TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

A nerf is a nerf regardless of who's suggesting it. The fact of the matter is all classes are steadily losing features and functionality because of one thing or the other. When does it end?

we could remain silent and let the inevitable stamblade nerf gut magblade even further just to nerf stamblades

Or we could voice are opinions so that the one that needs nerfed gets it instead of all NB‘s

The changes that the OP wants to make would kill my pve nightblade tank. Wich is already in a shady spot since saptanks are nonexistant...

Drako_Ei wrote: »

Decrease damage over time by 50% via battle spirit, leave pve alone

Nah dont leave pve stamblade alone unless other melee builds get buffed to do similar dps to stamblades, nightblades have been on top of pve dps for Long enough imo, magblades share their spot in Terms of top mag dps now which is good but stamblade is still the king of melee dps.

I totally agree. I do believe that the issue to solve here is heavy and not medium stamnb, as the latter is way easier to solve.

Bosov wrote: »

Huyen wrote: »

The changes that the OP wants to make would kill my pve nightblade tank. Wich is already in a shady spot since saptanks are nonexistant...

Too bad... the play as you want thing doesnt make much sense and should go anyway. Sure you can be a nb tank but why do that if a dk/warden/templar and even a sorc is better at it. If you use a nb tank you clearly dont care about "meta" or "bis" so i dont think a whole class should be changed just to fit your niche playstyle. It might suck for you but it is better for the game in general.

Look at the classes and you can see what the class is meant for. Nightblade is clearly meant for damage. Sure you can tank on a nightblade but "how to make a nb viable to be a tank" should be low on the list of priorities when zos is doing some of their balancing.

So ZoS should kill the nightblade tanks just because some people complain (again I might add) about the fact that they cant beat the class in pvp. And no, I dont care about Meta. I play as a nightblade because its fun, and I can tank vet dungeons just fine the way it is. Nerfing nightblade tanks in pvp means nerfing them in pve too. And at that regard, prepare to nerf every damn tank-spec into oblivion then.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

Hello everyone,
if you know me then it's probably from youtube, PC EU players might know me from open world or very high MMR Battlegrounds aswell.
Those who ever saw me play will know that I'm a experienced Stamblade main who knows what he is talking about.
It came to my attention that Zenimax wants to fix the never ending Nightblade meta once and for all and I agree with it, its time to finally fix the Broken spec but what worries me is the fact that the Class Reps have nothing to say about any of the upcoming changes.
Zenimax can really mess up the spec if it doesn't take the right move and leave us with only Heavyblade being viable.
Therefor I decided to make a forum post explaining and giving suggestions how to nerf/fix the main issue of the spec which is Stamblade without ruining the class identity or suboptimal builds that do not rely on Skill trees that function as fixes for pidgeon holed Specs such as S&B, Heavy Armor and Dual Wield Bleeds.
Im gonna talk in this Post from a very competetive perspective of PvP and won't acknowledge the Problems an average Player might have with fighting Stamblades.

First of all, I could not care less who you are? The first thing I understand when I read your post is that you have absolutely no idea from other perspective then pvp stamblade(if even that?), that is very easy to tell. Some of the best stamblades in pvp I know is medium armor extreme skill-full players(2h/bow). I play heavy armor s&b/2h stamblade in pvp myself and often get whispers; "S&B stambalde oO? Cool!" but do you know what I also play: Magblade pvp, Magblade pve, Stamblade pve, Nightblade Tank and Nightblade healer.

Blaming stamblades for the bleeds is like blaming sorcs for oblivion damage... I don't like bleeds myself, I don't play any(except for one 2h axe) but have tried bleed builds on different classes and the last small nerf to it was in place. From my perspective if you wanna play tanky, bleeds or other strong meta setups you can do that on more then Nightblade. Stamdks are very tanky while still bursting people down. Stamsorcs have really good movement and can be nasty if they use master duel-wield. Stamplar has their class purge that can nicely counter bleeds as well as other negative effects. I'm not trying to say that any of these are overpowered or needs nerf. I'm also not saying that stamblades are not strong, they are. However, you suggested changes/nerfs are way out of line from what needs to be done.

To me your post seems more like: "I can't kill certain stamblade setups that are tanky with my build, so lets nerf everything that makes heavy armor stamblades possible!!"

Your talking like stamblade in heavy are gods, they are not. There are players that play Stamdks, Stamsorcs, Stamden and Stamplar like you describe it. Do you know how most of them do it? Tons of practice, tons of play-hours...

The heavy armor meta is not solved by nerfing Nightblade. Your nerfs seems like you wanna have everyone play a certain setup. Can I guess yours? But anyway, lets go trough your ideas fairly and one by one.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

First what you need to know when it comes to Nightblades is that most tools which define todays PvP Meta can be obtained by Nightblades kit, such as Major Defile, Major Fracture and Minor Maim.
All specs besides Stamblades either go for one or the other thing to make them strong in PvP, Stamblades can combine all of these tools and add crazy DoTs on top of it making the Spec broken.
Their naturally high single target damage doesn't drop when Heavy Armor is in use. Their natural mobility and crutch tankiness just gets synergized with Heavy Armor passives.
While Medium Nightblade only crutches on Burst and Mobility, Heavy Armor Nightblades utilizes everything mentioned above and more.

For starters, we should have a look at useful tools on two other stamina classes in pvp(for the sake of this argument I will only mention the buffs/debuffs/utility from class-lines I would use/benfit from myself in heavy):

Stamsorc: Minor Expedition/Major Resistance buff+dot, Major Brutality+heal, Good Sustain and a teleport.

Stamdk: Major Mending(+stam sustain), Increased Melee Range, Major Resistance buff+dot, Major Fracture+dot, Minor Brutality and Corrosive(resistance ignored)+dot.

Stamblade: Major Fracture+spam, Major Expedition+Major Evasion, Minor Protection+heal, Minor Savagery, Major Resistance buff, Minor Brutailty and Minor Endurance.

Stuff that I use on all, and have access to from other places: Heavy Armor, s&b+Ulti, Major Defile, Deep Thoughts(not stam sorc), Minor maim, vigor and snare Immunity. All have access to tank/damage heavy armor sets like seventh and fury. All have access bleeds. All have access s&b. (off-topic)If I had to pick one I would say stamsorc is the one that needs love in pvp.

You can apply crazy dots(some already have good ones) to all 3 of these classes on stam, and all of them have their buffs and utility that make them unique. And that makes them have an edge in different situastion and for different types of play-style.

Now before we move on, I'm not trying to say that these classes are balanced, or that stamblade don't need a nerf. However I would rather buff some other classes.

To get to my main point, blaming all this: Heavy Armor, Bleeds, Sets, Guild and Weapon Skills on heavy stamblades are just plain stupid. Because all have access to what make the heavy meta the heavy meta.

And about medium vs heavy: Medium armor stamblade utilizes higher damage, faster and better movement and better sustain. Heavy is more sturdy, while still maintaining a good deal of damage and has a little longer resistance buff(you write "and more" whats that suppose to mean?(stay to facts)).

TheRealSniker wrote: »

The biggest offenders that make Stamblades so effective on any build are:
Incapacitating Strike - Major Defile and Damage increase on everything including DoTs and bash attacks
Dark Cloak - Scales with health, a resource pool which is easily stacked nowadays without losing any damage. Makes a Stamblade with 31k+ HP seem almost unkillable to a solo player.

Don't forget that your are talking about a ultimate, a cheap ultimate, but a ultimate non the less. Try to compare Corrosive with Incap, and combined with Major Defile from s&b that is spammable, you have a nasty combo(again not saying we should nerf dk).

To say that the health-pool is stacked without any damage loss is not entirely true. Like I mentioned earlier a stamblade in medium will always exceed the raw damage of a stamblade in heavy. And choices of sets/glyphs/traits are made to reach higher amounts of health. I can agree with you that it's not hard to reach high health, but to say that it's without sacrifice is not fair. But this comes back to setups that all heavy users, not only stambaldes, have access to.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

The changes that @ZOS_BrianWheeler talked about in his Combat Direction thread speculate of a Major Fracture removal from Surprise Attack and Major Defile removal from Incapacitating Strike.
While these changes would hit Medium Nightblades immensely, a spec which can be played very well yet is unreliable in the current Meta due to the endless counters available against them, Heavyblades wouldn't get affected by any of these changes.
Why?
Because Reverb also provides Major Defile.
And Ransack, a skill which Animation timings and secondary effects have been copy pasted from Surprise Attack, also provides Major Fracture, yet that skill cannot be nerfed due to PvE Tanking.
The removal of Minor Maim on shade would also only lead to Low Slash taking the place of another skill, which is already done nowadays anyway.

What would you end up with after the nerfs mentioned above is pidgeonholing another class into running Heavy armor + S&B without really nerfing it. A Build that is already the strongest thing out there.
Simply put you wouldn't fix the NB meta in PvP and PvE would stay untouched.

Ok this is where you actually make some sense. What I fail to understand is how medium armor incap and supprise attack is not powerfull? I mean this is the absolute best gank tools in the game. Your drawback is that you are not as tanky as a heavy armor user. Never seen a heavy armor stamblade gank someone or burst someone as good as a medium armor one. To expect to be able to kill every heavy armor/tanky player is just plain selfish thinking.

To the nerf suggestions I agree with you, those changes would only hurt the stamblade in general and less the heavy ones.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

In Conclusion:
Heavy Armor Stamblades, including DW/2h Bleedblades and S&B/2h Bashblades make up the current Dueling and Soloplay Meta on PC as those are the strongest things out there.

How do you tackle the issue without nerfing the so loved Burst potential of a Stamblade retaining the Rogue identity and not forcing it to run Heavy Armor forever?
I have a couple Suggestions which every well respected Nightblade and Dueler whom I asked(Yes Magicka and Stamina) on PC EU agreed with and Class Reps Discords(including Templar Discord) loved.

This is your opinion, like I stated earlier, the best stamblades I know are medium armor users and they are extremely successful at it. I think your main issue is that you expect to be able to kill anything you see, even builds that are made to counter your play-style. And you seem to also have this idea that stamblade in heavy killing everything, that's simply not true.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

SUGGESTIONS:
Incapacitating Strikes 20% Damage increase should only apply to Direct Damage excluding Bashes, Heavy Armor builds love stacking dots for artificial pressure to make up for the low Burst Damage such as Double-Dot Poisons, Bleeds, etc. Stamblades are the best at it because Incap increases all of that Damage. Changing that would be a significant nerf to Pressure builds on Stamblades which make up the Meta and magnify a Nightblades main feature which is huge Burst Damage output which you and your enemies could play around and predict.
The Major Defile secondary effect could also be reduced to 4seconds only so the Burst window would tighten making Bleedblades less effective.
A screenshot of a Heavyblade S&B/2h and it's damage output:

This change would nerf anything that is not a ganker, heavy or medium. You even go as far to specify bashes, wow. It just says more about how much of a ego post this is. If anything should be done about this, I would counter suggest that bleeds in general could be made unaffected by damage modifiers such as incap, that would strike the bleed/heavy meta where it should be(again stop attacking stamblade for reasons it should not). It would also nerf the stamblade in PVE to the point where it would be useless, you seem to have no clue how important incaps 20% is for pve.

And that screenshot, has nothing to bring to this argument, because: We do not know what sets/stats are on the attacker or the defender. It's 100% pointless.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

Surprise Attack should be swapped with Blur and end up in the Assassination Tree, Surprise Attack would finally stop proccing Major Resistance buffs and hit Builds that don't play around Stamblades main defensive tactics, aka. mobility(Cloak, Shade, etc.), which would lead to another significant Heavy Armor Stamblade nerf. On top of that Nightblade skill trees would start making sense again. "How is Blur even slightly related to assassinating a Target??"

This change would be rather pointless, because heavy armor users, get this buff from dark cloak. Blur is also a very used skill for the speedbuff(mobility you brag the heavy stamblade have) and only lasts for 4 seconds. So you use it very often. If you choose the oposite morph of blur you would also get major and minor resistance buffs at the same time, maybe you should read the skills? Also speed has nothing to do with Assassination? Hmm

TheRealSniker wrote: »

Shadow Barrier passive should stop synergizing with Heavy Armor to strengthen the nerf mentioned above, it's already a very strong passive which doesn't need an additional effect.

A very strong passive? The shortest armor buff of all classes? You must be joking. Yes you have a armor buff from using skill from a skilltree and yes it's longer when you have heavy armor. It must be easy sitting in cloak and not worring about your armor buff huh? I don't play a single class where I don't keep up my armor buff... The only thing you would nerf with this is PVE tanking, where you need the longer uptime on this buff. On my heavy pvp stambalde it would make little to non difference, even if you move supprise attack to assassination. Leave nightblade pve tanks alone.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

Dark Cloak should not scale with Maximum Health or atleast be capped to 25k HP in PvP, I understand that this skill is a very important tool for NB Tanking in PvE, but in it's current state this skill is simply too strong.
Just to give you a slight perspective of how strong the Healing output of this skill is:
31000 HP Heavy Armor Stamblade uses it
31000 * 0,35 = 10850
10850 / 3,4 = 3191
Halved by Battle spirit: 3191/2 = 1596
1596 flat Healing tick which can crit based off of Spell Crit and gets amplified by all Healing passives.

Here is a screenshot of a Heavy Blade with 29335 HP and 37 Blessed 27 Quick Recovery.
He is still under the optimal minimum HP pool which is 31k. Remember that most people run around with 35k+ HP and 5,5k+ Weapon Damage

If you are running 5.5k weapon damage, you are far from a unkillable heavy tank. And then 35k health? I wanna see proper build posts ans setups when you start to use these cut out reports as arguments. But anyway: So 1.5k tic is too powerfull? Yes it can crit but you seem to forget that's one of the drawbacks of using heavy armor, you have low crit chance.

This capping you are talking about are another narrowminded change, that you even mention yourself would hurt pve nightblade tanks really hard. Not to mention the few heavy magblades in pvp, yes we do exsist.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

ADDITIONALLY: Shadow Disguise duration should get halved and amplified to the current Duration by the Shadow Barrier Passive which would scale with Medium/Light Armor
(I only talk specifically about Shadowy Disguise morph and not Dark Cloak here)
FOR EXAMPLE:
Shadowy Disguise Duration: 1,5s
Shadow Barrier secondary effect: Wearing 5 or more Pieces of Light or Medium armor increases the duration of Shadowy Disguise by 100%.

With that change the Dark Veil Passive should not affect Shadow Cloak(Pre-morph) as investing points in the passive reduces the effectivness of Dark Cloak, which doesn't make sense anyway.

Ok? So you just wanna take Shadowy Disguise away from heavy aswell? I thought dark cloak was so OP there should not be a question anyway? The more I read from your post the more I understand that you are very focused on your own setup. Tbh tho, I would not care to much about this. Still does not really make much sense to me.

TheRealSniker wrote: »

ENDING
Stamblades will always stay strong if Heavy Armor stays the way it is, so the simple solution of fixing Stamblades is to force them not to play it simple as.
Other specs who rely on Heavy Armor to be strong don't have to take a Nerfhammer to the face again just because Stamblade is hugely overperforming on it.
And the speculated nerfs that have been more or less mentioned in the "Combat Direction Thread 22" will simply do no harm to the Stamblade Meta in PvP.

Sorry for no TL;DR as I really can't imagine a possible way of TL;DR'ing this post.

Here is a cute Furret for the Zenimax employees:

Again, to make sure we are all clear here. I never said stamblade is not powerfull in heavy. It is. There are stuff that has to be done. However your logic of simply nerfing several aspects of the Nightblade class so it will still benefit your personal play-style while hitting other builds both in pvp and pve is NOT the way to go in my opinion. And I made it pretty clear why.
Attack the problem at it's core, not at the class. Heavy is strong. Bleeds are Strong. Nightblade should not take all the heat for that.

@TheRealSniker just nailed it

To be honest, this seems more like a blatant attempt to get the nerf bus not to run over your preferred playstyle, while sacrificing anyone else who might get hit by it, namely pve tankblades. As to the "nightblades are meant for damage" argument, one need only look at the way ZOS has structured warden and necro, and the changes they've done in other areas, to realize that their goal is to ensure that all 4 main styles of PvE play (sdps, mdps, heals, and tank) are (at the very least) viable. And I don't care who you are, how famous you are on a video or streaming site, or what achieves you have. You are not and should not be the one to decide your way is the "right" way to play a class and anything else should be a lower priority.

This is not "for the good of the game." This is for the good of your particular playstyle in an effort to direct the bat elsewhere.

And frankly, regardless of the person posting it, it should be regarded as such.

Zos wont focus on pvp stamblades when restructing. PVE is the main focus, whatever changes it will be mainly towards pve.

There needs to be a distinction of skills between pve/pvp.

SA doesnt have to have the same effects/damage in pve as in pvp and vice versa.