Stealth detection/prevention abilities: time to update them

Drdeath20 · August 2018

Its not the invisibility part i have a problem with. Or trying to find an invisible player. You want to go hide then be my guest. My problem is its a fairly cheap skill that has the 3 most powerful defensive mechanics all with 1 push of a button plus an offensive upside. Its also semi spammable.

Makes a player untargetable from any damage
Supresses any already applied damage
And provides easy stealth even during combat

Reflecting ranged skills, healing and shields cant even touch any 1 of those.

Sharee · August 2018

My biggest issue with stealth detection is how it interacts with lag.

1, guy cloaks in front of you
2, you pop detect potion, and can see him just standing there
3, use gap closer
4, you are moved to him (he still appears to be just standing there)
5, you do no damage, and suddenly the enemy blinks 10m away from you
6, now he appears to be standing still again (even tho you know he must be moving)
7. back to point 3 and repeat.

Basically, the game updates the position of a cloaked player on your client only once every 1-2 seconds(gets worse with lag), even if you are supposed to be able to see him (happens with mark, too). This makes him completely immune to decloaking, as he is impossible to hit(you see where he was a few seconds ago, but not where he is now).

Mayrael · August 2018

Again biased thread. Did you ever seen how fast magblade dies when marked? Usually it takes 5-15 seconds depending on skill of a player but it is guaranteed kill. Why? Because outside of one (not even class) shield it's the only! way magblade can mitigate damage. So you want to completely disable main defense of the class just because you refuse to learn to play? Det pots are extremely efficient when it goes to killing NBs, you just need to know when to use them...

I've been where you are now few years ago, frustrated that NBs can escape from the fight so easy. Now when I know how to kill them they are easiest prey for me and the only thing I use to secure my kills are det potions, not even a single one skill designed to detect them is needed. Based on that from the perspective of experienced player I can tell it's literally L2P issue. You won't be happy till you will be able to use one button to completely disable NBs ability to defend while I can bet none of you have any NB character with PvP rank higher than 15 because then you would know how to counter cloak.

Can we have skills and potions that completely disable roll dodge, block shield and heals for XXs because I don't know how to kill someone? Santa please?

Oh... But what I am trying to achieve here? This thread will drag only frustrated vultures that just feel scent of possible nerf to other class which is always ok as long it doesn't touch my own tralala. Flies away

f047ys3v3n · August 2018

1) There is literally a universally available skill in scorching flare that basically kills a cloaking nb. Sure, nobody wants to slot it because it is a slot but the nb slotted a cloak and if you want a skill to counter it there is a counter so hard that you will basically win the fight every time if you hit him with it. My only quibble with this is that the animation of it is way to slow.

2) Basically any ranged aoe reveals and damages the nb. Better than 50% of the time I reveal and kill nb's with my fire ring. There are many abilities that work for this from caltrops to lightning flood to blazing spear.

Revealing nb's is just not an issue. I think the bigger problem folks have is how fast players can move in game relative to the server lag in the game. I also think a good deal of the issue comes from folks running cheat engine to gain an advantage. I have encountered way too many stam nb's who can recloak more times than I, as a mag toon with seducer on, can reveal them with flame ring. Everything the CE guys on the inside loop tend to do ability wise gets on the hate list because of how CE allows them to do it in an OP way when it is the CE that is the problem and not the abilities the users are using. By this logic we should nerf onslaught because of the one PCNA Vivec red guy who has been literally one shotting everybody with it for 23k a pop for the last 6 months. He's the only guy using it but it must be OP because, when he does it, you die in one shot. Limitless cloaks and roll dodges from stam toons running CE that have limitless resources is a big issue but it is not a cloak problem, it is a CE problem and as long as ZOS thinks they can balance CE use with ability changes they will be chasing their tail.

Septimus_Magna · August 2018

The_Outsider wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

My problem with the stealth detect skills is that the NB can just Cloak again after being detected. People seem to forget stealth is avoiding/mitigating 100% dmg so its by far the effecient way to take less dmg.

If you shield/block/dodge/heal you still take dmg, can be CCed and you’re visible. Stealth is just a superior kind of dmg mitigation.

Even with Cloak breaking skills like Curse I find it hard to stop a NB who tries to escape. The reason why Streak was nerfed into the ground was because the devs felt sorcs could disengage at any moment. Well the exact same thing is happening for a while now with NBs, probably even more so because of the recent Shade buff.

The double standard should surprise me but it doesnt, NBs are ZOS’ favorite child and get all the nice toys.

I dont know what the best fix would be, maybe surpress stealth for 3 seconds after being revealed. Or increase the cost for spamming Cloak (like Streak) but increase the duration. Or maybe something entirely different.

Some things I noted reading your comment: Cloak mitigates/avoids 100% dmg when successful. No other type of mit. can be outright prevented. Imagine anti block potion/poison: "prevents blocking for x seconds..." Effectiveness can be reduced, but you cannot prevent someone from healing or blocking or rolling (i don't bring up CC because you can CC a cloaked/cloaking target as well). Also, to cloak mid-fight is to relinquish pressure. Many times even if NB successfully goes invis, the target gets the free 2.9 seconds recover as well.

^Additionally, no damage, healing or other actions, barring a few exceptions can be performed without removing stealth. Any other type of mit is accomplished while retaining the ability to simultaneously do damage (block cast whip) or heal.

I have difficulty relating with Cloak being difficult to counter. I just use Steel tornado, if they outrange it, gap close, if they are really slippery then I'll Det Pot. I don't alter my build or make any sacrifices whatsoever. Once in a blue moon a particularly skilled NB will pull a clever juke and get away.

Streak is comparable to Shade for sure. Streak =/= Cloak. Streak is a re-positioning/mobility skill, where Cloak is for, like you said mitigation, and I'd add misdirection. A Sorc could (pre-nerf) continously deal damage, spam streak for superior positioning, spam heals/shields, streak more, more damage, more streak...basically ensuring perfect positioning and insane mobility for no cost/counter-play. Cloak is more comparable to hardened ward than streak IMO.

I feel like you’re looking at Cloak pretty one sides. Yes, you cannot heal but dont take dmg from anything but Curse, and you can LoS, pop a heal, cloak back to the unexpecting player and initiate the fight at your demand. Without LoS options most magblades also know how to get the healing ward heal with minimum time exposed, stamblades just vigor and roll a couple times to heal.

Ive found spamming AoEs a very bad way to fight NBs, most just LoS and cloak again to escape.

Blocking has a direct counter which is no stam regen and stam cost for blocking hits so I dont get the comparison. When you cloak you still regen resources and people have to guess where you go.

Healing can be reduced significantly with minor and major defile. As a NB you should know this because the best single target ult also applies major defile.

Yes, mark is a deadly counter but ironically only available to other NBs.

I think Streak is more like bad version of Cloak than Shade tbh. When you Cloak you can walk to a good spot to reposition yourself. Streak is also a tool to reposition but it doesnt even put you outside the range of gap closers or ranged attacks. Even if you Streak a couple times outside the range of gap closers people can still see where you’re going so they can easily chase.

KingJ · August 2018

Waffennacht wrote: »

I do like the idea of maybe increasing mage light/hunter etc's radius

As is, you're right, not worth using as a detect tool

Agreed increase the range of both abilities and add something to expert hunter to make it attractive.

Detect pot and mark need the counterplay

WildWilbur · August 2018

OP farms posts making another "I don't like it - make it go away!" thread. Congrats! This never gets old...

And no, OP, I won't help you farm more posts.

BohnT · August 2018

I'll just quote myself from a post i made about cloak:

"As stated above the counterplay for cloak is either totally out of control making cloak an obsolete ability or cloak makes you immortal giving you as much control over your survival as you can have.
With the ease of use shade got this patch you can become immortal if an enemy doesn't has access to one of the hardcounters.

Here's a list of the counters to Cloak:
AoE abilities, mage light/ expert hunter, revealing flare, Piercing mark, detection potions, sloads, PotL( second hit), curse, Soulassault ( prevents cloaking for 2 seconds)

Most players will point out how AoEs are a good counter to cloak, which they techincally are but in practise they fail, Cloak is used to reset a fight either to get away or heal back to full, things like volatile armor only deal tiny amounts of damage and nothing stops a well build NB from cloaking again meaning you can't CC them afterwards or hit them with a high damage ability, if you try to pull a NB out of cloak with an AoE you are just wasting resources as the damage your AoEs deal isn't enough to negate the healing provided by vigor, rally and other sources (lingering health potions/ trollking).

This makes AoEs a bad counter for cloak as you get almost no benefit revealing a NB and are often at a disadvantage later on as you wasted resources.

The next counter is mage light and expert hunter.
Both abilities aren't widely used due to them being often only seen as a counter to one single class. This is even more the case for expert hunter as it's very expensive and doesn't provide a good secondary effect like mage light does (7% more magicka)
If they are used by someone however they negate the useage of cloak and prevent the NB from cloaking a few seconds.
This makes both abilities very frustrating for both sides, the one who uses the ability has to waste an entire skill slot for a counter that has a rather small radius. The NB on the other hand loses one of it's main defences if they are revealed by those things.
Both mage light and expert hunter need a rework to be less of a hardcounter to cloak but more viable in different situations as well.
I couldn't find any fully satisfying solution however

Revealing flare falls into the same category being only used to reveal NBs while being absolutely useless in any other situation (maybe for the 10% magregen). The main problem is that revealing flare punishes the NB like shieldbreaker does. They have to deal with massive amounts of damage only because they actively defended themselves this should never be the case that you get heavily punished for doing what you are intended to do (defend yourself).
The ability should be useable in more situations but then the damage part has to be reduced by a lot.

Now to the most frustrating cloak counters in the game:
Piercing mark: This effectively removes cloak from your bar, is extremely easy to keep up 100% of the time and is only useable by NBs making the best counter to nightblades other nightblades.
This ability needs to be reworked, it can still be a good counter but not as much as it is now.

change completely how the reveal of the ability works, the major fracture/ breach and heal duration and effects stay the same.
The active reveal gets changed to pulse every 2 seconds for 8 seconds pulling the target out of cloak/ invisibility but do not prevent casting cloak right again, after the 8 seconds the mark continues to show the last position where the enemy was out of stealth (once player is visible mark sticks to him again until he cloaks again)
This gives the caster a great way to reveal NBs and combine the timed reveal with a CC or a damage ability while giving an experienced NB the opportunity to still make use of cloak for ~2 seconds if they manage to time it right.

Sloads, i won't even bother with this set it's broken and will hopefully be nerfed in the next patch

Detection Potions the next bad designed counter at the cost of very powerful effects you can choose to ruin the day for a NB without them even knowing that you see them. On one side they are just another hardcounter but they also have ridiculously high opportunity cost that gives you a huge disadvantage for 45 seconds, an eye for an eye never was a good attempt to balance things.

Now here come rather well designed cloak counters:
PotL the weakest counter as it only works every 6 seconds and the damage part often gets removed by cloak which means it only reveals the NB after 6 seconds which is enough to heal back to full for any good build. It's still a decent ability to counter cloak without being too strong.

Curse this is like PotL but in strong, it sticks to the NB and explodes after 3.5 seconds and then a second time after 8.5 seconds, also it deals great damage countering the healing the nb got while stealthed. However it's a bit too easy for the caster to reveal the NB as you just have to use the skill and you benefit from it unless you meet that one niche build NB that uses purge and in this case you atleast drained enough magicka to make it hard for the NB to stay cloaked.

Edit hurricane is one of the most potent and easy to use cloak counters although its strength varies throughout the fight as everytime you have to recast it the radius is heavily reduced. It makes fighting NBs very easy as you have a huge AoE that reveals any NB inside of it each second.
Even though it's such a strong counter i don't see it as too much of a problem as NBs still are a potent threat to stamsorcs as their high burst counteracts stamsorcs general tendency to focus on hots and health regen with trollking.

But now here's the best designed cloak counter in the game:
Deep Breath/ Drain Essence
The first hit deals some damage and reveals the NB and then you can perfectly mix the second, the stronger hit with a CC to catch the NB.
The best thing however is that both the NB and the DK can outplay the other one, if the NB manages to get out of range it has made full useage of his cloak. The DK however can predict where the NB will go and then punish it with a fossilize or a leap right after the second hit revealed the NB.

If we had more counterplay like Deep Breath vs Cloak and less Mark vs cloak this game would be so much better.

One last thing I'm sure that not everyone will get access to something that works as good as Deep Breath to counter NBs that's why an more easy fix to increase the viability of AoEs as an counter to cloak is to simply increase both cost and duration by 35-50%
This punishes the NB more for getting revealed while also making it harder to spam cloak back to back, however then the majority of the hardcounters has to go."

Mayrael · August 2018

BohnT wrote: »

I'll just quote myself from a post i made about cloak:

"As stated above the counterplay for cloak is either totally out of control making cloak an obsolete ability or cloak makes you immortal giving you as much control over your survival as you can have.
With the ease of use shade got this patch you can become immortal if an enemy doesn't has access to one of the hardcounters.

Here's a list of the counters to Cloak:
AoE abilities, mage light/ expert hunter, revealing flare, Piercing mark, detection potions, sloads, PotL( second hit), curse, Soulassault ( prevents cloaking for 2 seconds)

Most players will point out how AoEs are a good counter to cloak, which they techincally are but in practise they fail, Cloak is used to reset a fight either to get away or heal back to full, things like volatile armor only deal tiny amounts of damage and nothing stops a well build NB from cloaking again meaning you can't CC them afterwards or hit them with a high damage ability, if you try to pull a NB out of cloak with an AoE you are just wasting resources as the damage your AoEs deal isn't enough to negate the healing provided by vigor, rally and other sources (lingering health potions/ trollking).

This makes AoEs a bad counter for cloak as you get almost no benefit revealing a NB and are often at a disadvantage later on as you wasted resources.

The next counter is mage light and expert hunter.
Both abilities aren't widely used due to them being often only seen as a counter to one single class. This is even more the case for expert hunter as it's very expensive and doesn't provide a good secondary effect like mage light does (7% more magicka)
If they are used by someone however they negate the useage of cloak and prevent the NB from cloaking a few seconds.
This makes both abilities very frustrating for both sides, the one who uses the ability has to waste an entire skill slot for a counter that has a rather small radius. The NB on the other hand loses one of it's main defences if they are revealed by those things.
Both mage light and expert hunter need a rework to be less of a hardcounter to cloak but more viable in different situations as well.
I couldn't find any fully satisfying solution however

Revealing flare falls into the same category being only used to reveal NBs while being absolutely useless in any other situation (maybe for the 10% magregen). The main problem is that revealing flare punishes the NB like shieldbreaker does. They have to deal with massive amounts of damage only because they actively defended themselves this should never be the case that you get heavily punished for doing what you are intended to do (defend yourself).
The ability should be useable in more situations but then the damage part has to be reduced by a lot.

Now to the most frustrating cloak counters in the game:
Piercing mark: This effectively removes cloak from your bar, is extremely easy to keep up 100% of the time and is only useable by NBs making the best counter to nightblades other nightblades.
This ability needs to be reworked, it can still be a good counter but not as much as it is now.

change completely how the reveal of the ability works, the major fracture/ breach and heal duration and effects stay the same.
The active reveal gets changed to pulse every 2 seconds for 8 seconds pulling the target out of cloak/ invisibility but do not prevent casting cloak right again, after the 8 seconds the mark continues to show the last position where the enemy was out of stealth (once player is visible mark sticks to him again until he cloaks again)
This gives the caster a great way to reveal NBs and combine the timed reveal with a CC or a damage ability while giving an experienced NB the opportunity to still make use of cloak for ~2 seconds if they manage to time it right.

Sloads, i won't even bother with this set it's broken and will hopefully be nerfed in the next patch

Detection Potions the next bad designed counter at the cost of very powerful effects you can choose to ruin the day for a NB without them even knowing that you see them. On one side they are just another hardcounter but they also have ridiculously high opportunity cost that gives you a huge disadvantage for 45 seconds, an eye for an eye never was a good attempt to balance things.

Now here come rather well designed cloak counters:
PotL the weakest counter as it only works every 6 seconds and the damage part often gets removed by cloak which means it only reveals the NB after 6 seconds which is enough to heal back to full for any good build. It's still a decent ability to counter cloak without being too strong.

Curse this is like PotL but in strong, it sticks to the NB and explodes after 3.5 seconds and then a second time after 8.5 seconds, also it deals great damage countering the healing the nb got while stealthed. However it's a bit too easy for the caster to reveal the NB as you just have to use the skill and you benefit from it unless you meet that one niche build NB that uses purge and in this case you atleast drained enough magicka to make it hard for the NB to stay cloaked.

Edit hurricane is one of the most potent and easy to use cloak counters although its strength varies throughout the fight as everytime you have to recast it the radius is heavily reduced. It makes fighting NBs very easy as you have a huge AoE that reveals any NB inside of it each second.
Even though it's such a strong counter i don't see it as too much of a problem as NBs still are a potent threat to stamsorcs as their high burst counteracts stamsorcs general tendency to focus on hots and health regen with trollking.

But now here's the best designed cloak counter in the game:
Deep Breath/ Drain Essence
The first hit deals some damage and reveals the NB and then you can perfectly mix the second, the stronger hit with a CC to catch the NB.
The best thing however is that both the NB and the DK can outplay the other one, if the NB manages to get out of range it has made full useage of his cloak. The DK however can predict where the NB will go and then punish it with a fossilize or a leap right after the second hit revealed the NB.

If we had more counterplay like Deep Breath vs Cloak and less Mark vs cloak this game would be so much better.

One last thing I'm sure that not everyone will get access to something that works as good as Deep Breath to counter NBs that's why an more easy fix to increase the viability of AoEs as an counter to cloak is to simply increase both cost and duration by 35-50%
This punishes the NB more for getting revealed while also making it harder to spam cloak back to back, however then the majority of the hardcounters has to go."

That's a lot of reading but it's worth it. Pretty good ideas, learn something from this man people. I like the idea of changing hardcounters into soft counters that are more useful beside of revealing NBs, causing less stress on both sides (I can have useful skill that from time to time helps me to find NB, but also allows NB to still defend him self).

Galarthor · August 2018

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Certainly, detection pots were the bIg thing that needed an indicator since they gave no indication that your stealth was suppressed. Magelight though already gave a hood indicator and expert hunter rarely detected unless you were right atop of an enemy. Giving something like a "ping" ability with the new indicator will give the stealth use a warning that this person can find them, time to move.

Yes they did. Sh** came flying at you that shouldn't be flying at you.
You also don't get a special indicator to warn you that your opponent has a gap closer and thus running / streaking is pointless. I feel like too many things are getting special indicators in the game lately. If we continue down this road we might as well re-enable Miats.

The_Outsider wrote: »

Some things I noted reading your comment: Cloak mitigates/avoids 100% dmg when successful. No other type of mit. can be outright prevented. Imagine anti block potion/poison: "prevents blocking for x seconds..." Effectiveness can be reduced, but you cannot prevent someone from healing or blocking or rolling (i don't bring up CC because you can CC a cloaked/cloaking target as well). Also, to cloak mid-fight is to relinquish pressure. Many times even if NB successfully goes invis, the target gets the free 2.9 seconds recover as well.

I agree, but that part of the risk-reward trade-off. You don't get the mitigation with 100% certainty, but when you do get it, it basically mitigates everything. And in the majority of cases cloak works.

The recovery and benefits for your opponents is not are comparatively low. While you choose where to go, how long to hide, when the fight starts again, and can preprate your next attack, your opponent opponent will have to spam defensive abilities and offensive abilities in order to both survive your next attack and to find you - b/c your opponent has no clue if you are running for good or when you will attack next.

Though regarding block, i think there should be fewer abilities that can actually be activated while simultaneously blocking, but that's a different topic.

The_Outsider wrote: »

^Additionally, no damage, healing or other actions, barring a few exceptions can be performed without removing stealth. Any other type of mit is accomplished while retaining the ability to simultaneously do damage (block cast whip) or heal.

Again, that's part of the trade-off. Dodge roll got a similar trade-off. You have huge mitigation potential.

The_Outsider wrote: »

I have difficulty relating with Cloak being difficult to counter. I just use Steel tornado, if they outrange it, gap close, if they are really slippery then I'll Det Pot. I don't alter my build or make any sacrifices whatsoever. Once in a blue moon a particularly skilled NB will pull a clever juke and get away.

I think that depends on your class and build. For example, on my sorc with a lot of single target direct damage I basically only have detection pots to counter cloak. And even if I have mage light on the bar, it is pretty useless in detecting stealthers. Duration is too short and adius too small. On some of my other classes where I got some "default" aoe abilties I got a far greater chance of detecting or preventing stealth. ("default" as in, they are not specifically added to counter stealth). If I wanted to have something similar on my sorc, I would have to gimp him completely in PvP.

The_Outsider wrote: »

Streak is comparable to Shade for sure. Streak =/= Cloak. Streak is a re-positioning/mobility skill, where Cloak is for, like you said mitigation, and I'd add misdirection. A Sorc could (pre-nerf) continously deal damage, spam streak for superior positioning, spam heals/shields, streak more, more damage, more streak...basically ensuring perfect positioning and insane mobility for no cost/counter-play. Cloak is more comparable to hardened ward than streak IMO.

I think cloak is a hybrid between shields and streak. It allows you to mitigate damage but also functions as a gap opener. In both these regards it is more powerful than shields and streak, but also less reliable - especially on the mitigation part. And what pre-nerf sorcs could do with streak, NBs can still do with cloak. You choose when to attack. You choose how long the fight lasts. You choose from where to attack. So there is definitely a repositioning / gap opener function in this ability.

I also don't feel like there aren't enough reliable counters to cloak available to all classes / builds. Sure there are dect potions, but they shouldn't be a thing or required. Imagine, you could only gap close on your target for 15 sec every 45 sec (1/3 of the time) if drank a potion ....

NyassaV · August 2018

How about remove the damage from flare and maybe make it so it doesn't have the cost that strife used too? Then we can talk about buffing it

Maryal · August 2018

@HeroOfNone

I am taken aback by you post and am trying very hard to understand why you wrote it. You've been playing the game a long time, so it shouldn't be a LTP issue. You understand the classes and the lore of the ES games. So, my question to you is why? What was the impetus that caused you to write this post? I'm not asking for a generic answer, but a specific answer. How has your gameplay been adversely effected? What class have you been playing? What is your play style? Are we talking about open world pvp or BGs? If open world, are you in a group (if so small, med or large), or are you solo?

Didgerion · August 2018

Cloak is a big problem in PVP and totally overpowered when works.

I think the right adjustment is to make it similar to mist form.

ak_pvp · August 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

Permablock counters:
The fact it itself snares, stops stam regen, and has a high cost, about 2k/s at a normal tanky damage build. You lose damage from no weaves. Oh. and you are visable and still take a chunk of the damage, and all damage from:
All dots
On target burst like POTL and curse
Bleeds counter it x2 (The block and the resist ignore)
All ground and above AoEs.
And it can be dropped by fear, fossilize and the ever present rune cage.
In summery more effective and easily accessible counters for a worse defense? But yeah. Permablock>Cloak amirite?

Shields have no soft counters that is true. I don't like that. But shields are a lot more costly bar harness 1v1, and are a lot weaker. Like incredibly weak compared to cloak. Oh, and yep, again, completely visable, no dot prevention, no untargetability.

Unfortunately, kettle is out right now, he will be back whenever the devs decide to balance nightblade.

Stibbons · August 2018

Flare should travel even faster. Cloak is not the problem. Stamblades dodgerolls make it op.

Silver_Strider · August 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

Permablock counters:
The fact it itself snares, stops stam regen, and has a high cost, about 2k/s at a normal tanky damage build. You lose damage from no weaves. Oh. and you are visable and still take a chunk of the damage, and all damage from:
All dots
On target burst like POTL and curse
Bleeds counter it x2 (The block and the resist ignore)
All ground and above AoEs.
And it can be dropped by fear, fossilize and the ever present rune cage.
In summery more effective and easily accessible counters for a worse defense? But yeah. Permablock>Cloak amirite?

Shields have no soft counters that is true. I don't like that. But shields are a lot more costly bar harness 1v1, and are a lot weaker. Like incredibly weak compared to cloak. Oh, and yep, again, completely visable, no dot prevention, no untargetability.

Unfortunately, kettle is out right now, he will be back whenever the devs decide to balance nightblade.

Shields and Permablock also work 100% of the time unless Hard countered whereas Cloak fails at the slightest AoE attack on top of the hard counters for it. It doesn't matter that a permablock build snares itself, it's purpose is to survive and it does that fabulously despite all your "counters" to it. Bleeds are easy to deal with when all the damage you're taking from direct hits aren't even in the 2k area. As for the actual hard counters for permablock, as I already stated there is all of 3 of them and each is locked behind a class, unlike the hard counters for cloak which are all generic skills that anyone can pick up and while the detection effectiveness varies for them, they still exist for everyone to use on top of the multiple soft counters (btw, Curse and PotL works on cloak too)

Shields mitigate all the damage you take that it doesn't matter if the target can still hit you, you're nullifying everything they throw at you; you can't get a status effect on you nor can you get critically damaged while still being able to attack while they protect you unlike Cloak which breaks if you reengage in combat. DoT's can't damage you either whereas if Cloak drops, you continue taking the DoT damage. I mean, I have to cast cloak continuously if I want to suppress all the DoTs for their full duration from killing me, whereas a shield spammer only needs their shield to eat the damage while they sit safely behind it and heal up with whatever they have. You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health.

It's a fragile defense skill that can fail at any given time. It's annoying when it works but is a joke more often than not.

Bergzorn · August 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

Permablock counters:
The fact it itself snares, stops stam regen, and has a high cost, about 2k/s at a normal tanky damage build. You lose damage from no weaves. Oh. and you are visable and still take a chunk of the damage, and all damage from:
All dots
On target burst like POTL and curse
Bleeds counter it x2 (The block and the resist ignore)
All ground and above AoEs.
And it can be dropped by fear, fossilize and the ever present rune cage.
In summery more effective and easily accessible counters for a worse defense? But yeah. Permablock>Cloak amirite?

Shields have no soft counters that is true. I don't like that. But shields are a lot more costly bar harness 1v1, and are a lot weaker. Like incredibly weak compared to cloak. Oh, and yep, again, completely visable, no dot prevention, no untargetability.

Unfortunately, kettle is out right now, he will be back whenever the devs decide to balance nightblade.

I mean, I have to cast cloak continuously if I want to suppress all the DoTs for their full duration from killing me, whereas a shield spammer only needs their shield to eat the damage while they sit safely behind it and heal up with whatever they have. You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health.

Are you even serious with that statement?

Juhasow · August 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

There are abilities in the game that ignores block like for example curse or power of the light , there are dmg types that ignores block like bleeds and oblivion dmg. Counter to damage shields is just doing damage and when shields are loosing effectiveness with every additianal target that attacks shields user cloak is getting stronger. Problem with cloak adventage is that it can be combined with other defenses types in much more powerfull ways then block or shields. Both blocking and shielding targets can be also greatly debuffed whilke taking dmg which lowers their healing potential when cloaking target can just stop taking dmg wait until debuffs go out and heal in cloak while taking zero dmg. I like how when You talk about counterplays You have in mind only things that completly bypass certain defense type. I dont think removing Cloak is right idea but lowering its effectiveness especially for stamina nightblade needs to happen.

Juhasow · August 2018

Mayrael wrote: »

Again biased thread. Did you ever seen how fast magblade dies when marked? Usually it takes 5-15 seconds depending on skill of a player but it is guaranteed kill. Why? Because outside of one (not even class) shield it's the only! way magblade can mitigate damage. So you want to completely disable main defense of the class just because you refuse to learn to play? Det pots are extremely efficient when it goes to killing NBs, you just need to know when to use them...

I've been where you are now few years ago, frustrated that NBs can escape from the fight so easy. Now when I know how to kill them they are easiest prey for me and the only thing I use to secure my kills are det potions, not even a single one skill designed to detect them is needed. Based on that from the perspective of experienced player I can tell it's literally L2P issue. You won't be happy till you will be able to use one button to completely disable NBs ability to defend while I can bet none of you have any NB character with PvP rank higher than 15 because then you would know how to counter cloak.

Can we have skills and potions that completely disable roll dodge, block shield and heals for XXs because I don't know how to kill someone? Santa please?

Oh... But what I am trying to achieve here? This thread will drag only frustrated vultures that just feel scent of possible nerf to other class which is always ok as long it doesn't touch my own tralala. Flies away

What is biased is way of thinking You present here. In short it can be summarized into "because magblade defense out of cloak sucks lets keep stamblades untouched."

Mayrael · August 2018

Juhasow wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

Again biased thread. Did you ever seen how fast magblade dies when marked? Usually it takes 5-15 seconds depending on skill of a player but it is guaranteed kill. Why? Because outside of one (not even class) shield it's the only! way magblade can mitigate damage. So you want to completely disable main defense of the class just because you refuse to learn to play? Det pots are extremely efficient when it goes to killing NBs, you just need to know when to use them...

I've been where you are now few years ago, frustrated that NBs can escape from the fight so easy. Now when I know how to kill them they are easiest prey for me and the only thing I use to secure my kills are det potions, not even a single one skill designed to detect them is needed. Based on that from the perspective of experienced player I can tell it's literally L2P issue. You won't be happy till you will be able to use one button to completely disable NBs ability to defend while I can bet none of you have any NB character with PvP rank higher than 15 because then you would know how to counter cloak.

Can we have skills and potions that completely disable roll dodge, block shield and heals for XXs because I don't know how to kill someone? Santa please?

Oh... But what I am trying to achieve here? This thread will drag only frustrated vultures that just feel scent of possible nerf to other class which is always ok as long it doesn't touch my own tralala. Flies away

What is biased is way of thinking You present here. In short it can be summarized into "because magblade defense out of cloak sucks lets keep stamblades untouched."

First of all. My experience is pretty different than yours. You decide why but my fights with NBs in about 80% end with their death because I use detection potions which as I said are extremly powerful against this class. Literally NBs are the easies to kill, especialy magblades since they have limited roll dodges.
Secondly. Since you have problems with stamblades, maybe look into their core defences without destroying magblades completly? But hey since you use roll dodge to as a main Stam DK we can't touch it right?
Thirdly. If you think I'm biased I'll just lol at you, look at the forums, I jump form topic to topic defending differnet classes from stupid nerfs called by "one class heroes" like ekhem...

ak_pvp · August 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

Permablock counters:
The fact it itself snares, stops stam regen, and has a high cost, about 2k/s at a normal tanky damage build. You lose damage from no weaves. Oh. and you are visable and still take a chunk of the damage, and all damage from:
All dots
On target burst like POTL and curse
Bleeds counter it x2 (The block and the resist ignore)
All ground and above AoEs.
And it can be dropped by fear, fossilize and the ever present rune cage.
In summery more effective and easily accessible counters for a worse defense? But yeah. Permablock>Cloak amirite?

Shields have no soft counters that is true. I don't like that. But shields are a lot more costly bar harness 1v1, and are a lot weaker. Like incredibly weak compared to cloak. Oh, and yep, again, completely visable, no dot prevention, no untargetability.

Unfortunately, kettle is out right now, he will be back whenever the devs decide to balance nightblade.

Shields and Permablock also work 100% of the time unless Hard countered whereas Cloak fails at the slightest AoE attack on top of the hard counters for it. It doesn't matter that a permablock build snares itself, it's purpose is to survive and it does that fabulously despite all your "counters" to it.

Bleeds are easy to deal with when all the damage you're taking from direct hits aren't even in the 2k area. As for the actual hard counters for permablock, as I already stated there is all of 3 of them and each is locked behind a class, unlike the hard counters for cloak which are all generic skills that anyone can pick up and while the detection effectiveness varies for them, they still exist for everyone to use on top of the multiple soft counters (btw, Curse and PotL works on cloak too)

Shields mitigate all the damage you take that it doesn't matter if the target can still hit you, you're nullifying everything they throw at you; you can't get a status effect on you nor can you get critically damaged while still being able to attack while they protect you unlike Cloak which breaks if you reengage in combat. DoT's can't damage you either whereas if Cloak drops, you continue taking the DoT damage. I mean, I have to cast cloak continuously if I want to suppress all the DoTs for their full duration from killing me, whereas a shield spammer only needs their shield to eat the damage while they sit safely behind it and heal up with whatever they have. You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health.

It's a fragile defense skill that can fail at any given time. It's annoying when it works but is a joke more often than not.

BS mate. If cloak was a joke then NBs wouldn't be so popular. Stop defending your crutches. Any good player knows how incredibly OP cloak is when it isn't marked. The NB discord thinks that too. The paleontologist style: cloak s perfectly balanced or weak drivel is the joke here.

Bleeds are incredibly strong. There is no way to deal with them on a non templar. They deal upwards of 1k dps each. Permablock is neither an effective, or even possible survival method, too expensive and mobility is key. The vast majority of classes are swapping to 2h/DW for bleeds, or only s/b backbar. These are also very accessible, and unlike AoEs, actually do damage. This isn't even mentioning the massive damage loss, so blocking is really only good for healers.

With shields, all that damage that you "nullify" is still being taken, as opposed to all the damage that you simply don't take in cloak. And you are perfectly visible for more damage to constantly barrage you. It doesn't crit because it takes unresisted damage. Full pen, no crit. Having both would cause shields to be useless. The status effect thing is due to the mechanics of shield. Stupid IMO, but you know what else stops status effects? Cloak.

"You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health." A sorc vs any player with a modicum of damage would have to shield every second. So are you saying you are cloaking every 0.5s? And they absolutely die in an outnumbered scenario. The only place they are too strong is in Xv1 or 1v1 where you have to keep pressure but end up with a resource loss... Huh, sounds just like cloak but cloak is like that at all times.

HeroOfNone · August 2018

Maryal wrote: »

@HeroOfNone

I am taken aback by you post and am trying very hard to understand why you wrote it. You've been playing the game a long time, so it shouldn't be a LTP issue. You understand the classes and the lore of the ES games. So, my question to you is why? What was the impetus that caused you to write this post? I'm not asking for a generic answer, but a specific answer. How has your gameplay been adversely effected? What class have you been playing? What is your play style? Are we talking about open world pvp or BGs? If open world, are you in a group (if so small, med or large), or are you solo?

Hi @Maryal

I normally stop replying after the first hour of a post so I'm not constantly babying it, but since you tagged me directly:

Did you bother reading most of the post, or just read some of the gripes on nightblade and took that as the meat of the post? Are you saying that the stealth detection abilities, the main focus of this actual post, are good in their current form? Before I give a bit on my background, I'd like to know what your thoughts are for the current 4 abilities that seem to be underperforming for stealth detection despite being given abilities specific for stealth detection/prevention.

How has your gameplay been adversely effected? Well I can say my enjoyment has been pretty sub par fighting nightblades except when on a nightblade. Suffering a slight bit of lag when trying to gap close and AOE a fleeing nightblade is a constant frustration that has never been improved patch to patch. Yet we can't seem to balance them enough because when its not broken, cloak seems to justify some nerf to the rest of the class. I've watched groups of pugs spend minutes trying to find one good night blade, fruitlessly, because no one had detect pots on low levels and they are facing a nightblade that knows this skill overly well. Almost no other class, when solo, has been as boring and simply annoying as a nightblade in ESO. Even permablockers, which this conversation seems to have taken a strange comparison route, at least gives players something to hit and react to.

What class have you been playing? All classes. Currently I've been doing stamina DK, stamina warden, and magicka templar as they suit my style. I have done Nightblades in PVP as well, but the glass cannon and hide meta has typically been too boring for me to keep up, despite its effectiveness.

What is your play style? - Depends on the day and the game. I sometimes play gank on my DK and warden, accepting that if I mess up the kill I won't have many ways to escape. I run bait and run tactics to draw enemies from parties. I run anti-gank when I want a tougher fight. I also zerg surf when I stream and don't want to be concerned with stream snipers knowing where I am. My general style might be more for looking for challenging fights where I can improve, verses farming fights where you earn a lot of AP.

Are we talking about open world pvp or BGs? I'm talking both for the majority of topics I cover in my post. To me the stealth detection/prevention skills are utter trash as many have indicated here and often AOEs work much better. The night blade cloak its self, if you're referring to my criticism, has also served to change the face of both sides of this game. It's simply a skill that doesn't make sense to have as a spammable instant to get out danger ability with no cool down and poor counters against it. To have 6 counters to only one ability and 4 don't do the job well seems like a waste.

If open world, are you in a group (if so small, med or large), or are you solo? I do a mixture, as discussed above.

Now since we're talking about myself now in this conversation, which might just be a thinly veiled way to setup a character attack to discredit the main arguments here, lets talk other games stealth abilities which I've played. Games like Warhammer Onine, where stealth took time to cast, was a limited time, and only given to two classes. There was no real need for a counter in that case, because the ability was limited, had cool downs and took time to cast. Players used it for an opener and if they had to use it in a fight, they would need to avoid being hit for a short while. Another game, Guild Wars 2, gives stealth through abilities when you build up iniative or through certain abilities with 3 seconds of stealth but then having 12 - 30 second cooldown timers, giving a long down time and preventing it from being spammed. In both of these games the stealth balance was strong because there was a natural difficulty and limitations attached to stealth.

Hope that answers your questions and you can give a bit more feedback on the meat of the discussion, the poor performing anti-stealth abilities, and why you feel they might be doing well enough to not need a change, or a proposal on how they could be improved without ruining other parts to cloak.

Ragnarock41 · August 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Oh no, not voltile armor, Its my ez win crutch! Anything but that!

BohnT · August 2018

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Oh no, not voltile armor, Its my ez win crutch! Anything but that!

Yes how should i be able to kill anything without the 200 damage/s.

Silver_Strider · August 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

ak_pvp wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Sure, NB can lose cloak entirely.
While we're at it, lets remove every skill that breaks cloak too.
Goodbye Curse, Hurricane, Streak, PotL, Jabs, Volatile, Inhale and all the previously mentioned methods in the OP.

You'll all be missed.

Stop crying cloak is incredibly easy and incredibly strong with awful counters.

Use magelight/EH? Well done it either did nothing and cost you 4k mag, or revealed them for a staggering 3s and cost 4k mag. Flare is similar.
Use any AoE bar hurricane? Either you miss and cost yourself resources, or you hit and they recloak.
Use det pots? You have a target on your head saying "avoid me" and are out a potion effect, only 20m(?) and 15s, so nothing

Either way the counter user is at a loss... Unless its mark, an NB skill.

Now look at cloak:
Force misses
Full dot prevention
Untargetability
Full invisibility
No target limits like shimmer/wings

Great balance.

Pot meet kettle.

Let's replace cloak with Permablock or Shield Stacking, things that also have poor counters. Of the 3, cloak is far and away the easiest to counter. There isn't a pot that breaks shields or blocking, there aren't abilities specifically designed to counter your defense completely (before we bring into the fact of unblockable CC there are all of 3 and each is class locked, unlike the plethora of Cloak counters, some of which are class locked, some are not), shields have no counterplay outside of 2 sets that people all call cheese (Shieldbreaker and Sloads) but heaven forbid it's Cloak that needs to be totally removed.

Permablock counters:
The fact it itself snares, stops stam regen, and has a high cost, about 2k/s at a normal tanky damage build. You lose damage from no weaves. Oh. and you are visable and still take a chunk of the damage, and all damage from:
All dots
On target burst like POTL and curse
Bleeds counter it x2 (The block and the resist ignore)
All ground and above AoEs.
And it can be dropped by fear, fossilize and the ever present rune cage.
In summery more effective and easily accessible counters for a worse defense? But yeah. Permablock>Cloak amirite?

Shields have no soft counters that is true. I don't like that. But shields are a lot more costly bar harness 1v1, and are a lot weaker. Like incredibly weak compared to cloak. Oh, and yep, again, completely visable, no dot prevention, no untargetability.

Unfortunately, kettle is out right now, he will be back whenever the devs decide to balance nightblade.

Shields and Permablock also work 100% of the time unless Hard countered whereas Cloak fails at the slightest AoE attack on top of the hard counters for it. It doesn't matter that a permablock build snares itself, it's purpose is to survive and it does that fabulously despite all your "counters" to it.

Bleeds are easy to deal with when all the damage you're taking from direct hits aren't even in the 2k area. As for the actual hard counters for permablock, as I already stated there is all of 3 of them and each is locked behind a class, unlike the hard counters for cloak which are all generic skills that anyone can pick up and while the detection effectiveness varies for them, they still exist for everyone to use on top of the multiple soft counters (btw, Curse and PotL works on cloak too)

Shields mitigate all the damage you take that it doesn't matter if the target can still hit you, you're nullifying everything they throw at you; you can't get a status effect on you nor can you get critically damaged while still being able to attack while they protect you unlike Cloak which breaks if you reengage in combat. DoT's can't damage you either whereas if Cloak drops, you continue taking the DoT damage. I mean, I have to cast cloak continuously if I want to suppress all the DoTs for their full duration from killing me, whereas a shield spammer only needs their shield to eat the damage while they sit safely behind it and heal up with whatever they have. You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health.

It's a fragile defense skill that can fail at any given time. It's annoying when it works but is a joke more often than not.

BS mate. If cloak was a joke then NBs wouldn't be so popular. Stop defending your crutches. Any good player knows how incredibly OP cloak is when it isn't marked. The NB discord thinks that too. The paleontologist style: cloak s perfectly balanced or weak drivel is the joke here.

Bleeds are incredibly strong. There is no way to deal with them on a non templar. They deal upwards of 1k dps each. Permablock is neither an effective, or even possible survival method, too expensive and mobility is key. The vast majority of classes are swapping to 2h/DW for bleeds, or only s/b backbar. These are also very accessible, and unlike AoEs, actually do damage. This isn't even mentioning the massive damage loss, so blocking is really only good for healers.

With shields, all that damage that you "nullify" is still being taken, as opposed to all the damage that you simply don't take in cloak. And you are perfectly visible for more damage to constantly barrage you. It doesn't crit because it takes unresisted damage. Full pen, no crit. Having both would cause shields to be useless. The status effect thing is due to the mechanics of shield. Stupid IMO, but you know what else stops status effects? Cloak.

"You wanna compare costs, I have to use cloak twice as often as you have to case a shield to nullify a DoT from affecting my health." A sorc vs any player with a modicum of damage would have to shield every second. So are you saying you are cloaking every 0.5s? And they absolutely die in an outnumbered scenario. The only place they are too strong is in Xv1 or 1v1 where you have to keep pressure but end up with a resource loss... Huh, sounds just like cloak but cloak is like that at all times.

1st off, I don't use Cloak as a crutch since I'm a Stamblade WW build in PvP and I'm in WW form more often than not when fighting. It's hardly worth using on my build at all since I only ever need it for the DoT suppression on it. As for your good player argument, If they were truly good players, they'd be able to keep a NB out of Cloak so claiming that "good" players have trouble with cloak is just as much a joke as what you claim. I have Detect pots because that's really my only option as a WW build to counter NB cloak and once I do, I have absolutely 0 issues killing them. I have 0 issues killing permablockers too because I hard counter them completely as a WW. I have bleeds that cost me no resources to apply, I have Defile to make their healing less effective and I have a Fear to make them drop block when I'm ready to finish them off. The only class I have any trouble with at all is Sorcs because I can't do a damn thing to them from 40m away while they unload their burst combos and even if I can get close they shield and streak away. Against more than 2-3 competent people, my WW is a new fur skin rug but I'm not complaining about something being completely broken just because I lost to it.

The whole point of Cloak is to help you survive; To make sure your health does not reach 0. Shields add an extra cover for your health to not do that and permablock makes it so that you take as little health loss as possible. Anyone will die in an outnumbered situation vs half competent players. Hard counter popping up increases until you get overwhelmed. A NB that get's marked is SoL, a Sorc vs Shieldbreaker is SoL, a Permablock vs Bleed is SoL. This is NOT a viable argument on whether X skill is overperforming because it might help you survive.

"A sorc vs any player with a modicum of damage would have to shield every second" and if you hit a NB with that damage they'll have to cloak to try and prevent you from hitting them again, else they instantly die. You need to CC them and Cloak just like a Sorc will Streak and shield up and by the time you break free and try to gap close to the Sorc, he'll have either streaked far enough away that you can't and has already started to heal up to full or has started to lay into you already. A NB will have to snails walk in cloak unless they have Shade up to try and build some distance but unless they're a Vampire, they won't get very far and a Detect pot will result in an instant death for them. I'll admit, Evil Hunter could use a range increase because it's pathetic but Mage Light is still pretty effective just because of all the passive buffs it grants on top of the reveal effect and Flare does have its moments of use as well, I know I've killed some with Flare when clearing out a newly acquired keep, but that still doesn't justify removing Cloak.

Juhasow · August 2018

Mayrael wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

Again biased thread. Did you ever seen how fast magblade dies when marked? Usually it takes 5-15 seconds depending on skill of a player but it is guaranteed kill. Why? Because outside of one (not even class) shield it's the only! way magblade can mitigate damage. So you want to completely disable main defense of the class just because you refuse to learn to play? Det pots are extremely efficient when it goes to killing NBs, you just need to know when to use them...

I've been where you are now few years ago, frustrated that NBs can escape from the fight so easy. Now when I know how to kill them they are easiest prey for me and the only thing I use to secure my kills are det potions, not even a single one skill designed to detect them is needed. Based on that from the perspective of experienced player I can tell it's literally L2P issue. You won't be happy till you will be able to use one button to completely disable NBs ability to defend while I can bet none of you have any NB character with PvP rank higher than 15 because then you would know how to counter cloak.

Can we have skills and potions that completely disable roll dodge, block shield and heals for XXs because I don't know how to kill someone? Santa please?

Oh... But what I am trying to achieve here? This thread will drag only frustrated vultures that just feel scent of possible nerf to other class which is always ok as long it doesn't touch my own tralala. Flies away

What is biased is way of thinking You present here. In short it can be summarized into "because magblade defense out of cloak sucks lets keep stamblades untouched."

First of all. My experience is pretty different than yours. You decide why but my fights with NBs in about 80% end with their death because I use detection potions which as I said are extremly powerful against this class. Literally NBs are the easies to kill, especialy magblades since they have limited roll dodges.
Secondly. Since you have problems with stamblades, maybe look into their core defences without destroying magblades completly? But hey since you use roll dodge to as a main Stam DK we can't touch it right?
Thirdly. If you think I'm biased I'll just lol at you, look at the forums, I jump form topic to topic defending differnet classes from stupid nerfs called by "one class heroes" like ekhem...

Ehh @Mayrael

First of all. That just means Your experience is based on meeting weak nightblades which there is plenty of in PvPsince nightblade is the most played class and most of people playing it just likes cheesy stealth playstyle but when someone counters that they just fail to do anything else. Creating balance theories around fights agaisnt bad players is not the way to go. In 1v1 both nightblades can do extremly fine without cloak. Dont belive me ? Well I can come with nightblade magicka or stamina to duel You and You're more then free to use detect pot and I can even agree to not slot cloak on my bars. There are nightblades winning duel tournaments without cloak on bars. Detect pot is powerfull against nightblade only if he's outnumbered by builds that can also counter LoS , roll dodge or just movement effectively or against weak players playing nightblade. Currently magsorc (which I assume You're still playing on) with detect pot thanks for rune cage can burst down nightblade but this is not detect pot credit but more like magsorc feature. This argument that magblades are dying more often to You when You use detect pots because they cant roll dodge a lot is hilarious tbh and suggest that You have little idea of what You're talking about.

Second of all , I never said I have problems with stamblades. I even have one which I played in PvP on many build variations but not for long because its cheesiness felt too stupid.. Also lol 1st You were saying I am playing mag dk as a main now a stam dk with roll dodge and in both cases You missed by a mile. Dk class is not even close to call it my main.I cant even imagine how someone could come up with that radicolous idea that I main stam dk which is the setup that I feel to be most boring for me. Stop thinking You know me because You've seen me on certain character once or twice or someone told You something about me and accept the fact that I play on every build and I am trying to not favour any.

Thirdly. Because I've seen Your comments I know You're biased and You also lack lot of knowledge and undertanding of different builds and game mechanics to take part in discussions about them. You proved that few times when You couldnt identify what are even the people concers about certain things and Your arguments were missing the point entirely.

Drdeath20 · August 2018

Mayrael wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

I'll just quote myself from a post i made about cloak:

"As stated above the counterplay for cloak is either totally out of control making cloak an obsolete ability or cloak makes you immortal giving you as much control over your survival as you can have.
With the ease of use shade got this patch you can become immortal if an enemy doesn't has access to one of the hardcounters.

Here's a list of the counters to Cloak:
AoE abilities, mage light/ expert hunter, revealing flare, Piercing mark, detection potions, sloads, PotL( second hit), curse, Soulassault ( prevents cloaking for 2 seconds)

Most players will point out how AoEs are a good counter to cloak, which they techincally are but in practise they fail, Cloak is used to reset a fight either to get away or heal back to full, things like volatile armor only deal tiny amounts of damage and nothing stops a well build NB from cloaking again meaning you can't CC them afterwards or hit them with a high damage ability, if you try to pull a NB out of cloak with an AoE you are just wasting resources as the damage your AoEs deal isn't enough to negate the healing provided by vigor, rally and other sources (lingering health potions/ trollking).

This makes AoEs a bad counter for cloak as you get almost no benefit revealing a NB and are often at a disadvantage later on as you wasted resources.

The next counter is mage light and expert hunter.
Both abilities aren't widely used due to them being often only seen as a counter to one single class. This is even more the case for expert hunter as it's very expensive and doesn't provide a good secondary effect like mage light does (7% more magicka)
If they are used by someone however they negate the useage of cloak and prevent the NB from cloaking a few seconds.
This makes both abilities very frustrating for both sides, the one who uses the ability has to waste an entire skill slot for a counter that has a rather small radius. The NB on the other hand loses one of it's main defences if they are revealed by those things.
Both mage light and expert hunter need a rework to be less of a hardcounter to cloak but more viable in different situations as well.
I couldn't find any fully satisfying solution however

Revealing flare falls into the same category being only used to reveal NBs while being absolutely useless in any other situation (maybe for the 10% magregen). The main problem is that revealing flare punishes the NB like shieldbreaker does. They have to deal with massive amounts of damage only because they actively defended themselves this should never be the case that you get heavily punished for doing what you are intended to do (defend yourself).
The ability should be useable in more situations but then the damage part has to be reduced by a lot.

Now to the most frustrating cloak counters in the game:
Piercing mark: This effectively removes cloak from your bar, is extremely easy to keep up 100% of the time and is only useable by NBs making the best counter to nightblades other nightblades.
This ability needs to be reworked, it can still be a good counter but not as much as it is now.

change completely how the reveal of the ability works, the major fracture/ breach and heal duration and effects stay the same.
The active reveal gets changed to pulse every 2 seconds for 8 seconds pulling the target out of cloak/ invisibility but do not prevent casting cloak right again, after the 8 seconds the mark continues to show the last position where the enemy was out of stealth (once player is visible mark sticks to him again until he cloaks again)
This gives the caster a great way to reveal NBs and combine the timed reveal with a CC or a damage ability while giving an experienced NB the opportunity to still make use of cloak for ~2 seconds if they manage to time it right.

Sloads, i won't even bother with this set it's broken and will hopefully be nerfed in the next patch

Detection Potions the next bad designed counter at the cost of very powerful effects you can choose to ruin the day for a NB without them even knowing that you see them. On one side they are just another hardcounter but they also have ridiculously high opportunity cost that gives you a huge disadvantage for 45 seconds, an eye for an eye never was a good attempt to balance things.

Now here come rather well designed cloak counters:
PotL the weakest counter as it only works every 6 seconds and the damage part often gets removed by cloak which means it only reveals the NB after 6 seconds which is enough to heal back to full for any good build. It's still a decent ability to counter cloak without being too strong.

Curse this is like PotL but in strong, it sticks to the NB and explodes after 3.5 seconds and then a second time after 8.5 seconds, also it deals great damage countering the healing the nb got while stealthed. However it's a bit too easy for the caster to reveal the NB as you just have to use the skill and you benefit from it unless you meet that one niche build NB that uses purge and in this case you atleast drained enough magicka to make it hard for the NB to stay cloaked.

Edit hurricane is one of the most potent and easy to use cloak counters although its strength varies throughout the fight as everytime you have to recast it the radius is heavily reduced. It makes fighting NBs very easy as you have a huge AoE that reveals any NB inside of it each second.
Even though it's such a strong counter i don't see it as too much of a problem as NBs still are a potent threat to stamsorcs as their high burst counteracts stamsorcs general tendency to focus on hots and health regen with trollking.

But now here's the best designed cloak counter in the game:
Deep Breath/ Drain Essence
The first hit deals some damage and reveals the NB and then you can perfectly mix the second, the stronger hit with a CC to catch the NB.
The best thing however is that both the NB and the DK can outplay the other one, if the NB manages to get out of range it has made full useage of his cloak. The DK however can predict where the NB will go and then punish it with a fossilize or a leap right after the second hit revealed the NB.

If we had more counterplay like Deep Breath vs Cloak and less Mark vs cloak this game would be so much better.

One last thing I'm sure that not everyone will get access to something that works as good as Deep Breath to counter NBs that's why an more easy fix to increase the viability of AoEs as an counter to cloak is to simply increase both cost and duration by 35-50%
This punishes the NB more for getting revealed while also making it harder to spam cloak back to back, however then the majority of the hardcounters has to go."

That's a lot of reading but it's worth it. Pretty good ideas, learn something from this man people. I like the idea of changing hardcounters into soft counters that are more useful beside of revealing NBs, causing less stress on both sides (I can have useful skill that from time to time helps me to find NB, but also allows NB to still defend him self).

Or change cloak bcz like OP stated the only real counter to cloak is another NB.

Drdeath20 · August 2018

At some point changes are comming. It wont effect the good players that play NBs but the terribads that rely solely on nightblade cheese will feel it. Game wants longer TTK and more counterplay in fights.

burglar · August 2018

I have a hard time appreciating this argument, considering that there's an ability, that when merely slotted, it essentially nullifies the racial bonuses of my main char, as well as gimps the bonuses that are foundational to nightblade. It kinda screws with cloak in a roundabout way too, and can reveal people when cast. One, slotted ability can mitigate an entire playstyle.

So, when people are still complaining about cloak and stealth, after the implementation of something like magelight, it just screams "I don't like dealing with this mechanic".

As a matter of fact, if someone can illustrate how cloak/stealth is imbalanced to the point of making other classes lose, and not the complaints against it are more than just a bias against the stealther archetypes/playstyles, I would greatly appreciate it. Until then, all of you 'knights' and 'templars' need to find another way to defeat the 'bad guys.'

Sharee · August 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

I have a hard time appreciating this argument, considering that there's an ability, that when merely slotted, it essentially nullifies the racial bonuses of my main char, as well as gimps the bonuses that are foundational to nightblade. It kinda screws with cloak in a roundabout way too, and can reveal people when cast. One, slotted ability can mitigate an entire playstyle.

So, when people are still complaining about cloak and stealth, after the implementation of something like magelight, it just screams "I don't like dealing with this mechanic".

As a matter of fact, if someone can illustrate how cloak/stealth is imbalanced to the point of making other classes lose, and not the complaints against it are more than just a bias against the stealther archetypes/playstyles, I would greatly appreciate it. Until then, all of you 'knights' and 'templars' need to find another way to defeat the 'bad guys.'

Magelight has a reveal radius of 6 meters. With the speed characters are moving at nowadays, that's pretty much useless. Just for comparison, flame lash range is 7 meters.

What this means is, a NB cloaks in front of your nose, and before your GCD from using the previous ability clears(so you can cast magelight), the NB is already out of the detection radius (three times over, likely). I use volatile armor to reveal NB's who cloaked in front of me, which has almost twice the radius, and they still are out of range more often than not.