Magblade died

fred4 · April 2019

FWIW, I don't get the "magblade is bad for group play" argument. I don't really play BGs but, in Cyrodiil, magblade is ideal for scouting, for early warning of approaching zergs and for placing and destroying forward camps.

To be honest, it holds it's own in fights as well. However what you DON'T DO is listen to your group leader. The group leader will tell you to stack up in certain situations, so that the healers can heal the group with AOE heals. Much better to remain in cloak at a short distance from your own group and the enemy zerg. You won't be affected by AOEs and you're looking for slightly isolated enemy players to take on. I can only recommend Immovability / Detection / Magicka potions, when you attack (if not on cooldown). Not only will they prevent the CC and give you a better chance to get back into cloak, but they will expose enemy players (NBs) lying in ambush, before you attack.

I will admit that my build is single target. It doesn't spam AOE and is not designed to survive in the middle of an AOE spamming clash of two groups. If the enemy group is highly organised, moving in unison and spamming Caltrops, AOEs and ultimates, there is nothing I can do. I can, however, completely outmaneuver them in cloak.

I would not advocate for a group composed entirely of magicka nightblades, but they have their place.

fred4 · April 2019

Let me give an example of something only a magblade can do. In a keep battle between our group and another organised group, they jumped from the top of the keep into the front of the inner keep door, which was open. While they were engaged, the magblade (me) cloaks by them, through the open door, past the NPC guards and up the stairs, subsequently wreaking havoc among the oilers on top. Perhaps a dodge rolling stamblade could do the same, I don't know, but just an illustration of how to use a nightblade in a group fight.

Good cloak sustain helps. Few skills in the game tick more than once per second, many only tick every two seconds. If you spam cloak, you can run through oils and Hurricanes. It is a risk, but you have a chance to come out the other end undetected.

Maulkin · April 2019

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

What are you complaining about? This was a great patch for magblades!

Only a single nerf really, with the loss of Minor Berserk. But we get
1) A heal on Spectral Bow
2) A better Fear CC (that also doesn't run opponents out of the map!)
3) Sap 25% dmg buff
4) Minor Vulnerability on Lotus fan/Teleport strike

And before you say these are minor buffs compared to the loss, remember the best buffs are outside of the class.

1) MagDKs won't reflect all our crap back at us
2) If you find a slot (which you will) for Race Against Time, you get snare immunity, speed buff and minor force.

The class just became so much more playable!

Daus wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Major defile removed only from incap. It's not like direct nerf, they simply push magblade to melee. Will it work or no.. future will show.

I guess Stamblades will switch to Soul Harvest then. I guess ZOS doesn't want Stamblades having an ult?

DBoS just like the rest of the stam builds now :'(

None of those are positives towards PVE Mageblades except Sap but rarely do Madeblades run Sap anymore at the cost of it and the ease of getting major sorcery from other aspects which don't cost magic (potion) or much cheaper to get (entropy 1650 Magic as opposed to 3240 magic for Sap)

PvE Magblades have lost nothing that they don't get through raid buffs. This thread is about PvP mostly

Apxac · April 2019

I think this discussion has received a lot of feedback. I hope the developers will listen and give the opportunity to try the proposed changes on the PTS. Many people are waiting for improvements, I hope that we will be able to return to pvp and not feel useless. Thanks for your feedback guys. You are the best!

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Insco851 · April 2019

fred4 wrote: »

FWIW, I don't get the "magblade is bad for group play" argument. I don't really play BGs but, in Cyrodiil, magblade is ideal for scouting, for early warning of approaching zergs and for placing and destroying forward camps.

To be honest, it holds it's own in fights as well. However what you DON'T DO is listen to your group leader. The group leader will tell you to stack up in certain situations, so that the healers can heal the group with AOE heals. Much better to remain in cloak at a short distance from your own group and the enemy zerg. You won't be affected by AOEs and you're looking for slightly isolated enemy players to take on. I can only recommend Immovability / Detection / Magicka potions, when you attack (if not on cooldown). Not only will they prevent the CC and give you a better chance to get back into cloak, but they will expose enemy players (NBs) lying in ambush, before you attack.

I will admit that my build is single target. It doesn't spam AOE and is not designed to survive in the middle of an AOE spamming clash of two groups. If the enemy group is highly organised, moving in unison and spamming Caltrops, AOEs and ultimates, there is nothing I can do. I can, however, completely outmaneuver them in cloak.

I would not advocate for a group composed entirely of magicka nightblades, but they have their place.

Yes yes yes and yes. Also- pressure the healer if you get a chance.

Iskiab · April 2019

fred4 wrote: »

Let me give an example of something only a magblade can do. In a keep battle between our group and another organised group, they jumped from the top of the keep into the front of the inner keep door, which was open. While they were engaged, the magblade (me) cloaks by them, through the open door, past the NPC guards and up the stairs, subsequently wreaking havoc among the oilers on top. Perhaps a dodge rolling stamblade could do the same, I don't know, but just an illustration of how to use a nightblade in a group fight.

Good cloak sustain helps. Few skills in the game tick more than once per second, many only tick every two seconds. If you spam cloak, you can run through oils and Hurricanes. It is a risk, but you have a chance to come out the other end undetected.

Magblade definitely has a place in cyrodiil as ranged (or short range), IDK about melee. If you study the patch notes carefully you’ll see that aoes have been buffed across the board, in group play if you have two abilities and one does 100% of possible damage and the other does 90% of possible damage but to 6 targets, which would you choose?

ST and aoe abilities are going to do very similar amounts of damage. Everyone’s going to be spamming aoes, everyone. You’d never make it past the other group. The nature of pvp is going to change post patch.

This is all a prediction of course, but that was my take doing some BGs on PTS too. In a setting like this melee mag has to either be able to survive with sap or not.

P.S. - plus add necro and tether changes and I’ll be surprised if ball groups continue

Jaxaxo · April 2019

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_BrianWheeler
There is a lot of really really good ideas. Like many ppl said, current PTS version of grim focus and it's morphs are just simply not really worth slotting/casting anymore. Adding some kind of buff there could change current situation. Major sorcery and brutality would lighten up bar space for magblades and let bit more build diversity for stamblades. Of course, with this change both power extraction and sap essence should get sth else. Buff like major sorcery, usually used as prebuffing shouldnt be bound to melee skill (and what is more, working only when it hits somebody). Maybe sth like major prophecy/savagery dunno tho.
Other thing mentioned before, is link healing from swallow soul to tooltips, not actual dmg done.
I wish they would major breach on concealed weapons too, as this skill is linked with a bit riskier melee gameplay, but not sure how it will turn out.

Tbh i dunno what to think about dark cloak change, current version is kinda useless, cuz it's short time buff with really bad hot. I wish it could scale from max mag, but im aware it would dig it for tanks. On the other hand, increasing the heal for 8 sec would propably make a bit fuss for cp pvp. Maybe revert time increase for heal and keep the 8 sec on minor protection? Or add 2 negative effect purge on top of it? Im sure more experienced magblades here have some ideas how to acttully balance it.

Those things wouldnt really affect pve nbs, but would help for sure with current horrible situation for magblades.

Iskiab · April 2019

Jaxaxo wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_BrianWheeler
There is a lot of really really good ideas. Like many ppl said, current PTS version of grim focus and it's morphs are just simply not really worth slotting/casting anymore. Adding some kind of buff there could change current situation. Major sorcery and brutality would lighten up bar space for magblades and let bit more build diversity for stamblades. Of course, with this change both power extraction and sap essence should get sth else. Buff like major sorcery, usually used as prebuffing shouldnt be bound to melee skill (and what is more, working only when it hits somebody). Maybe sth like major prophecy/savagery dunno tho.
Other thing mentioned before, is link healing from swallow soul to tooltips, not actual dmg done.
I wish they would major breach on concealed weapons too, as this skill is linked with a bit riskier melee gameplay, but not sure how it will turn out.

Tbh i dunno what to think about dark cloak change, current version is kinda useless, cuz it's short time buff with really bad hot. I wish it could scale from max mag, but im aware it would dig it for tanks. On the other hand, increasing the heal for 8 sec would propably make a bit fuss for cp pvp. Maybe revert time increase for heal and keep the 8 sec on minor protection? Or add 2 negative effect purge on top of it? Im sure more experienced magblades here have some ideas how to acttully balance it.

Those things wouldnt really affect pve nbs, but would help for sure with current horrible situation for magblades.

I think the best idea yet is to make the healing from swallow soul/funnel health not be tied to how much damage you do.

If I’m right about pvp, changing major sorcery to merciless from sap would be a nerf to magblade.

darkblue5 · April 2019

fred4 wrote: »

darkblue5 wrote: »

No class can survive by merely adding the light armor shield.

While I agree theshockcable is either a clueless noob or a troll, the above statement is IMO not true. Forgetting about sorcs, build a 50K magicka stacking warden (12.7K Dampen in CP), add just Living Trellis and bird / shalk spam (which heals them), and they arguably can survive quite well. Would I add further healing, perhaps Mutagen? Probably, but even without that they are in much better shape than magblade. I guess that is your sentiment, just the above statement didn't quite hit the mark for me.

What I meant was using NO class skills actually. Not just merely adding Harness/Dampen to class skills. Rather merely adding shield to the bar with no class heals. I'm sure someone could build a character with certain armor sets and such only to prove me wrong, and that you can make a troll tank or healer that can survive without class based defenses but that also wouldn't be in the spirit I intended.

If the shockable one thinks that he can survive on a mag build with only restoration staff defenses and Dampen solo then I'd love to see the proof. I'm just assuming the shockable one is being sarcastic.

darkblue5 · April 2019

fred4 wrote: »

darkblue5 wrote: »

mikemacon wrote: »

Yep! Just like sorcs died in Murkmire when shields were “nerfed”. Or when crystal frags were nerfed. Or when bolt escape was nerfed. That’s why nobody plays sorcs any more!

::he says, while merrily running around killing all the things on his perfectly fine sorc::

At the time reasonable people were recognizing that the change would at least offer a reliable defense. There is a chance that snare removal without vampirism's brutal vulnerabilities will be enough but doesn't sound like it from better players than me.

The current nerfs aren't why magblade is bad anyways. Magblade has been bad in open world for months and no one has found a better meta build than either Caluurion's ganks or Dark Cloak heals. And Dark Cloak heals are getting nerfed.

Neither build is at all better at what it is trying to do than the competition. Dark Cloak Nightblade was a worse magsorc and Caluurion's ganking is almost purely worse than stamblade ganking. It's only better against the squishiest of squishy targets aka other gankblades.

Doubt pvp magblade will get the help it needs this patch. 3-6 months maybe magblade will be worth playing again. There just isn't time to deal with why magblade is bad (because you can't build them to not crutch on cloak defensively and still have the pressure to kill more than true new players.)

P.S. Solo bombing has been getting deader as the hyper efficient tank sets and traits abound. (Protective Jewels, Impreg, Buffer o' Swift, Reactive, etc)

It will be interesting to see where Caluurion ganking ends up. The Minor Vulnerability on Lotus Fan suits it, and the RAT change means you can ditch Forward Momentum in favor of a destro staff. These are buffs to that playstyle, or at least to my build variation of it, whereas stamblade (ganking) has received nerfs.

I'd say the Caluurion's Ganking may be overall buffed but finding a time to use lotus fan seems difficult. Yes RAT is a buff that particularly will help magblades and particularly help Caluurion's ganking. IMO the best stamblade ganking is Onslaught ganking given all the people running around with 25K health and three protective etc. That's less nerfed than the other options for sure.

kaithuzar · April 2019

Zer0oo wrote: »

Not sure if you all noticed but mag nb has now a snare immunity with the psijic skill. Yes some skills got nerfed but with being able to remove snares relay able mag blades should be hell a lot stronger than last patch for open world.

Not true because many of us were already running forward momentum.
Stronger, yes
“Hell a lot stronger”, no

kaithuzar · April 2019

I kind of enjoy having lotus fan as a gap closer again however, the buff duration is short 8 secs. Where as the berserk buff use to last 20 secs.
It’s also pretty important to keep up RAT for the increased crit dmg buff which also has a short duration.

Long durations are siphoning attack & sap (sorcery buff)

But managing all of these 4 just to have “ok” sustained pressure through damage to your opponent is tough because everyone is running min of 25k health w/good heals.
This is why some chose the zaan & Caluurion combo; it would just be nice in my opinion if we could have good damage & healing skills so we don’t have to crutch on 2 proc sets.

I want magblade to be better/stronger but build diversity at the same time which seems pretty complicated.

Juhasow · April 2019

Mayrael wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

killingspreeb16_ESO wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

You only get the bow heal if you’re in melee range LEL

And what’s wrong with that? Between siphoning attacks and swallow soul you already have decent heals while pew-pewing from range.

It’s a class with dual range capabilities, both melee and range. They just added something to the melee toolkit. I don’t see why that is something to laugh at.

that this skill give you basically nothing unless you are in melee range?not to mention is too easy to dodge so the heal is not even a reliable one.

this skill need some improvement for sure.

You're basically offering 0 counter arguments.

Me: "It's designed to be a buff for melee users. What's wrong with that"
You: "It only works in melee range"

Very impressive argumentation.

The "it's dodgeable" reasoning is perplexing too. So is Swallow Soul, Power Lash, Crystal Frags... or any other single target ability with a heal attached.

But none of these abilities requires to do 5 LA before using them, none of these abilities have a delay added after cast, none of these abilities was slowed down to make it easier to dodge, none of these abilities makes a loud warning that someone is going to hit you with it.

And none of this abilities reached 20k+ tooltip that easily as merciless does. Also crystal frag have a delay it was slowed down , it have condition to proc and not only have a sound but also visual warning when it procs and when it doesnt then it's channeled ability which makes it even easier to avoid. Swallow sould is spammable and lash is meele spammable so I dont see the point to compare those 2 to conditional high burst dmg ability.

Juhasow · April 2019

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

What are you complaining about? This was a great patch for magblades!

Only a single nerf really, with the loss of Minor Berserk. But we get
1) A heal on Spectral Bow
2) A better Fear CC (that also doesn't run opponents out of the map!)
3) Sap 25% dmg buff
4) Minor Vulnerability on Lotus fan/Teleport strike

And before you say these are minor buffs compared to the loss, remember the best buffs are outside of the class.

1) MagDKs won't reflect all our crap back at us
2) If you find a slot (which you will) for Race Against Time, you get snare immunity, speed buff and minor force.

The class just became so much more playable!

Daus wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Major defile removed only from incap. It's not like direct nerf, they simply push magblade to melee. Will it work or no.. future will show.

I guess Stamblades will switch to Soul Harvest then. I guess ZOS doesn't want Stamblades having an ult?

DBoS just like the rest of the stam builds now :'(

None of those are positives towards PVE Mageblades except Sap but rarely do Madeblades run Sap anymore at the cost of it and the ease of getting major sorcery from other aspects which don't cost magic (potion) or much cheaper to get (entropy 1650 Magic as opposed to 3240 magic for Sap)

Seriously people expected positive changes for PvE magblades in 2019 ?

darkblue5 · April 2019

Juhasow wrote: »

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

What are you complaining about? This was a great patch for magblades!

Only a single nerf really, with the loss of Minor Berserk. But we get
1) A heal on Spectral Bow
2) A better Fear CC (that also doesn't run opponents out of the map!)
3) Sap 25% dmg buff
4) Minor Vulnerability on Lotus fan/Teleport strike

And before you say these are minor buffs compared to the loss, remember the best buffs are outside of the class.

1) MagDKs won't reflect all our crap back at us
2) If you find a slot (which you will) for Race Against Time, you get snare immunity, speed buff and minor force.

The class just became so much more playable!

Daus wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Major defile removed only from incap. It's not like direct nerf, they simply push magblade to melee. Will it work or no.. future will show.

I guess Stamblades will switch to Soul Harvest then. I guess ZOS doesn't want Stamblades having an ult?

DBoS just like the rest of the stam builds now :'(

None of those are positives towards PVE Mageblades except Sap but rarely do Madeblades run Sap anymore at the cost of it and the ease of getting major sorcery from other aspects which don't cost magic (potion) or much cheaper to get (entropy 1650 Magic as opposed to 3240 magic for Sap)

Seriously people expected positive changes for PvE magblades in 2019 ?

A lot of our suggestions are explicitly designed to not seriously buff PVE magblades in the endgame content. And btw I play both magsorc and magblade and let me tell you that not only is Crystal Frags a lot easier to land but the class has the pressure and survivability in order to either force a combo to land or to secure a kill with incomplete combos. Magblade doesn't have that.

Juhasow · April 2019

darkblue5 wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Kuramas9tails wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

What are you complaining about? This was a great patch for magblades!

Only a single nerf really, with the loss of Minor Berserk. But we get
1) A heal on Spectral Bow
2) A better Fear CC (that also doesn't run opponents out of the map!)
3) Sap 25% dmg buff
4) Minor Vulnerability on Lotus fan/Teleport strike

And before you say these are minor buffs compared to the loss, remember the best buffs are outside of the class.

1) MagDKs won't reflect all our crap back at us
2) If you find a slot (which you will) for Race Against Time, you get snare immunity, speed buff and minor force.

The class just became so much more playable!

Daus wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Major defile removed only from incap. It's not like direct nerf, they simply push magblade to melee. Will it work or no.. future will show.

I guess Stamblades will switch to Soul Harvest then. I guess ZOS doesn't want Stamblades having an ult?

DBoS just like the rest of the stam builds now :'(

None of those are positives towards PVE Mageblades except Sap but rarely do Madeblades run Sap anymore at the cost of it and the ease of getting major sorcery from other aspects which don't cost magic (potion) or much cheaper to get (entropy 1650 Magic as opposed to 3240 magic for Sap)

Seriously people expected positive changes for PvE magblades in 2019 ?

A lot of our suggestions are explicitly designed to not seriously buff PVE magblades in the endgame content. And btw I play both magsorc and magblade and let me tell you that not only is Crystal Frags a lot easier to land but the class has the pressure and survivability in order to either force a combo to land or to secure a kill with incomplete combos. Magblade doesn't have that.

But what magblade PvP state have to do with my comment about PvE ? Giving PvP as an asnwer to PvE related comment seems kinda odd. Also I think You've missed point of my comment.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO · April 2019

Xvorg wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Apxac wrote: »

I understand that this is the path to rapprochement. But there is a problem, this class does not have good healing now, because the dark cloac is reworked. And the use of spectral bow for healing? Can you imagine it?

Insco851 wrote: »

Yea only issue is survivability in said melee range. Dark cloak previously could have (almost) been just enough if combined with a shield or heavy... but that tiny 500 tick per second is flat out bs.

Don’t worry we slotting combat prayer for that minor berserk back.

Fair enough, I never played tanky magblade with Dark Cloak to know how that is impacted. It just felt a bit "wrong" as a play style to me, too DK like. Always played with light armour, damage shields and invis cloak. And that play style got buffed this patch.

Tanky mageblade now can properly use Lotus + sap essence + Dark cloak + strife. In other words Sap Tank is back

You can’t run a real Sap Tank on a single target, how does that hold up vs 3+ The answer is it doesn’t. Changes are not the end of the world but Sap Tank is not back not without a main buff to sustain.

Tessitura · April 2019

I just wanna say, Magblade is still going strong, you can all relax, I fought a few in the PTS and they do not suck on the pvp front. I think it will be fine. And I ran mine in a few pve encounters, and it's still fine. I had to change my build up some and that's it. It's not even close to dead.

Apxac · April 2019

Tessitura wrote: »

I just wanna say, Magblade is still going strong, you can all relax, I fought a few in the PTS and they do not suck on the pvp front. I think it will be fine. And I ran mine in a few pve encounters, and it's still fine. I had to change my build up some and that's it. It's not even close to dead.

I could not kill DK ... And, necromancers kill me almost 100% of the time, or we fight for a very long time and go away. I play at a high level, if you want to make sure, we can arrange a duel. Not dead ... They are worse than any other class, just worse, you know? It is good that I have a templar and sorcerer, they are now stronger, with the new patch you can forget about the magblade, it will be unplayable in serious pvp. Killing hamsters through a caluurion is not all that I would like...

Jeezye · April 2019

Tessitura wrote: »

I just wanna say, Magblade is still going strong, you can all relax, I fought a few in the PTS and they do not suck on the pvp front. I think it will be fine. And I ran mine in a few pve encounters, and it's still fine. I had to change my build up some and that's it. It's not even close to dead.

I myself did excessive duelling yesterday as well, and yes, I kind of performed surprisingly good. HOWEVER, I was fighting mostly necros that just learned the class and didn't exactly know what they were doing while I was playing on my main on which I have the best muscle memory. Those duels are fine to get a general idea, but they are not representative of the actual pvp state. I bet any decent dueller would have rekt me.

Actually I was duelling nirnstorm on his magdk too, and ofc he spit me in the dust several times... There was also a magden with typical clench sub combo that I simply couldn't kill, even when perfectly landing combos and keeping up whole momentum. So yes you can win duels with magblade and even have some 1vX vs potatoes, but there's no way you can stand your ground against other competent players

Apxac · April 2019

I wonder if something will change in 2 iteration? I tried stamblade on the PTS, it is very bad, perhaps even worse than the magblade (maybe I just can not play at the right level, as in the magician spec) ... I just could not kill anyone, not to mention necromancers. Why are there no discussions on this? I am sad for this class, really sad. The most interesting for me and the weakest in pvp with new changes.

Garack · April 2019

Nb stam and bow is dead too, zos way to say i like your money

Victor_Blade · April 2019

My usual no cloak playstyle just got killed. Well it's time for all of these nightblade haters to experience fear. Tether radius buff + sap damage buff = a direct buff to bombblades. At this point zos can't nerf magblade anymore without causing an outrage and the people who kept making nerf threats to kill an already dead class will always have to keep their shields up near flags. Good day.