My view on the topic:

Cloak: Low cost/low duration favors utilizing it as another form of roll-dodge for single target attacks. Suited more for a brawler archetype but with a different approach.

I'd give it an increasing cost on successive casts, increase the base cost, and increase the duration such that if timed right with the Night Veil Passive there is a small window in which the cost resets itself. (Higher cost while under pressure, lower cost while cruising with it.)

This will punish getting caught with no escape plan, as well as making it a skill that you need to decide to use, rather than spam (as even while under AoE breaking it, simply using cloak causes many attacks to miss you).

Incap: I love this ability. While under pressure I can use it anytime I want to get a reliable stun. Knowing myself and my tendency to min-max in my favor, I don't think this is a good thing (Even though this argument is going to be about min-maxing in SA favor).

I'm fully of the opinion that the nightblade should be a skirmisher class. Able to deal a lot of damage and get away. But it shouldn't be able to hold its own very well at all in sustained battle (unless you sacrifice damage). The argument for the CC on this ability (under a skirmisher ideology), is that it allows the NB to attempt to escape a precarious situation. However, since this also offers a significant damage spike, it makes itself a staple ability. It should choose one or the other: Damage or an escape plan. I personally want it to stay damage, and more focus should be on the Shadow Image as the escape plan.

Shadow Image:

If the above changes are ever taken into consideration, I really want this skill to be able to be placed while out of combat. Essentially spawning an un-aggroed point of return for use as an escape tool. (it should be visible enough to give opponents a tell as to where the NB might go).

From where are you getting your figures and metrics?

Violynne wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Nightblades were very, very unpopular (or better: underperforming) in during ESOs first years.

Couldn't agree with this statement more. I know many "new" players have been playing the game for about a year, but when this came out (console), NBs were hard to play. At least for me. I finally walked away from the class, choosing sorc instead.

With the changes over the past couple of years, NBs are actually fun to play, as they should have been from the start.

I'm no expert in the game, but I'm dying far, far less than I had when it came out playing this class.

I'm still adapting to the most recent changes (having been gone for nearly a year), but it's not taking me long to do so.

Gone is the "healing crutch" we had to rely on to play the class.

Now, it's "Die! Die!! DIE!! I'll heal as I sit upon your corpse."

I highlighted the most important. Actually instead of preparing for incoming nerfs alot can be learned from NBs in their current state. The way I perceive them (basically only playing NB for the last 3 weeks) they are fun to play because no matter which way you decide to turn: its fun to play.

Feg: You gathered some overland heavy armor (i.e. some trash any other class would mournfully deconstruct) ? -> put it on and enjoy the tanyness, while still dealing damage that make fights fast and intuitive.

Instead of nerfing this class should (and can be!) a prime example of how to buff and (re-)shape other classes: abilities that synergize with each other, passives supporting playstile ... and yet a unique and well defined class as it stands. Yes they are overperforming but nerfs would definately be the wrong way to counter this.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

My view on the topic:

Cloak: Low cost/low duration favors utilizing it as another form of roll-dodge for single target attacks. Suited more for a brawler archetype but with a different approach.

I'd give it an increasing cost on successive casts, increase the base cost, and increase the duration such that if timed right with the Night Veil Passive there is a small window in which the cost resets itself. (Higher cost while under pressure, lower cost while cruising with it.)

This will punish getting caught with no escape plan, as well as making it a skill that you need to decide to use, rather than spam (as even while under AoE breaking it, simply using cloak causes many attacks to miss you).

Incap: I love this ability. While under pressure I can use it anytime I want to get a reliable stun. Knowing myself and my tendency to min-max in my favor, I don't think this is a good thing (Even though this argument is going to be about min-maxing in SA favor).

I'm fully of the opinion that the nightblade should be a skirmisher class. Able to deal a lot of damage and get away. But it shouldn't be able to hold its own very well at all in sustained battle (unless you sacrifice damage). The argument for the CC on this ability (under a skirmisher ideology), is that it allows the NB to attempt to escape a precarious situation. However, since this also offers a significant damage spike, it makes itself a staple ability. It should choose one or the other: Damage or an escape plan. I personally want it to stay damage, and more focus should be on the Shadow Image as the escape plan.

Shadow Image:

If the above changes are ever taken into consideration, I really want this skill to be able to be placed while out of combat. Essentially spawning an un-aggroed point of return for use as an escape tool. (it should be visible enough to give opponents a tell as to where the NB might go).

Cloak is the NB's defense .. it's like the sorc's shield, the DK's wings, etc. Cloak was made to be spammable ... intentionally. When we lost purge from cloak we got what we have now ... a suspension of damage so long as we can spam cloak over the duration of the damage. This happened when a good many players complained how unfair it was that cloak gave NBs a 'free' purge while most others had to use the alliance purge w/its high resource cost. The change to cloak basically increased the cost to NBs for this purge-like effect, making it more in line with the resource cost of the alliance war 'purge'. Now we have people complaining about NBs spamming cloak ... they are complaining about the fix to the previous complaint about NB's cloak. It's almost ironic that the Warden gets a free purge in their tool kit, yet no one seems to be complaining about that (sigh) . Nerfing cloak makes about as much sense as nerfing shields by making them escalate in cost as a de-incentive to keep sorcs from spamming them, or escalating the cost for successive uses of the DK's wings, and ditto on Templar's BOL, or putting an escalating cost on the warden's netch so they don't spam it.

NB is overall in a really nice spot though I do think the Major Defile needs to come off Incap and I think Cloak duration needs to be reduced to around 1-2 seconds per cast. My biggest gripe about NBs is they can completely and entirely control the fight; from initiating, to pausing, to escaping. Cloak should be a way to do a soft reset on a fight by giving the NB a moment to reposition, but cloak should not be a way to control the fight entirely. It was silly when Sorcs could endlessly streak away, it's silly now that NBs can endlessly cloak.

Kilandros wrote: »

NB is overall in a really nice spot though I do think the Major Defile needs to come off Incap and I think Cloak duration needs to be reduced to around 1-2 seconds per cast. My biggest gripe about NBs is they can completely and entirely control the fight; from initiating, to pausing, to escaping. Cloak should be a way to do a soft reset on a fight by giving the NB a moment to reposition, but cloak should not be a way to control the fight entirely. It was silly when Sorcs could endlessly streak away, it's silly now that NBs can endlessly cloak.

Cloak only lasts a maximum of 2.9 seconds with the passive. I promise that my stamblade cannot “endlessly cloak”. My magicka pool is too low to support that. It’s the other players that are terrible at preventing me from becoming permanently hidden by crouching.

Stop asking for nerfs . You ask for NB nerfs and Wrobel will nerf DK and Templar . Stop provoking the master of disaster .

Nerf rollerblades, stamblades and magblades are fine and not so much annoying imo (at least I find the Stamwardens much much more annoying)
PVE wise: they only need to bring in line stam and mag (either nerf stam damage/buff their sustain:lower costs) or buff magicka damage and sustain (lower costs)
overall: ye there are more NBs in group setups, but if we compare it to Homestead where most group ran mostly mSorcs and mDKs, rarely mTemp dds. we still have better class diversity now (except vAS but thats a ranged favored trial)
tl:Dr: My most ideal (but probably wont happen)natch potes for the new chapter (class balances) would be mostly just bug fixes for nbs and buffs and fixes to other classes both stam and mag + skill line buff (medium armor, light armor, wep skills especially if there are gonna be a new wep)

I don't want and I don't think NBs need to be nerfed.

That being said, I don't want NB players to insist to me that I don't know the class and balance is just fine because counters exist. Balance is not fine. Particularly in no CP. If NBs are going to say my comments should be discarded because they portray an incorrect depiction of the class, fine, but don't be hypocritical and portray an incorrect depiction of the class I play as justification for that point of view.

If NBs aren't nerfed, again that's fine. But mechanics for other classes need to be reformed.

BohnT wrote: »

Peekachu99 wrote: »

From where are you getting your figures and metrics?

From daily usage of my main and from daily small scale with 2 nightblades.

Amount of nbs is based on killed classes, Seen classes and classes who were involved in killing me/ my group.
All from PC EU Vivec primetime EP

sotha sil is also full of them.

Tholian1 wrote: »

Kilandros wrote: »

NB is overall in a really nice spot though I do think the Major Defile needs to come off Incap and I think Cloak duration needs to be reduced to around 1-2 seconds per cast. My biggest gripe about NBs is they can completely and entirely control the fight; from initiating, to pausing, to escaping. Cloak should be a way to do a soft reset on a fight by giving the NB a moment to reposition, but cloak should not be a way to control the fight entirely. It was silly when Sorcs could endlessly streak away, it's silly now that NBs can endlessly cloak.

Cloak only lasts a maximum of 2.9 seconds with the passive. I promise that my stamblade cannot “endlessly cloak”. My magicka pool is too low to support that.

THIS all day. My stamblade can maybe cloak three times before I am tapped out on magicka and that's if I'm using a tristat food. Base magicka - *hahaha* endlessly cloak *hahahahahaha*

Good to overperforming? That is honestly a load of tripe. I've played a nightblade since 2015, and let me tell you, stamina varieties were a train wreck back when I started. They still are one of the most challenging playstyles to really do well with, and by far some of the glassiest-glass cannons in the game right now, with easily the most complicated builds to really come close to being on par with the other heavy hitters. I'm talking about pvp and pve.

I'll almost never beat a competent sorc or dk in 1 on 1 combat, and in pvp if im not running vigor and other heals, a la the weaker, heal varieties of slash/frenzy? Well then I die if the enemy just looks at me wrong. and I am running some +health jewelery as well as a 4pc set bonus including physical/spell resistance.

vma is too hard for me with my nb main. Too squishy. Just can't stay alive. So I'm rolling a pet sourc to give it a shot. So far I keep the shield up, heal all the time and just blast everything. I need to get a few more skills to 50 before dealing with the arena, but I'm looking forward to putting her in a spot to get my nb a bow.

The moral here: If you want to nerf this NB, you're going to have to nerf sorc.

Knootewoot wrote: »

There is always a cry for nerf. Now it's NB, but

A templar with the same stamina build as the NB can all do the same, except cloak. But instead of cloaking and running away he will heal himself and reset the fight.

A sorc with the same stamina build as the NB can all do the same, except cloak. But instead of cloaking and running away he will streak away and return to the fight when healed using Vigor.

A DK with the same stamina build as the NB can all do the same, except cloak. But instead of cloaking he flaps his wings and lava whips ur behind

A Warden with the same stamina build as the NB can all do the same, except cloak. But instead of cloaking he just does amazing burst so he doesn't need to run away.

This is the 2-handed/bow build every (stamina) class seems to run. All the same skills except a few.

This I can relate too, and no. Even with the same setup (including most skills) a stamplar will not perform as good as a stamblade: reason for this is either i lack the proper skill to play stamplars (which i play since beta), or i am a natural for stamblade (playing since ~ 3 weeks) ... or simply: the stamblade offers better synergy with abilities and can utilize better buffs.

Needless to say: i don't even use cloak on that stamblade.