The Nightblade Nerfs are coming, better let the good ones negotiate the changes

Ch4mpTW · March 2018

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

NBs are Rogues. Rogues are always popular in every MMO. Theyre High DPS with quick TTK. The playstyle itself is very popular and should never be the basis for nerfs or ideas of nerfs.

Definitely a Nightblade main spotted. If this were Overwatch, I know for a fact you’d be a Genji “insta-lock” player. Lol.

Izaki · March 2018

Frankly, in terms of how nightblades work, its literally perfect right now. Both Stamblade and Magblade feel like real classes that are similar but still very different. The other classes... The stamina versions feel like they are the same class with bars filled with weapon abilities and the magickas pull too little DPS to even be played. So IMO, blanket nerfing Nightblades won't really deal with the issue of some classes just being terrible. Even though nerfing one class requires less work than buffing 4 other classes, its a much healthier thing for the game to do the latter.

DDuke · March 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

In this last patch, basically nightblades became immune to two class specific and one general counter.

* Warden cliff racers are dodgeable. These used to be a nightblade’s bane, now they won’t ever hit you if you’re any good. Never. Hit.

* DK powerlash got a cooldown, and is now dodgeable. A nightblade will almost never get hit by this, the single most damaging regular skill proc that a magDK has, thats also tied to their burst heal. And they absolutely suck against good stamblades with it being dodgeable. Can’t hit you. Can’t heal. **** you ZOS.

* Soul Assault took a huge nerf to the snare, which used to be the whole point in using it. Its easy to escape now without dying.

So now TWO classes are now free AP Piñatas for nightblades that weren’t before. You are GOING to get a lot of these threads, you won’t like it, but neither do they.

Yes, and all of those were good changes because they really were countering medium armor builds too hard. I still see mDKs & Wardens doing well in Cyrodiil, BGs & Duels.

Also, you still get the heal from Power Lash even if it misses btw.

That said, I do agree that dodge roll spam needs to be toned down.

I like how it actually accomplishes something in this patch, but I dislike that people can spam it nonstop without running out of stamina.

So maybe ZOS should increase the stacking cost modifier for dodge roll (or increase the duration for the debuff so that people can't use one cloak to just reset the counter & carry on spamming dodge roll until the next Incap).

Also, builds that struggle vs dodge roll tactics should get some undodgeable abilities (on par with Steel Tornado/Brawler which were recently changed to be undodgeable). For instance, bow builds should be able to bypass dodge roll with Acid Spray/Bombard.

Hey there! stamDK player here, Just here to say I don't have 3k stamina regen like some special class in the game and as a result I can't dodge roll 20 times in every 10 seconds.

So maybe you should nerf stamblades instead?

Me neither; I play a bow build these days, which means stacking damage as much as possible.

All I'm saying is that spamming dodge roll should be punished more, not using it strategically to avoid high damage attacks.

If your build is anything like mine, you already can't spam dodge roll 24/7 with infinite sustain, so impact would be very limited for these builds.

Ragnaroek93 · March 2018

NyassaV wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Right now Nightblades are more popular than ever, they have always been very popular as most people seem to be drawn to the rouge or assassin's playstyle.
But with past balance changes nightblades performance jumped from being a good to overperfoming.
When going into Cyrodiil stamina nightblades make about 25-35% of the whole playerbase in cyro while there are 10 specs.
When counting magicka nightblades aswell you'll see that 30-40% of Cyrodiils population is nightblades.

When looking at the other parts of the game, stamnbs and magnbs pull the highest ST meele and ranged damage thus are prefered for Trial groups. They also grant their group decent damage buffs with a high uptime on major slayer by utilising warmachine or master architect.

So why did they became so popular especially in pvp?
First nightblades have the easiest time to get kills even at low skill levels.
Your burst is front loaded so you don't need to survive to get the most out of your burst.
The burst is very high even when running a sustain build you pull equally high numbers as the other classes even when they are using offensive focused builds.
Also NB feature the cheapest single target nuke ability with 3 powerful effects, cc, major defile and a unique 20% damage boost for 6 seconds, aswell as an non ultimate nuke that has a higher tooltip than incap which got changed twice to become useable even for the worst players and a high damage spammable that also applies major fracture.
These 3 things are enough to kill 80% of all players in cyro even if you have no idea about the game.

The fun doesn't stop here however, nightblades also have great defence and the best mobility skill in the game, shadow image. There is no skill in the whole game that can compete with the kiting opportunities this skill has to offer. And what you shouldn't forget nightblades also have access to cloak, when used right cloak prevents you from taking any kinds of damage, gives you unlimited crit heals which equals to having major mending and vitality all the time and makes you invisible for your enemy so he has no idea where you are going or that you are even there.
This strength comes at a price tho. Cloak only saves you as long as it doesn't get countered here is what distinguishes good nightblades from bad nightblades. A good Nightblade won't let you counter cloak with things like AoEs or mage light. The only way to catch them is by using mark aka being a nightblade yourself or using detection pots which come at a very high opportunity cost while having a long cooldown on top.

To round up the package nightblades have access to some of the greatest passives in the game along with other strong utility skills and due to their defence being able to completely negate any incoming damage they are able to run high damage builds with bad in-fight survivability because they don't have to be in a fight they don't want to be in.

This results in a class that can kill most players in few seconds, while being able to escape reliably when they fail to be successful. Mixed with the low cost of incap and the overall effectiveness of the nightblades toolkit they can continue to engage and disengage at will until they are successful or mess up. With increasing skill level the numbers of times you die because you messed up goes to zero.

So we have nightblades, a class that can hunt everyone but doesn't have to fear the other classes. The only natural predator a nightblade has today is ,outside of its own lack of skill, other nightblades.

All this will result in changes to the nightblade class or to say the bad words: Nightblades will be nerfed!

Due to their popularity in game the nightblade lobby here on the forums is really loud and big but consists of many people who can't fully utilise the class to its full strength and thus saying that they are weak.
But every good Nightblade agrees that they are currently too strong.

So we are heading towards nerfs, they will come and when the community doesn't provide good proposals nightblades will end where stamdk is in pvp or magwarden is in pve right now, completely outclassed by everything else.

There are a few things which are hot candidates for getting nerfed:
Incap: even magnbs are running this over the magicka version as it gives you so much burst with the high damage and cc tied to it. and the skill is overloaded to begin with. This would be the attempt to make the killing power of nightblades a bit less threatening. The easiest way is to remove the CC. This forces the nb to use one additional GCD for a CC to land its burst. In pvp this is a lot.
Short Example: With CC on Incap:
(1.GCD) Heavy attack+ incap from stealth ~9k damage 10k when using Bash aswell
(2.GCD) Light attack+will ~ 12k damage/ 10k when light attack+ Suprise attack
Most players cannot react fast enough to break the CC and avoid the will because the incap cc is as buggy as it is but also due to lag.
Most players in cyro have 23-26k health. So in just 1 second of fight they are at 1-5k health with major defile on them + 20% more damage taken. To survive in this situation you have to dodge, heal to atleast 12k health before the dodge roll ends and pray that the lag doesn't make the next Suprise attack hit you through dodge or that you didn't lost any health to begin with or had a dot on you. If one of these things fails you are dead.

Now the same fight without a CC on Incap:
(1. GCD) Heavy attack + fear to CC your target ~ 3-4k damage
(2.GCD) Light attack + incap ~ 7-8k damage
(3. GCD) now you want to use your will or suprise attack to secure the kill but your enemy isn't CC'ed anymore and will likely dodge so you have to wait and be more strategic when to use your abilities. The damage output against NPCs and bad players stays the same but it's harder to kill good players as easy as it is now.
Cloak: @Ragnaroek93 made a great post how to balance cloak so i hope he can share his ideas in this post. (I'm not a fan of nerfing cloak as it's the iconic nightblade skill and it gives NBs a different approach of surviving but you have to be open for everything when talking about balance)

And here is my rant for everyone who plays a nightblade himself and doesn't want the class to be nerfed. It will happen so please let the good nightblade players lead the discussions about changes to nightblades they have no intrest to kill the class by any means but make it balanced and fun to play. If you have never played alone as a stamblade, fail to reach 40k single target self buffed or haven't completed atleast 4 hm trials, have more than 10 deaths during a 4 hour pvp session or lose many 1v1 fights you should rethink if you have the needed insight for balance discussions about nightblades.
This is not elitism this is to prevent overnerfs for one class

Edit: never write BB code and mix up \ with /

Well I would give Cloak and simple stacking cost. It wouldn't be too dramatic because Nb did still OK when Cloak was buggy. The main problem with stam Nb is that it has so much burst out of Cloak.

The best thing would probably to give stamnb more healing and a class based dot while nerfing Cloak and Incap. This way the class won't be so overpowered against unexperienced players anymore while still being competitive against good opponents.

Cloak is still buggy so no. Sorry I just can't see that change being justified ever unless Cloak just works and has priority over everything and ignored all damage done to you. Then it can have a stacking cost. If you have that much of an issue fighting nightblades who use cloak, slot flare, magelight, evil hunter, or make detection postions. AoEs bring them out of stealth too.

I don't notice any bugs regarding Cloak, it's working much better than it did during the last years. The problem still remains: Cloak + frontloaded burst. Cloak without frontloaded burst would be fine, frontloaded burst without Cloak would be fine but not both together.

Moving damage from Surprise Attack to Assassins Will looks interesting but I'm afraid that this would end up in even more burst. I would gladly trade some of my burst to get some pressure in exchange these days, I'm really tired of this burst over everything playstyle.

Meld777 · March 2018

So many people with L2P issues. NB isn't overpowered. Not even close. Learn to play.

Runefang · March 2018

The idea of 'not nerfing, just buffing' other classes is hilarious to me.

If you're driving a car and you are faster than everybody you're thinking "I don't want to go any slower, they should just go faster". So all the other drivers go and get faster cars and then zoom past you. Now you're thinking "Why aren't I as fast as them?".

In PvP all power is relative, nerfs and buffs are all the same in the end.

Ragnarock41 · March 2018

DDuke wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

In this last patch, basically nightblades became immune to two class specific and one general counter.

* Warden cliff racers are dodgeable. These used to be a nightblade’s bane, now they won’t ever hit you if you’re any good. Never. Hit.

* DK powerlash got a cooldown, and is now dodgeable. A nightblade will almost never get hit by this, the single most damaging regular skill proc that a magDK has, thats also tied to their burst heal. And they absolutely suck against good stamblades with it being dodgeable. Can’t hit you. Can’t heal. **** you ZOS.

* Soul Assault took a huge nerf to the snare, which used to be the whole point in using it. Its easy to escape now without dying.

So now TWO classes are now free AP Piñatas for nightblades that weren’t before. You are GOING to get a lot of these threads, you won’t like it, but neither do they.

Yes, and all of those were good changes because they really were countering medium armor builds too hard. I still see mDKs & Wardens doing well in Cyrodiil, BGs & Duels.

Also, you still get the heal from Power Lash even if it misses btw.

That said, I do agree that dodge roll spam needs to be toned down.

I like how it actually accomplishes something in this patch, but I dislike that people can spam it nonstop without running out of stamina.

So maybe ZOS should increase the stacking cost modifier for dodge roll (or increase the duration for the debuff so that people can't use one cloak to just reset the counter & carry on spamming dodge roll until the next Incap).

Also, builds that struggle vs dodge roll tactics should get some undodgeable abilities (on par with Steel Tornado/Brawler which were recently changed to be undodgeable). For instance, bow builds should be able to bypass dodge roll with Acid Spray/Bombard.

Hey there! stamDK player here, Just here to say I don't have 3k stamina regen like some special class in the game and as a result I can't dodge roll 20 times in every 10 seconds.

So maybe you should nerf stamblades instead?

Me neither; I play a bow build these days, which means stacking damage as much as possible.

All I'm saying is that spamming dodge roll should be punished more, not using it strategically to avoid high damage attacks.

If your build is anything like mine, you already can't spam dodge roll 24/7 with infinite sustain, so impact would be very limited for these builds.

Wouldn't change too much for me since medium armor DK is a dead playstyle anyways.. But thats nerfing everyone on medium, not just nightblades.. I don't wear well-fittet and as a result dodge rolling more than 2 times will eat %30+ of my stamina bar even on medium.

dodge 5 times and Im out of stamina completely. Its not even fun, I can't mix cloak and dodge roll to reset dodge count.

Rickter · March 2018

NyassaV wrote: »

If you're being hit with Assasian's will and incap then it makes sense that will would do more damage sine that is a magicka ability and Stamblades seldom use the stam morph anymore (Which needs to be changed). Incap is a stamina scaling ability so naturally it would hit less.

Ive been hit with a 7.8k incap followed by a 10.3k assassin's will. . . sooooo, ok.

NyassaV wrote: »

Nightblade has lovely sustain passive but no ult reduction

oh sorry, did i say ulti reduction? maybe i meant the 20 ultimate you get for popping a potion. . .

NyassaV wrote: »

Heavy Armor nightblades are rare albeit painful to fight

rare? sure. but you still agree they are a problem so you didnt really counter my point.

NyassaV wrote: »

Cloak isn't the problem. It's the offensive power + Cloak

so the fact that it gives Major resolve/ward through the Shadow Barrier passive, on top of the fact that you can reset the fight and then get a guaranteed critical attack isnt a problem?

e.g. - I was fighting a stamblade with trollking, cloaked at 5% and troll king did the rest, by the time i got him out of stealth, he was at 74% hp as he guaranteed crit incapped me. gg.

so now that we have that covered, we still have the following issues:

fear is a hard cc and a snare
incap is a high burst dmg, hard cc, major defile, and grants an uncategorized 20% dmg buff
cloak has no checks and balances, with some able to build to spam it giving the class an unprecedented ability to reset fights whenever they see fit - additionally, any attack out of cloak is guaranteed critical
assassin's will proc does MORE dmg than incap ultimate typically
mirage gives Major Evasion, Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, coupled with heavy armor and its clearly not very fair give nthe recent armor ability changes
Surprise attack (a spammable) gives Major Fracture
and we havent even covered the great sustain passives and ultimate reduction nbs have

I do agree with this however:

NyassaV wrote: »

Ashamray wrote: »

Don't touch Nightblades really. There are other classes to repair, not Nightblades.

Buff Sorc damage, buff DK sustain (slight changes to wings such as 3 reflect per person not 6 total), and give templar minor expedition while in their own ritual (for fun) and maybe have ritual heal for a tad more since the cost has been increased.

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

[*] cloak has no checks and balances

You lost any credibility you may have had with this statement.

oh i did? thats cute. because when i said "checks and balances" I meant more along the lines of sorcs streak, where cost is increased when used within a certain amount of time. have fun on xbox lul.

Ragnaroek93 · March 2018

DDuke wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

In this last patch, basically nightblades became immune to two class specific and one general counter.

* Warden cliff racers are dodgeable. These used to be a nightblade’s bane, now they won’t ever hit you if you’re any good. Never. Hit.

* DK powerlash got a cooldown, and is now dodgeable. A nightblade will almost never get hit by this, the single most damaging regular skill proc that a magDK has, thats also tied to their burst heal. And they absolutely suck against good stamblades with it being dodgeable. Can’t hit you. Can’t heal. **** you ZOS.

* Soul Assault took a huge nerf to the snare, which used to be the whole point in using it. Its easy to escape now without dying.

So now TWO classes are now free AP Piñatas for nightblades that weren’t before. You are GOING to get a lot of these threads, you won’t like it, but neither do they.

Yes, and all of those were good changes because they really were countering medium armor builds too hard. I still see mDKs & Wardens doing well in Cyrodiil, BGs & Duels.

Also, you still get the heal from Power Lash even if it misses btw.

That said, I do agree that dodge roll spam needs to be toned down.

I like how it actually accomplishes something in this patch, but I dislike that people can spam it nonstop without running out of stamina.

So maybe ZOS should increase the stacking cost modifier for dodge roll (or increase the duration for the debuff so that people can't use one cloak to just reset the counter & carry on spamming dodge roll until the next Incap).

Also, builds that struggle vs dodge roll tactics should get some undodgeable abilities (on par with Steel Tornado/Brawler which were recently changed to be undodgeable). For instance, bow builds should be able to bypass dodge roll with Acid Spray/Bombard.

To be fair, you underestimate Cloak and overestimate dodgeroll here. I can dodgeroll 9 times in a row (with almost 40k stamina and 2.6k stamregen) while I can Cloak more often in a row (and I can use Cloak offensive as well, I can't do that with dodgeroll). Lastly: how do you want to make other stam classes viable on anything other than a tank build if you nerf dodgeroll while leaving Cloak as it is?

Rickter wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

If you're being hit with Assasian's will and incap then it makes sense that will would do more damage sine that is a magicka ability and Stamblades seldom use the stam morph anymore (Which needs to be changed). Incap is a stamina scaling ability so naturally it would hit less.

Ive been hit with a 7.8k incap followed by a 10.3k assassin's will. . . sooooo, ok.

NyassaV wrote: »

Nightblade has lovely sustain passive but no ult reduction

oh sorry, did i say ulti reduction? maybe i meant the 20 ultimate you get for popping a potion. . .

NyassaV wrote: »

Heavy Armor nightblades are rare albeit painful to fight

rare? sure. but you still agree they are a problem so you didnt really counter my point.

NyassaV wrote: »

Cloak isn't the problem. It's the offensive power + Cloak

so the fact that it gives Major resolve/ward through the Shadow Barrier passive, on top of the fact that you can reset the fight and then get a guaranteed critical attack isnt a problem?

e.g. - I was fighting a stamblade with trollking, cloaked at 5% and troll king did the rest, by the time i got him out of stealth, he was at 74% hp as he guaranteed crit incapped me. gg.

so now that we have that covered, we still have the following issues:
fear is a hard cc and a snare

incap is a high burst dmg, hard cc, major defile, and grants an uncategorized 20% dmg buff

cloak has no checks and balances, with some able to build to spam it giving the class an unprecedented ability to reset fights whenever they see fit - additionally, any attack out of cloak is guaranteed critical

assassin's will proc does MORE dmg than incap ultimate typically

mirage gives Major Evasion, Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, coupled with heavy armor and its clearly not very fair give nthe recent armor ability changes

Surprise attack (a spammable) gives Major Fracture

and we havent even covered the great sustain passives and ultimate reduction nbs have

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

[*] cloak has no checks and balances

You lost any credibility you may have had with this statement.

oh i did? thats cute. because when i said "checks and balances" I meant more along the lines of sorcs streak, where cost is increased when used within a certain amount of time. have fun on xbox lul.

So your suggestion is what? Nerf all of the stuff you listed above? Would definitely not be an overnerf lol. At least also name the weaknesses of a class in a post which is aimed towards trying to make something looking overpowered: No snare outside of Fear which is a high cost magicka ability, weak healing, extremely vulnerable against hardcounters (no class can be hardcountered as much as Nbs) and no class dot (for stam actually). Yes, people hate getting bursted but a burst class (with no dots) without dangerous burst can get deleted as well.

shinikaze · March 2018

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

Former miats users

Own · March 2018

BohnT wrote: »

Right now Nightblades are more popular than ever, they have always been very popular as most people seem to be drawn to the rouge or assassin's playstyle.
But with past balance changes nightblades performance jumped from being a good to overperfoming.
When going into Cyrodiil stamina nightblades make about 25-35% of the whole playerbase in cyro while there are 10 specs.
When counting magicka nightblades aswell you'll see that 30-40% of Cyrodiils population is nightblades.

When looking at the other parts of the game, stamnbs and magnbs pull the highest ST meele and ranged damage thus are prefered for Trial groups. They also grant their group decent damage buffs with a high uptime on major slayer by utilising warmachine or master architect.

So why did they became so popular especially in pvp?
First nightblades have the easiest time to get kills even at low skill levels.
Your burst is front loaded so you don't need to survive to get the most out of your burst.
The burst is very high even when running a sustain build you pull equally high numbers as the other classes even when they are using offensive focused builds.
Also NB feature the cheapest single target nuke ability with 3 powerful effects, cc, major defile and a unique 20% damage boost for 6 seconds, aswell as an non ultimate nuke that has a higher tooltip than incap which got changed twice to become useable even for the worst players and a high damage spammable that also applies major fracture.
These 3 things are enough to kill 80% of all players in cyro even if you have no idea about the game.

The fun doesn't stop here however, nightblades also have great defence and the best mobility skill in the game, shadow image. There is no skill in the whole game that can compete with the kiting opportunities this skill has to offer. And what you shouldn't forget nightblades also have access to cloak, when used right cloak prevents you from taking any kinds of damage, gives you unlimited crit heals which equals to having major mending and vitality all the time and makes you invisible for your enemy so he has no idea where you are going or that you are even there.
This strength comes at a price tho. Cloak only saves you as long as it doesn't get countered here is what distinguishes good nightblades from bad nightblades. A good Nightblade won't let you counter cloak with things like AoEs or mage light. The only way to catch them is by using mark aka being a nightblade yourself or using detection pots which come at a very high opportunity cost while having a long cooldown on top.

To round up the package nightblades have access to some of the greatest passives in the game along with other strong utility skills and due to their defence being able to completely negate any incoming damage they are able to run high damage builds with bad in-fight survivability because they don't have to be in a fight they don't want to be in.

This results in a class that can kill most players in few seconds, while being able to escape reliably when they fail to be successful. Mixed with the low cost of incap and the overall effectiveness of the nightblades toolkit they can continue to engage and disengage at will until they are successful or mess up. With increasing skill level the numbers of times you die because you messed up goes to zero.

So we have nightblades, a class that can hunt everyone but doesn't have to fear the other classes. The only natural predator a nightblade has today is ,outside of its own lack of skill, other nightblades.

All this will result in changes to the nightblade class or to say the bad words: Nightblades will be nerfed!

Due to their popularity in game the nightblade lobby here on the forums is really loud and big but consists of many people who can't fully utilise the class to its full strength and thus saying that they are weak.
But every good Nightblade agrees that they are currently too strong.

So we are heading towards nerfs, they will come and when the community doesn't provide good proposals nightblades will end where stamdk is in pvp or magwarden is in pve right now, completely outclassed by everything else.

There are a few things which are hot candidates for getting nerfed:
Incap: even magnbs are running this over the magicka version as it gives you so much burst with the high damage and cc tied to it. and the skill is overloaded to begin with. This would be the attempt to make the killing power of nightblades a bit less threatening. The easiest way is to remove the CC. This forces the nb to use one additional GCD for a CC to land its burst. In pvp this is a lot.
Short Example: With CC on Incap:
(1.GCD) Heavy attack+ incap from stealth ~9k damage 10k when using Bash aswell
(2.GCD) Light attack+will ~ 12k damage/ 10k when light attack+ Suprise attack
Most players cannot react fast enough to break the CC and avoid the will because the incap cc is as buggy as it is but also due to lag.
Most players in cyro have 23-26k health. So in just 1 second of fight they are at 1-5k health with major defile on them + 20% more damage taken. To survive in this situation you have to dodge, heal to atleast 12k health before the dodge roll ends and pray that the lag doesn't make the next Suprise attack hit you through dodge or that you didn't lost any health to begin with or had a dot on you. If one of these things fails you are dead.

Now the same fight without a CC on Incap:
(1. GCD) Heavy attack + fear to CC your target ~ 3-4k damage
(2.GCD) Light attack + incap ~ 7-8k damage
(3. GCD) now you want to use your will or suprise attack to secure the kill but your enemy isn't CC'ed anymore and will likely dodge so you have to wait and be more strategic when to use your abilities. The damage output against NPCs and bad players stays the same but it's harder to kill good players as easy as it is now.
Cloak: @Ragnaroek93 made a great post how to balance cloak so i hope he can share his ideas in this post. (I'm not a fan of nerfing cloak as it's the iconic nightblade skill and it gives NBs a different approach of surviving but you have to be open for everything when talking about balance)

And here is my rant for everyone who plays a nightblade himself and doesn't want the class to be nerfed. It will happen so please let the good nightblade players lead the discussions about changes to nightblades they have no intrest to kill the class by any means but make it balanced and fun to play. If you have never played alone as a stamblade, fail to reach 40k single target self buffed or haven't completed atleast 4 hm trials, have more than 10 deaths during a 4 hour pvp session or lose many 1v1 fights you should rethink if you have the needed insight for balance discussions about nightblades.
This is not elitism this is to prevent overnerfs for one class

Edit: never write BB code and mix up \ with /

It would be nice.

Nerf Stamden PvP. Buff other classes. Keep Nightblade Core Mecahnics. Nerf Shadow Image and Crit Heal From Cloak in some fashion. I would understand Incap increased damage being nerferd to 10%, but I don't want it

) I love my StamBlade.

Nerf 10 Second Major Defile. As a StamBlade, I will Cloak away from an Xv1 fight If I have some crazy befouled Major Defile on me for 10 seconds. Durok's/Reverberating Bash.

NERF medium armor to 3% reduced cost reduction for dodge roll, throw us a bone with more weapon crit per piece. NERF well-fitted to 3-4%. I would like tumbling 16% max, but many magicka users stated they really needed it, so I don't know.

Apply the Penetration Nerf (Spriggan/Spinner/TFS) to Light Armor. Give them Crit.

I will be a happy StamBlade.

Shadowmaster · March 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Seems like you typed all that for nothing. We all know wrobel just throws darts at a nerf board when making balance decisions.

Playing devils advocate, the game was far from balanced "back in the day".

We all remember the MagDK vamp emp's nuking 50+ players with ease.

Shadowmaster · March 2018

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

NBs are Rogues. Rogues are always popular in every MMO. Theyre High DPS with quick TTK. The playstyle itself is very popular and should never be the basis for nerfs or ideas of nerfs.

Definitely a Nightblade main spotted. If this were Overwatch, I know for a fact you’d be a Genji “insta-lock” player. Lol.

Definitely the saltiest player who died to NB's spotted. If this were Cyrodiil, I can be sure you'd be the dead dude on the ground in full Divines crying the game is unfair.

You are literally in 10+ anti-nightblade threads right now. We get it, NB's own you, I think that your position is extremely clear.

How about you play a NB, run around solo for an hour, and post the entire video. Then we can all vote if we think you represented how well they needed a nerf.

Thunderknuckles · March 2018

BohnT wrote: »

.....To round up the package nightblades have access to some of the greatest passives in the game along with other strong utility skills and due to their defence being able to completely negate any incoming damage they are able to run high damage builds with bad in-fight survivability because they don't have to be in a fight they don't want to be in....

That's simply patently wrong and sounds precisely like you've never, even once, played a night blade.

BohnT wrote: »

...This results in a class that can kill most players in few seconds, while being able to escape reliably when they fail to be successful. Mixed with the low cost of incap and the overall effectiveness of the nightblades toolkit they can continue to engage and disengage at will until they are successful or mess up. With increasing skill level the numbers of times you die because you messed up goes to zero.

More pure rubbish.

BohnT wrote: »

...So we have nightblades, a class that can hunt everyone but doesn't have to fear the other classes. The only natural predator a nightblade has today is ,outside of its own lack of skill, other nightblades.

All this will result in changes to the nightblade class or to say the bad words: Nightblades will be nerfed!
.....

Good grief man, this massive rant of yours is nothing but butthurt misinformation. "But doesn't have to fear the other classes". LOL Yeah, you have never, not ever, played a night blade. You were ganked by one, maybe more, and now you're here making wild and utterly inaccurate claims.

Thunderknuckles · March 2018

BohnT wrote: »

aaylas wrote: »

OP, can you please post your DPS parse on nightblade? I have heard many people beg for nerfs for classes they don't play, so I would just like to make sure OP is someone who actually understands the class he/she wants to weaken.

I'm a stamnb main since closed beta but have played every other spec in the game aswell.
I've done all vet trials + hm on Carglorn+ vhof
All dungeons speed/ no death hm and VMSA on all classes.

I'm not insulting you, but I am very dubious about this claim of yours. VERY dubious.

Shadowmaster · March 2018

You really want to "fix" NB in PvP simply remove or reduce the stun from Incap. I don't think they should be tweaked in PVE because they are at the top of the DPS food chain for the first time since like...pre SO

Bam_Bam · March 2018

Sorcs are way more powerful than NBs - nerf them instead. And Wardens.

Bam_Bam · March 2018

shinikaze wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

Former miats users

lol. So true!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · March 2018

Been saying it for a while, even before the stars aligned for their PVE damage to really take off. Nightblade is the best designed class in the game. and has been pretty much since launch. Its popularity is coupled with the fact that the assassin/rouge architype has always been one of the most popular. ZOS did a great job of tooling their kit to the role they envisioned a nightblade should play.

Rather than hit them with a nerf hammer, they should be used as a model to design other classes. I think this was actually done pretty well with warden. They were designed with a healer/support archetype in mind, and and it was done very well i might add. It also doesnt hurt that this was the first class to be designed with major/minor buff overhaul in place.

I am actually fine with certain classes doing more raw PVE DPS than others. It doesnt make sense that a templar or warden could out DPS a nightblade or sorc, its not what they were designed for, and makes no sense from any common sense "lore" perspective. It's just like I wouldnt expect a NB to make a better tank than a DK. It doesnt pass the smell test.

If all classes are equal at all things, some would call it balance. I would honestly call it boring. Class choice should matter in the role you want to perform, especially when pushing it to the extreme.

Thogard · March 2018

Thankfully most Stam NBs are bad and so the full potential of the class is wasted on most players.

It blows my mind how strong the passives are. The resistance buffs being cast simultaneously with skills just makes me cringe - no other class gets something like that.

Vanish and shade are the two best defensive mechanics in the game (shade > bolt escape IMO) and nightblade has both.

Incap is the best ulti in the game. Surprise attack one of the best spammables. Merciless resolve just stacks so well with incap... and the sustain is amazing too. Fear is the best CC in the game.

The weakness stamblades have is their lack of AOE or group utility. Their defenses do not synergize well with other classes. In a group, most Stam classes can stick together and stack vigors and block / heal. If the NB stays in one place, vanish and shade become pretty worthless.

Zorgon_The_Revenged · March 2018

The more I read these posts with their "high damage" this and "reset fights" that, I can't help but think.....nerf magSorc.

Sevn · March 2018

Thunderknuckles wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

aaylas wrote: »

OP, can you please post your DPS parse on nightblade? I have heard many people beg for nerfs for classes they don't play, so I would just like to make sure OP is someone who actually understands the class he/she wants to weaken.

I'm a stamnb main since closed beta but have played every other spec in the game aswell.
I've done all vet trials + hm on Carglorn+ vhof
All dungeons speed/ no death hm and VMSA on all classes.

I'm not insulting you, but I am very dubious about this claim of yours. VERY dubious.

I'm waiting on the video of him, or any of the nb haters to be loaded up to show us how op/easy they are. I'd also be very interested in seeing a vid of them rocking their main in cyro as I'm fairly certain these folks just refuse to change up their skills to to utilize the many counters for nbs. They don't want to change how they play, but they have no problem asking for another class to be nerfed so nb players are forced to change how they play?

It's rock, paper, scissors people, if you play as a paper toon you SHOULD lose to someone playing scissors! Rocks SHOULD smash scissor toons! Wtf, l2p.

Bam_Bam · March 2018

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Been saying it for a while, even before the stars aligned for their PVE damage to really take off. Nightblade is the best designed class in the game. and has been pretty much since launch. Its popularity is coupled with the fact that the assassin/rouge architype has always been one of the most popular. ZOS did a great job of tooling their kit to the role they envisioned a nightblade should play.

Rather than hit them with a nerf hammer, they should be used as a model to design other classes. I think this was actually done pretty well with warden. They were designed with a healer/support archetype in mind, and and it was done very well i might add. It also doesnt hurt that this was the first class to be designed with major/minor buff overhaul in place.

I am actually fine with certain classes doing more raw PVE DPS than others. It doesnt make sense that a templar or warden could out DPS a nightblade or sorc, its not what they were designed for, and makes no sense from any common sense "lore" perspective. It's just like I wouldnt expect a NB to make a better tank than a DK. It doesnt pass the smell test.

If all classes are equal at all things, some would call it balance. I would honestly call it boring. Class choice should matter in the role you want to perform, especially when pushing it to the extreme.

Excellent post.

Insanepirate01 · March 2018

They Will probably read all this. Then nerf magdk

Koolio · March 2018

As a MNB DW/Resto main I would like my 2 cents in here.

The majority of issues I see on this thread are for stamblades. The other is assasins will.

As a non meta players who makes all my own builds for this and does not rely on assasins will, cloak stacking would completely destroy my playstyle. I can see from both sides of the argument of nerfs/buffs though.

When nerfing think to oneself will this push people out of the game or bring people in?

And don’t nerf non meta builds and playstyles because of a specific setups.

It sucks to have blanketed nerfs to things because of someone else’s playstyle.

Such as Incap “over performing” so Soul harvest gets nerfed.

Surprise attack being strong so concealed weapon gets nerfed

DW/resto MNB is also one of or the worse class to lead a Pvp group with.

Interested in what happens though

NyassaV · March 2018

Rickter wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

If you're being hit with Assasian's will and incap then it makes sense that will would do more damage sine that is a magicka ability and Stamblades seldom use the stam morph anymore (Which needs to be changed). Incap is a stamina scaling ability so naturally it would hit less.

Ive been hit with a 7.8k incap followed by a 10.3k assassin's will. . . sooooo, ok.

Yeah that's how it should be. Incap will always hit for less on a magicka build. The Incap can boost the damage of the assassin's will by 20% and you have to dodge and/or block one or both elements of it. The issue with incap is that as I stated above it is a knock down effect not a stun. If it worked like a stun people would actually be able to counter it effectively. It hits oddly hard on magic builds but when using soul harvest my will tends to hit for as much as soul harvest (I don't use incap)

DDuke · March 2018

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

In this last patch, basically nightblades became immune to two class specific and one general counter.

* Warden cliff racers are dodgeable. These used to be a nightblade’s bane, now they won’t ever hit you if you’re any good. Never. Hit.

* DK powerlash got a cooldown, and is now dodgeable. A nightblade will almost never get hit by this, the single most damaging regular skill proc that a magDK has, thats also tied to their burst heal. And they absolutely suck against good stamblades with it being dodgeable. Can’t hit you. Can’t heal. **** you ZOS.

* Soul Assault took a huge nerf to the snare, which used to be the whole point in using it. Its easy to escape now without dying.

So now TWO classes are now free AP Piñatas for nightblades that weren’t before. You are GOING to get a lot of these threads, you won’t like it, but neither do they.

Yes, and all of those were good changes because they really were countering medium armor builds too hard. I still see mDKs & Wardens doing well in Cyrodiil, BGs & Duels.

Also, you still get the heal from Power Lash even if it misses btw.

That said, I do agree that dodge roll spam needs to be toned down.

I like how it actually accomplishes something in this patch, but I dislike that people can spam it nonstop without running out of stamina.

So maybe ZOS should increase the stacking cost modifier for dodge roll (or increase the duration for the debuff so that people can't use one cloak to just reset the counter & carry on spamming dodge roll until the next Incap).

Also, builds that struggle vs dodge roll tactics should get some undodgeable abilities (on par with Steel Tornado/Brawler which were recently changed to be undodgeable). For instance, bow builds should be able to bypass dodge roll with Acid Spray/Bombard.

To be fair, you underestimate Cloak and overestimate dodgeroll here. I can dodgeroll 9 times in a row (with almost 40k stamina and 2.6k stamregen) while I can Cloak more often in a row (and I can use Cloak offensive as well, I can't do that with dodgeroll). Lastly: how do you want to make other stam classes viable on anything other than a tank build if you nerf dodgeroll while leaving Cloak as it is?

Well, you've dueled my bowblade so you know how it is. I can put Piercing Mark on you & it makes no difference; you're still able to dodge everything I throw at you until I run out of stamina.

So it's not really cloak that is the issue. Coincidentally, cloak is also the only thing that keeps a high dmg build alive since you can't rely on dodge roll to survive.

Gilvoth · March 2018

nightblade class just suks and has allways been the weakest class and so easily pulled out of stealth. they need to make a new stealth rogue type class that has better skills then nightblades do.

zenaimax, please make a new stealth class that has a toggle on off invisibility and better skills then nightblade

BohnT · March 2018

NyassaV wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

If you're being hit with Assasian's will and incap then it makes sense that will would do more damage sine that is a magicka ability and Stamblades seldom use the stam morph anymore (Which needs to be changed). Incap is a stamina scaling ability so naturally it would hit less.

Ive been hit with a 7.8k incap followed by a 10.3k assassin's will. . . sooooo, ok.

Yeah that's how it should be. Incap will always hit for less on a magicka build. The Incap can boost the damage of the assassin's will by 20% and you have to dodge and/or block one or both elements of it. The issue with incap is that as I stated above it is a knock down effect not a stun. If it worked like a stun people would actually be able to counter it effectively. It hits oddly hard on magic builds but when using soul harvest my will tends to hit for as much as soul harvest (I don't use incap)

Then immediately go to the next respec shrine and get incap. You'll absolutely feel the power. The damage difference is really really low as the only thing affecting it is your penetration and missing points into hardy ~10% damage difference most times but the stun will win you so many fights, some with bugs some where it works how the tooltip says

BohnT · March 2018

DDuke wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Tan9oSuccka wrote: »

What’s the deal with the recent spike in NB hate/salt?

In this last patch, basically nightblades became immune to two class specific and one general counter.

* Warden cliff racers are dodgeable. These used to be a nightblade’s bane, now they won’t ever hit you if you’re any good. Never. Hit.

* DK powerlash got a cooldown, and is now dodgeable. A nightblade will almost never get hit by this, the single most damaging regular skill proc that a magDK has, thats also tied to their burst heal. And they absolutely suck against good stamblades with it being dodgeable. Can’t hit you. Can’t heal. **** you ZOS.

* Soul Assault took a huge nerf to the snare, which used to be the whole point in using it. Its easy to escape now without dying.

So now TWO classes are now free AP Piñatas for nightblades that weren’t before. You are GOING to get a lot of these threads, you won’t like it, but neither do they.

Yes, and all of those were good changes because they really were countering medium armor builds too hard. I still see mDKs & Wardens doing well in Cyrodiil, BGs & Duels.

Also, you still get the heal from Power Lash even if it misses btw.

That said, I do agree that dodge roll spam needs to be toned down.

I like how it actually accomplishes something in this patch, but I dislike that people can spam it nonstop without running out of stamina.

So maybe ZOS should increase the stacking cost modifier for dodge roll (or increase the duration for the debuff so that people can't use one cloak to just reset the counter & carry on spamming dodge roll until the next Incap).

Also, builds that struggle vs dodge roll tactics should get some undodgeable abilities (on par with Steel Tornado/Brawler which were recently changed to be undodgeable). For instance, bow builds should be able to bypass dodge roll with Acid Spray/Bombard.

To be fair, you underestimate Cloak and overestimate dodgeroll here. I can dodgeroll 9 times in a row (with almost 40k stamina and 2.6k stamregen) while I can Cloak more often in a row (and I can use Cloak offensive as well, I can't do that with dodgeroll). Lastly: how do you want to make other stam classes viable on anything other than a tank build if you nerf dodgeroll while leaving Cloak as it is?

Well, you've dueled my bowblade so you know how it is. I can put Piercing Mark on you & it makes no difference; you're still able to dodge everything I throw at you until I run out of stamina.

So it's not really cloak that is the issue. Coincidentally, cloak is also the only thing that keeps a high dmg build alive since you can't rely on dodge roll to survive.

You can't determine the effectiveness of dodge and cloak when having a build with 0 undodgeable skills, no burst outside of an 1 sec cast time skill with very long travel time while you are completely hardcountering cloak. There is a reason why the only dodge builds you see are nightblades or some brave templar which is much less effective.