Nothing addressing the “Nightblade Meta” we’re currently saddled with

LioraValkyrie · August 2018

ccfeeling wrote: »

I have NB , DK and Sorc DPS , but I rare to play NB now , it's more difficult to me .
I like to play StamDK , easy rotation and high sustain , I like to play Pet Sorc for dungeon achievement , easy rotation , powerful and high survivability .

What I wanna say is no pain and no gain .

This is wrong that you request to nerf a class which requires to play hard .

I notice in what you say that there are three 'modes' of play here, and I think each should be available to all classes:

1) trial mode - 45-50k dps potential, technical rotation, requiring full group support to sustain and survive
2) dungeon mode - 40-45k dps potential, easier rotation, requiring the occasional heal or bubble
3) solo mode - 35-40k dps potential, easier rotation, full internal sustainability and survivability

A lot of people have a single main character on which they want to be able to complete all achievements. It's silly when you see StamDKs levelling PetSorcs for no reason other than to farm vMA, PetSorcs levelling MagBlades for no reason other than to do vAS … and MagBlades ruling the DD world because there are currently no limiting factors to their performance other than 'a complicated rotation'.

SmellyUnlimited · August 2018

Tasear wrote: »

How would you change it?

I would first look to a broader balancing for light vs medium armor passives (leaving heavy armor out since it’s sustain-centric, not damage).

Changes:

—Add a form of CC resistance in medium armor.

( I want the identity of medium armor to reflect that Medium by definition is a higher tier of armor, so should have more mechanisms for damage mitigation).

—Light Armor should fit its identity
(more risk because a lower tier of armor, but the benefits of penetration and ranged damage over melee even it out).

—Make Medium Armor’s active ability be value added.
( Nearly every Magicka character will run Harness, but no stam characters run Evasion. Make it no cost, but high cooldown, damage mitigation. The high cooldown makes it something that the player will have to be choosy on when to use it, and it grants perhaps CC resistance, major protection, and dodge chance. It has a low uptime, but in those dire need situations it gives Stam some semblance of survivability)

OR

—Give medium armor a “Battle Rage” passive.

(It’s a % chance passive: when a damaging ability would otherwise kill player, they have an X% chance of survival; can make it a 5 medium passive, and sets the player’s % of overall health after sustaining what would otherwise be fatal damage).

I’ll leave them at just overall stam vs Mag armor changes; I’d have to think more on specific class balance changes to bring them closer to a Nightblades damage ceiling and utility. One area I’ve toyed with is giving other classes more Stam morphs that can potentially bring some unique value to having them in a group. Think Power of the Light, but for stam sorc’s, DK’s, Warden. As of now, those classes bring little unique utility to a group, AND can’t match the damage on top of that).

More “Play as you want” instead of what now is “Play as you have to.”

RighteousBacon · August 2018

yurimodin wrote: »

Personally I find the skill-lines to be fairly challenging since most of it revolves around debuffs & DOT's.....I have yet to experience this meta OP burst damage everyone talks about.

Granted I never really do any PVP so its purely from a PvE perspective

The “Meta OP burst damage everyone talks about” is simply: *stealth* heavy attack - surprise attack - light attack - incap - light attack - surprise attack... maybe you just weren’t doing stamblade right (as in you weren’t playing it to it’s strengths since there isn’t a “wrong way” to play)

John_Falstaff · August 2018

@SmellyUnlimited , some suggestions are actually good, but I frankly don't believe in any form of Evasion being ever useful in PvE, and don't think any tweaks to it will help. The core issue is that it's a random defense, and in PvE content, no way one can possibly rely on not being one-shot one time out of seven. I'm beginning to think that Evasion on medium armor has to go, it will never approach light armor's shields in usefulness.

Thing is, when stamina melee player stands next to the boss, he'll have to roll away from a potential one-shot anyway - unlike with light armor, it's not "shield up and survive" guaranteed defense. Using Shuffle does not provide the defense it subversively promises to provide - if player remain in place, he's dead with probabily of 85%, so he has to dodge not to cause a wipe. As a result, bad players who don't dodge, will keep dying; good players who always dodge, won't know the difference. A good player who dies, on average, in one dungeon run out of five, can pay the cost of Shuffle (skill slot, stamina and necessity to keep defense up all the time while in combat) to boost his results to one death in not quite six runs on average. Bad player who dies ten times during a fight will start averaging eight to nine deaths per fight. Considering one is often enough for a wipe, the skill doesn't worth the stamina spent: investing in learning to roll-dodge from the red faster is both still necessary, and brings incomparably better results.

Shields, on another hand, provide on-demand guaranteed defense. Mechanics comes, damage shoots; magicka brings up shields, stamina rolls out of red. Shuffle does not enter this picture. It doesn't save the party when players are bad, and it's redundant when players are good; it doesn't live up to the title of defensive skill. I think it has to go.

SmellyUnlimited · August 2018

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@SmellyUnlimited , some suggestions are actually good, but I frankly don't believe in any form of Evasion being ever useful in PvE, and don't think any tweaks to it will help. The core issue is that it's a random defense, and in PvE content, no way one can possibly rely on not being one-shot one time out of seven. I'm beginning to think that Evasion on medium armor has to go, it will never approach light armor's shields in usefulness.

Thing is, when stamina melee player stands next to the boss, he'll have to roll away from a potential one-shot anyway - unlike with light armor, it's not "shield up and survive" guaranteed defense. Using Shuffle does not provide the defense it subversively promises to provide - if player remain in place, he's dead with probabily of 85%, so he has to dodge not to cause a wipe. As a result, bad players who don't dodge, will keep dying; good players who always dodge, won't know the difference. A good player who dies, on average, in one dungeon run out of five, can pay the cost of Shuffle (skill slot, stamina and necessity to keep defense up all the time while in combat) to boost his results to one death in not quite six runs on average. Bad player who dies ten times during a fight will start averaging eight to nine deaths per fight. Considering one is often enough for a wipe, the skill doesn't worth the stamina spent: investing in learning to roll-dodge from the red faster is both still necessary, and brings incomparably better results.

Shields, on another hand, provide on-demand guaranteed defense. Mechanics comes, damage shoots; magicka brings up shields, stamina rolls out of red. Shuffle does not enter this picture. It doesn't save the party when players are bad, and it's redundant when players are good; it doesn't live up to the title of defensive skill. I think it has to go.

Good points. Dodge chance should really be built in to Medium Armor. Single target boss fights don’t really make the best use of it, but large groups of enemies it can be handy (only in the aggregate though).

Can’t really think of a more useful defensive armor ability to replace Evasion. Maybe something like a “Leap,” where the player can jump out of a group of enemies. Wanting to keep with the spirit of thr agile melee hunter archetype with high mobility. Just programming that into the game would probably be impossible, but you’re absolutely right, Evasion has to get a complete change.

There’s something wrong about EVERY Magicka class using Harness, and zero stam using Evasion.