the base and morphs while they have a long duration the way they just sit on the ground is not useful. In both pvp and end game pve moving around is a requirement. And in addition to just siting on the ground the area is very small.

The skill needs to have a shorter duration, move with the character, and the damage reduction be changed to flat percent ignoring all current armor and other buffs such as major protection. Basically, it should give the full listed value of damage reduction. For the bolstering morph the value can be increased on the user with the addition to pulling hostile targets in the area of effect to the user.

Veiled strike and the morphs are extremely expensive for a tank blade the skills can’t taunt and does less damage over a long period time vs puncture. My suggestion is add a condition were when wearing 5 pieces of heavy armor the skill can taunt and costs less. Which would be also useful for triggering the shadow barrier buff.

Dark Shades only propose on a tankblade currently is to get the shadow barrier buff. The minor maim is kind of irrelevant seeing the damage reduction is affected by diminishing returns and only applies to one target. So when dealing with multiple targets only one is effected by the minor maim. Which doesn’t reduce the damage taken by much when attacked simultaneously by multiple enemies. It would be better if this skill was turned into some type of aura that could aoe taunt and apply minor maim to all hostile targets for the duration.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Can't believe people are actually defending the atrocious state siphoning attacks is in right now.

No resource/sustain skill should cost the same resource that it returns. Ever. That's exactly why they removed the cost from netch during morrowind testing - because an ability meant to help you get resources back is useless if it costs that resource to begin with.

Nah, its a decent idea. Invest and get out more. It also gives a hot so is cute.