Sythen88411 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Sythen88411 wrote: »

I myself think cloak should not be a spamable. Should have some sort of penalty if doing so or a cool down

it's funny when you cast inner light or drink a detect pot. they usually fall over straight away don't make it harder for them to survive.

True but inner light is costly and to spam that is to drain your mag pool. And why should you have to give up using a pot to track down something that can stay hidden

Costly? Like cloak is free... and cost even more on a 9k pool.

I didn't vote because both options are horrid.

Cloak is problematic for various reasons. All of which can pretty much be categorized under 2 broad statements.

1. The range of effective but balanced use is too slim. 90% of the time it either completely controls the tempo of the fight or is useless. In either scenario, Cloak creates a negative gaming experience for both the opponent and nightblades, respectively. "counter-play" either requires players to slot an AoE, which outside hurricane is near useless against a good night blade or a hard counter like a detect pot. The fact that hard counters even exists is proof that the skill needs to be reworked. This is the same logic that applied to Shield Breaker and shields. Mage Light and Hunter are horrible counters against a night blade that actually knows what they're doing. I've survived for +20 minutes being hunted by +10 players, half of which were spamming Magelight. Nightblades are far too nimble for such a small AoE to be effective.
2. Any drastic changes to Cloak will affect overall class balance. Nightblade has poor healing and other defensive tools are too situational. That said, the class that is meant to output the highest level of damage also has access to the strongest single button defensive skill currently in the game.

How I would balance Cloak:

The class is built around Cloak, so addressing Cloak alone is a poor decision.

1. Remove all hard counters to Cloak (Mark/Detect Pots/Mage Light/Hunter [and than make these skills more than just a passive bar slot]). The only abilities that should pull Nightblades from stealth should be AoEs.
2. slightly increase the passive survivability of nightblades via passives such as Dark Vigor, Shadow Barrier and Soul Siphoner. Removing the requirement for skills to be slotted for the passives to be active is step one.
3. Punish players that Cloak spam in combat. Healing over time should be repressed while Cloak is active. The ability to reset fights under 0 pressure right beside the enemy is too strong on top of the offensive benefits of complete control over all offensive and defensive windows in the fight and guaranteed crit. Burst heals such as Rally and Healing Ward would still function as live since the contribute less to effective mitigation
4. Remove the stun from Veiled Strikes when in Cloak or Sneak. Hard hitting damage skills that apply a Major Debuff should not stun.
5. Reduce costs of Shadow Skills or significantly increase uptime of Shadow Barrier
6. Reduce cost of Mirage to provide greater access to mitigation since the primary form of mitigation is addressed.

All the above, with emphasis on point 2 will be required to balance Cloak.

If a player wants to spam Cloak, they should be able to. However, there should be a cost. A magicka cost is currently not the solution as stamblades have very little need for magicka outside of Fear and magblades can easily sustain it. Preventing nightblades from resetting fights without properly line of sighting

Juhasow wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

dazee wrote: »

Cloak is fine on stamblades making it cost more every time you use it would be a huge nerf to their playstyle. Just make it cost a % of max magicka, something like 25% then a stamblade could only cloak 4 times in a row and same for a magblade.

That would be a huge buff for stamblade and huge nerf for magblade where excatly opposite is neded.

So Cloak on magblade is fine while it's OP on stamnb. Nice bias.

You call is bias I call it facts. Stamblade simply have features supporting use of cloak that magblade do not have or have them on much smaller extent. Abilities that removes snares while in cloak plus possibility to do multiple roll dodges in a row , easier acces to major expedition , option to sprint for longer and faster improves performance of cloak by a lot. Also for stamblade cloak have additional role or refreshment from roll dodge penatly. Basically strong mobility = strong cloak.That list could be also increased by few smaller features stamblade is benefiting more from thanks to cloak but it would just take to much text to explain.

It's already well known that stamblade currently benefits from cloak and its connections with other abilities more then magblade so I dont know where have You been all that time to not know that.

Also I did not said "cloak on magblade is fine and on stamblade is OP" so it's You who is biased by putting words to other peoples mouths. What I said was that buffing cloak for stamblade and nerfing it for magblade is stupid since stamblade currently have better use of it then magblade so change like original poster proposed makes no sense.

Magblades don't use it that much because they have strong defense outside of Cloak. And in the scenario where Cloak is "overperforming" (basically only a 1v1 because every group should have enough AoE to deal with it) it doesn't matter anything if it's used by stamblade or a magblade, you won't catch a magnb with Cloak either on your own and you shouldn't struggle that much against Cloak while playing in a group. So yes, saying "it's fine on magblade while it's not on stamnb" is pure bias.

Btw stamnb without Cloak lives like 10 seconds against anyone half decent lol. I guess it's fine that everyone has some defense mechanics which allow them to keep them alive but if stamnb has a working defense mechanic it's suddenly broken

You prove more and more You have no idea about nightblade in PvP. Almost all Your statements are wrong. It's like the compilation of every old wives' tale about nighblade.

For the record stamblade can 1vX and 1v1 against experienced players without invisibility. Fact that You dont know something exist doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Cloak is not "the only defense stamblade have". Magblade reason to not use cloak that often is definietly not "having stroing defense outside of it". There is simple real combat scenario that can show You why stamblade have adventage in use of cloak over magblade. Lets say both were attacked suddenly by multiple opponents at once. Stamblade will plant the shade , use vigor then spam dodge few times then use shuffle or forward momentum teleport to shade and done he escaped , magblade wont have that comfort , he wont be even able to move away from the shade that far because of the snares and even if he'll somehow manage to teleport to shade away from range of AoEs he'll be snared so hard enemies will just follow the place he teleported (and it wont be far) and start to spam AoE or revealing abilities there having high chance to reveal him. Stamblade will also have much better healing after teleporting to shade then magblade which allows him to attack opponents much faster. This is just one of simple examples where stamblade is performing much better then magblade and there is plenty more of examples like that. Seriously if atleast half of Your claims would be true then it would be very wierd there is so low amount of magblades playing currently when compared to amount of stamblades.

I dont know do You even play nightblade in PvP because the amount of nonsensical informations You gaved is something I would expect from someone that started ESO like max 1 month ago and all his knowledge comes from deshaan zone chat.

Sounds like a zergling who gets salty when a Nb escapes from his Xvs1.

Or like someone who actually played both magicka and stamina nb in PvP.

I'm playing stamnb in duels against good opponents (while I have never seen you there in the past 2-3 years btw) and you want to nerf Cloak for the spec who relies the most on it. Heavy nb can do fine without Cloak (especially if you abuse our beloved and broken Argonian race) and magnb can do fine as well. The spec which doesn't work well without Cloak is med armor.

It's funny how sorc players compare Streak (an escape skill) with Cloak (a defensive skill) and want the same treatment for it. I'm fine with a cost increase on Cloak if shields do get a cost increase as well and if we give them finally a counter that isn't tied to a totally stupid niche set: tanks/block builds do have dots, snares, defile and bleeds as counter, med armor builds have aoe, sustained dps and defile as a counter while the complain train of sorcs has nothing comparable regarding shields. You even get ressources back for getting hit by magicka abilities. Ridiculous.

Also, for the record, I don't think 'Cloak is fine the way it is' I just didn't agree with the other option

Arkangeloski wrote: »

Sythen88411 wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Sythen88411 wrote: »

I myself think cloak should not be a spamable. Should have some sort of penalty if doing so or a cool down

it's funny when you cast inner light or drink a detect pot. they usually fall over straight away don't make it harder for them to survive.

True but inner light is costly and to spam that is to drain your mag pool. And why should you have to give up using a pot to track down something that can stay hidden

Costly? Like cloak is free... and cost even more on a 9k pool.

Yeah but comparing magelight to cloak is like comparing apples to shotguns. The relative benefits are comparatively and definitively in favour of cloak. Just look at the skills.

That said cloak is not as big an issue as it has been in the past; general overall excessive tanky play has been over the top for a long time now.

Jimmy_The_Fixer wrote: »

@IAVITNI

I disagree with the idea that the class needs cloak to be effective. Ive played solo/small group/dueling Nightblade without stealth and the defensive toolkit is perfectly sufficient.

However, I like your idea of giving HoT suppression, seems fair that suppressing 100% of DoT damage should come with an equivalent effect on healing. It allows nightblades to still be sneaky and slippery and retain their class identity and also lets them still function as powerful gankers, but doesn’t give them a complete reset button for the fight.

In a vacuum they are efficient. However, they are not competitive without Cloak or some other form of carry.

Play as a medium stamblade vs say an equally skilled light armor magicka sorc or mag DK or any magicka class really without Cloak. If the light armor class builds pure damage, not even Minor Maim will keep you alive past the 3rd ultimate, assuming you even get that far. If you do survive, you likely do not have the damage to get through shields, even those of a glass spec.

This is coming from a magicka sorc main. I may complain about Cloak a lot (mostly hyperbole in official/non-objective discussion threads) but I acknowledge that without Cloak I can steam roll stamblades of equal skill. However, with Cloak the fight becomes very even, arguably in the stamblades favour if they abuse Cloak.

Regardless, Cloak isn't exactly an over-performing skill. It is a polarized skill, in that it either completely controls combat tempo or does nothing at all. Very rarely is there an in-between. A skill that is so inconsistent in performance and with such disparity in-between is not balanced. To be balanced, a skill must perform to a minimum in all scenarios, not go from useless to overpowered.

Therefore, by that logic, if any changes to Cloak are to be made (and they should be) there must be adequate compensation through the rest of the kit. This does not mean a 1:1 ratio, as ultimately survivability should take a hit. However, it should be a small hit, felt mostly in situations where the skill is abused. Since the majority of a stamblades defensive rotation is spent within cloak and that time period is being made less effective, by an undetermined value of n, than the compensation would be to increase the survivability of stamblades outside of cloak by a fraction of n.

Mag blade is a different issue. Most good magblades already gave up on Cloak a long time ago since they do not have adequate HoTs nor bar space to justify the slot. Magblades having good stam sustain was a very unique and fun aspect of the class and something I would like to see return. I also believe that skills such as Path and Mirage should be made more appealing to increase the classes mobility.

*While I do not believe that balance should be based solely around duelling, duelling is still a strong indicator of a relative class strengths so long as certain constraints are met. I say this as a player that spends 80% of my time in open world PvP.

Neither.

Its not balanced, but lets not cremate it on the spot with the streak treatment.