An extensive MNb feedback: class identity and effectiveness

Nerftheforums · April 2019

With the recent announcements made during the eso live I felt, for the nth time in years, that the core issue of a class that has been suffering for long have not been understood. At all. In particular, I am talking about magblade in open world (ow) pvp, and the statements made regarding merciless resolve and relentless focus. With this post I want to try to shed some light on the issues that magicka nightblade is suffering from, so to (hopefully) give some useful insight to help modify this class.

I would like to start from the basis, and what makes magblade so hard and weak in open world. Let me start by saying that the main issue is not the damage, obviously, because a well build magblade is able to kill basically any opponent. The issue is survivability, intended as mobility and heals, which has been nerfed so many times over the last patches. Let me list the nerfs that magnb received overtime that made it so bad in ow, in decreasing importance according to me:
- Removal of healing ward heal, which removed any possibility for magnb to stand its ground decently and forces it to cloak and run away as soon as it gets bursted properly
- Removal of minor vitality from swallow soul, which reduced the potency of all hots we have by a fat 8%
- Bugged shadow image, which, despite being a bug and thus should not be considered for balancing purpose, it has been here for so long that it is being considered a feature now. This skill has been completely unreliable for 6 months and the issue has been ignored, at least officially (idk if the devs have been working on it and are uncapable of solving it or if they simply don't care, matter is that it's been 6 months is a row that the skill has been bugged)
- Loss of minor berserker, which indirectly reduces even more the heals we were able to gain from swallow soul. Let me precise that I talk about swallow soul only because the other morph has been made totally useless in competitive pvp unless you are a magnb healer (which is a bit of a meme in pvp but ok).
- Loss of major expedition, which was TOTALLY uncalled for, and absolutely *** on a class that is already swimming in a see of poop. Yes, refreshing path still detains major expedition, but it's such a bad skill that its use is very very very limited after you nerfed it by removing its damage. And before you think "well, but now that cripple & morphs don't give major expedtion anymore you be using the skill now!", let's be real. Spending 3k+ magicka to cast a stationary skill that heals less than rapid regen, but only if you stand in it, and grants you major expedition, a buff intended to help you MOVE around (and note, i say move around, which should sound clear and obvious but it seems it does not), but only for only 2s if you leave the path, well....slotting something like this is basically a wasted slot unless you are a tank. And no, nerfing good skills to make bad ones look good for no reason whatsoever is not an enjoyable customer experience AT ALL. Moreover, the redundency of the accessibility of major expedition doe not exist here since the amount of builds and characters slotting both crippling and path are extremely limited, without considering that path is used mainly outside of combat or to kite a group, while cripple is mainly used to fight and control the opponent. The scope and reson of usage of the two skills are complementary! The removal of major expedition from double take, and cripple and its morph especially, just killed the mobility of the class with its own tools, and we are now forced to userace against time (which is an extremely good skill don't get me wrong), reducing the value of nightblade skills and the uniqueness of what being a nb means. By a lot.
- The murkimire shield changes, which forced magnbs to invest less in damage via max mag stacking (and thus gain more healing power from swallow) and more into direct mitigation, increasing the time it takes to kill us but basically postponing and inevitable conclusion.

Now, you can see that you developers took (hopefully) well thought decisions over time to nerf this class over and over again mainly directly, but also indirectly. You changed its identity of a mobile mage with strong hots into an ineffective magsorc that can tank better if you invest everything into tanking. And now you are basically telling us that you want to buff its survivability by adding direct damage mitigation, which is widely, and I mean WIDELY available in game via sets, skills cps and monster sets to our skill that is meant to kill. Let me state this again, and allow you to read it once more, because it should ring a bell. You want to add an up to 15% damage mitigation to a skill with a 20k tooltip that you want to fire whenever you have a killing opportunity. High damage mitigation on a high damage skill. I'm sorry if I sound rude, but what are you thinking? What's your plan? The survivability of nightblades does not and should not come from direct mitigation! That's dks, wardens and templars field, we, just as sorcs, are kiting classes, classes that are (and soon were used to be) highly mobile. We mitigate damage by cloaking away and correct positioning, by kiting and healing ourselves. But you are tanking everything away to make the class a discounted tanking class. We are nightblades, assassins, we don't want damage mitigation on a skill that we use to kill, and from which we will not receive much mitigation since we will try to fire the bow as soon as the oppotunity shows up.
You nerfed our heals, nerfed our mobility, changed how the whole class feels and should be played to be effective...and now you want to add damage mitigation on our front bar damage skill? This is wrong on SO many ways. We don't need direct damage mitigation, nor it's healthy for the damage. As said, there are many sources of damage mitigation that nbs can use effectively (pirate skeleton, armor Master, fortified brass, protective traits, etc etc etc). What we lack is the possibility to heal ourselves without investing crazy amounts of skill slots and sets to do so. We miss the possibility of being mobile without slotting 3 mobility skills (cloak, shade, and next patch rat), and dish out damage without becoming a one-shottable target.

Having explained the issues that magnb is suffering from in ow, let me give credit where credit is due. The changes to race against time (rat) are amazing and really nice. They make double take total poop compare to it but ok, not gonna complain tbh. Snare removal for magnb was quite needed, and despite we are giving up a skill to slot rat, it's ok. It's worth it. Another thing I really like is the reduction of travel time on merciless, which made the skill extremely unreliable and frustrating to use. Beside this, there aren't many changes that make magnb feel good. Sure, the new debilitate is nice, but I'd rather have my major expedition back than extra sustain, also because the root on crippling grasp is extremely important to control fights and not be overwhelmed.
To conclude, I'd like to give some suggestions, despite I think they will be ignored.

In the first place, focus on magnb's healing. The heal on merciless is useless, if you are melee on your magnb you are doing it wrong and should get there only if it's safe for you to land your soul harvest. And if it's safe, you don't need the heal. Either remove the range requirements or remove the heal entirely. I was thinking of adding minor mending to the skill, so that the 20 magnb healers in pve will have access to such an important buff. It would be

In the second place, help swallow soul to actually heal us. Either increase by a decent margin (15% or something) the healing it does, or, even better, give minor vitality back to the skill. It would't affect pve too much because healing yourself is relatively pointless since the mechanics you die to are either one shot or so high damage that you really need a healer to save your bum.

Thirdly, and I know this is a big nono, but I'll try anyhow, give the heal back to healing ward. Sorcs are throwing out heals that are at templar level of effectiveness through the overbuffed matriarch (which is getting fixed?), and no petsorc will ever have the space to slot healing ward. On the other hand, non petsorcs are suffering a lot from the loss of the burst heal on healing ward, pushing the few non petsorcs left into slotting the matriarch.

Last but not least, minor berserker. I thought it was clear that the strong nb spec was the stam one, but appearantly it is not as clear as the whole community thought. Why can't relentless keep minor endurance and merciless keep berserker? It has 0 effect in magnb in pve since the berserker uptime is granted by the healers, yet it's a big deal on pvp where magnb rely on that damage boost to both heals and kill potential.

I hope I made myself clear and gave useful feedback, and I hope it has been worth taking the time to write this. Have a good day and please don't butcher the class more, we don't deserve it.

Edit: lapsus on swallow having vitality instead of mending

KhajiitFelix · April 2019

Nah remove NBs

Nerftheforums · April 2019

Ps: these are not my thoughts only, but it's the outcome of months of discussions of several (30+) people in the class rep discords.

darkblue5 · April 2019

PVE magblade dps skipping heals mean no buffs to heals. Minor Protection and variant actually scale very poorly with bulk because they are multiplicative. At the end of the fight what matters is incoming damage post mitigation in all forms versus healing.

Without buffing PVE dps healing ZOS has given magblade some survivability and in a way that does not encourage bulking up further as its effective value is reduced with added bulk. The previous "Rugged" passive for Nords was useless for PVE tanks because protection is multiplicative and it gave a fraction of its value after accounting for armor and blocking etc. The protection will actually encourage the style of nightblade you argue needs to be supported.

You know as well as anyone that magblade needs some staying power in order to be able to kite and use Shadowy Disguise/Shadow Image effectively as neither works as a primary defense. On a purely functional level this potential change will act a lot like instead having buffed healing. It will also help nightblades that are using set(s) that don't buff healing (Spinner's/Spriggan's, Innate Axiom, War Maiden, Spell Strategist etc.) even more than a healing buff would. Funnily that describes most of the most assassin like nightblade's build...

TLDR: You're focusing too much on the flavor of the word "Protection" and not enough on how it would function in the context of builds. We're not getting the buffs you'd rather see to Grim Focus & morphs for the same reason those aspects of Nightblades got nerfed in the first place. Protection will mean each point of healing we get is worth more instead of just getting more points of healing.

Victor_Blade · April 2019

Nah, I want them to delete nightblade. I don't think they even play their own game so keeping your hopes up is just a waste of emotions. I'd rather they delete the entire nightblade class before they turn it into a jesterblade lord/lady of misclass.

Deathlord92 · April 2019

I want one of the malevolent offering morphs to become a strong hot or burst heal and major sorcery on merciless.

Iskiab · April 2019

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

Nerftheforums · April 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

Nono, I meant that direct passive mitigation is more of a dk, templar and warden feature. As said, nb doesn't need direct passive mitigation from class skills, it would break the class with all the elusiveness we have. Moreover, there are so many sets that do that already.

darkblue5 · April 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

I'm just wondering if natch potes will come and shadowy disguise will be gutted... because yes the protection does seem potentially real strong. Though strongest on the weakest specs and less good on heavy bleedblade.

It also is strong in a way that doesn't already make gankers already more survivable. IIf you can't tell I really like the direction of this change. Maybe increments of 2.4% protection rather than 3% increments but eh. Needs testing.

Kinda weird that if offers counterplay in the form of dodge roll spam (which is always over-valued) which is going to be heavily punished in the age of infinite hard hitting undodgeable AOEs. All the powerful AOEs flying about may necessitate the defensive power because wow.

Iskiab · April 2019

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running? Probably garbage designed for ganking.

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

If it’s a pvp noob there’s nothing I can do as a healer to keep them up. If someone’s experienced and figured out mitigation is ridiculously important in pvp, I can keep them up with 3 people beating on them. Healing ward and minor vitality will solve nothing unless you’re dueling. The only reason sorcs shields are even effective is because of the mitigation to back them up.

Nerftheforums · April 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running?

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

Precisely, you said it. The sorc runs 2 defensive sets and 2 defensive traits, getting mitigation from sets is easy af in this game, no need to put it on a skill. Buffing healing is way more difficult via sets, yet it used to be one of the defining features of magicka nbs. If I had to chose between a variable damage mitigation and a flat minor vitality, I'd take the latter tbh.

darkblue5 · April 2019

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

Nono, I meant that direct passive mitigation is more of a dk, templar and warden feature. As said, nb doesn't need direct passive mitigation from class skills, it would break the class with all the elusiveness we have. Moreover, there are so many sets that do that already.

Consuming Darkness: Duration: [12 / 12.5 / 13 / 13.5] seconds.

Conjure a ring of shadow, reducing the Movement Speed of enemies by 70% and granting you and your allies Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 30%. Allies in the area can activate the Hidden Refresh synergy, granting them invisibility, increasing their Movement Speed by 70%, and healing them for 24926 Health over 4 seconds.

Bolstering Darkness: Duration: [14 / 14.5 / 15 / 15.5] seconds.

Conjure a ring of shadow, reducing the Movement Speed of enemies by 70% and granting you and your allies Major Protection while inside the ring and even after leaving it, reducing your damage taken by 30%. Allies in the area can activate the Hidden Refresh synergy, granting them invisibility, increasing their Movement Speed by 70%, and healing them for 24926 Health over 4 seconds.

Veil of Blades: Duration: [14 / 14.5 / 15 / 15.5] seconds.

Conjure a ring of shadow, reducing the Movement Speed of enemies by 70%, dealing [2767 / 2768 / 2769 / 2770] Magic Damage to them every 1 second, and granting you and your allies Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 30%. Allies in the area can activate the Hidden Refresh synergy, granting them invisibility, increasing their Movement Speed by 70%, and healing them for 24926 Health over 4 seconds.

darkblue5 · April 2019

To be fair @Iskiab magsorcs in BGs have nice upfront pressure thanks to the new amplitude passive even while built fairly tanky which helps to secure the delayed burst. If you want to secure your delayed burst on a magblade this patch you have to spec much harder into damage and overburst with the full combo. If you build tanky you really won't have the pressure to have a TTK other than your opponent walking into hugely telegraphed delayed burst or them running dry on rss. Which is not a path to success in open world or in BGs.

Next patch???

Deathlord92 · April 2019

All i ask for is a strong self heal major sorcery on merciless so I can be aggressive on magblade I like this as I favour playing melee 💪

Illuvatarr · April 2019

Adapt

Iskiab · April 2019

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running?

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

Precisely, you said it. The sorc runs 2 defensive sets and 2 defensive traits, getting mitigation from sets is easy af in this game, no need to put it on a skill. Buffing healing is way more difficult via sets, yet it used to be one of the defining features of magicka nbs. If I had to chose between a variable damage mitigation and a flat minor vitality, I'd take the latter tbh.

Agreed but depending on how they do it it’ll be better. Think about it this way, 15% mitigation is equal to 9900 resistances. People run maybe 25k resistance and 10k pen in tanky light builds, so that’s only 15k resistances left over.

Depending on how it works, 5 stacks of merciless will be worth almost as much mitigation as your entire armour set - immune to penetration! You could even try 7 light or 6 light 1 heavy with buffer of the swift and minor protection for 33% always up immune to penetration resistances! Ignoring resistances altogether and pumping other stats.

10% buffer
15% relentless
8% minor protection

The only reason sorcs only use 2 pieces of resistance rings is that is all that will fit. I’m sure if players could slot more they would, I know I would.

darkblue5 wrote: »

To be fair @Iskiab magsorcs in BGs have nice upfront pressure thanks to the new amplitude passive even while built fairly tanky which helps to secure the delayed burst. If you want to secure your delayed burst on a magblade this patch you have to spec much harder into damage and overburst with the full combo. If you build tanky you really won't have the pressure to have a TTK other than your opponent walking into hugely telegraphed delayed burst or them running dry on rss. Which is not a path to success in open world or in BGs.

Next patch???

True, magblade pve dps is reliant on blockade, twisting path and impale. All the abilities magblade pvp specs don’t use, is that the class’ fault or the player’s?

The answer is a bit of both: magblades feel like they don’t have the mitigation to get close enough to use these abilities, or the skill slot for impale with reflections, so don’t use their highest damaging abilities.

thankyourat · April 2019

Magblade would be fine if they fixed the healing on the class. The healing keeps getting nerfed because players feel that's it's too strong in PvE so now magblades can't effectively heal themselves in PvP. The snare immunity was much needed but magblades still need a way to heal themselves before they can be viable in open world. There is too many random damage spikes in open world cyrodiil too not be able to effectively heal yourself out of execute range. Both refreshing path and healthy offering could be changed to give viable self healing and magblade would be in a pretty good spot.

Insco851 · April 2019

Someone math me the difference from minor maim and 15% damage reduction. I don’t see how this is going to be op unless you are running the buggy ass shade for maim.

darkblue5 · April 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running?

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

Precisely, you said it. The sorc runs 2 defensive sets and 2 defensive traits, getting mitigation from sets is easy af in this game, no need to put it on a skill. Buffing healing is way more difficult via sets, yet it used to be one of the defining features of magicka nbs. If I had to chose between a variable damage mitigation and a flat minor vitality, I'd take the latter tbh.

Agreed but depending on how they do it it’ll be better. Think about it this way, 15% mitigation is equal to 9900 resistances. People run maybe 25k resistance and 10k pen in tanky light builds, so that’s only 15k resistances left over.

Depending on how it works, 5 stacks of merciless will be worth almost as much mitigation as your entire armour set - immune to penetration! You could even try 7 light or 6 light 1 heavy with buffer of the swift and minor protection for 33% always up immune to penetration resistances! Ignoring resistances altogether and pumping other stats.

10% buffer
15% relentless
8% minor protection

The only reason sorcs only use 2 pieces of resistance rings is that is all that will fit. I’m sure if players could slot more they would, I know I would.

darkblue5 wrote: »

To be fair @Iskiab magsorcs in BGs have nice upfront pressure thanks to the new amplitude passive even while built fairly tanky which helps to secure the delayed burst. If you want to secure your delayed burst on a magblade this patch you have to spec much harder into damage and overburst with the full combo. If you build tanky you really won't have the pressure to have a TTK other than your opponent walking into hugely telegraphed delayed burst or them running dry on rss. Which is not a path to success in open world or in BGs.

Next patch???

True, magblade pve dps is reliant on blockade, twisting path and impale. All the abilities magblade pvp specs don’t use, is that the class’ fault or the player’s?

The answer is a bit of both: magblades feel like they don’t have the mitigation to get close enough to use these abilities, or the skill slot for impale with reflections, so don’t use their highest damaging abilities.

Yes, it'd be so nice for my opponents to kindly stand in my AOEs and never dodge or block...
I did accidentally not morph Twisted Path back to refreshing for the heal recently and was vaguely impressed. Though not impressed enough to keep myself alive while missing healing.

PVE bosses just have much bigger health bars and you don't overkill as much with Impale. Perhaps the problem with magblade damage balance between PVE and PVP is Impale. So much of the spec's DPS budget is in that skill which is bad for anything other than kill stealing in PvP.

A lot of the time a magblade is most vulnerable is when we have to go melee to get a SH->Fear->AW combo off when we were ranged/shade kiting damage before. Happens to be when we would have 4-5 stack funnily enough. Yet it will be dangerous to go for it and miss which is precisely in theme for the skill and class. I think it will play very well.

kaithuzar · April 2019

Keep in mind this is just my opinion...

Choices for “fixing” magblade:
1) increase healing
- they won’t do this because they don’t want people face rolling dungeons w/3 man nightblade groups

2) IF nightblade class identity is centered around cloak & speed
- they won’t buff speed because people are moving so fast they don’t take damage #gamebreaking
- The only “real” option is to “buff cloak”, which would likely be too overpowered & create more forum whining than what currently exist; example would be adding the purge mechanic back
- They “could” in theory fix shade, but that’s apparently too hard/has limitations based on either their engine or existing code

3) normalize/increase damage mitigation closer to what other classes have
- this is what they’ve tried to do, let’s see if it pans out. Either we’ll remove grim focus, or not.

Juhasow · April 2019

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

Nono, I meant that direct passive mitigation is more of a dk, templar and warden feature. As said, nb doesn't need direct passive mitigation from class skills, it would break the class with all the elusiveness we have. Moreover, there are so many sets that do that already.

Isn't shadow barrier passive a "direct passive mitigation" ? And yes I know it's major buff which You can get through other sources but still on nb it's given as a passive.

Nerftheforums · April 2019

Juhasow wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Agree with a lot of your views, disagree with your conclusions. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense to me:

Don’t buff damage: give us 8% merciless back

Our issue is survivability: don’t give us mitigation; change a restoration staff ability and give us back minor vitality

I haven’t actually seen the patch notes, but I’m starting to think the reason so many people have problems with these changes are:

1. They’re different and I don’t want to change my playstyle
2. People have no clue about game mechanics

If you think mitigation is only a DK, Templar, or Warden stat there’s no other way to say it: YOU ARE BAD.

Man, I’m a NB and some of the whining is getting to me, imagine how other classes must feel? To me merciless now looks OP and don’t think it’ll make it to live, it’s TOO powerful and you guys aren’t happy?

Nono, I meant that direct passive mitigation is more of a dk, templar and warden feature. As said, nb doesn't need direct passive mitigation from class skills, it would break the class with all the elusiveness we have. Moreover, there are so many sets that do that already.

Isn't shadow barrier passive a "direct passive mitigation" ? And yes I know it's major buff which You can get through other sources but still on nb it's given as a passive.

Yes, but it has counters such as pen and bleeds. The 15% damage mitigation will act more like major and minor protection, making it weaker than resistances in terms of effectiveness, but on the other hand it'll be stronger since it has no counters.

Iskiab · April 2019

darkblue5 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running?

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

Precisely, you said it. The sorc runs 2 defensive sets and 2 defensive traits, getting mitigation from sets is easy af in this game, no need to put it on a skill. Buffing healing is way more difficult via sets, yet it used to be one of the defining features of magicka nbs. If I had to chose between a variable damage mitigation and a flat minor vitality, I'd take the latter tbh.

Agreed but depending on how they do it it’ll be better. Think about it this way, 15% mitigation is equal to 9900 resistances. People run maybe 25k resistance and 10k pen in tanky light builds, so that’s only 15k resistances left over.

Depending on how it works, 5 stacks of merciless will be worth almost as much mitigation as your entire armour set - immune to penetration! You could even try 7 light or 6 light 1 heavy with buffer of the swift and minor protection for 33% always up immune to penetration resistances! Ignoring resistances altogether and pumping other stats.

10% buffer
15% relentless
8% minor protection

The only reason sorcs only use 2 pieces of resistance rings is that is all that will fit. I’m sure if players could slot more they would, I know I would.

darkblue5 wrote: »

To be fair @Iskiab magsorcs in BGs have nice upfront pressure thanks to the new amplitude passive even while built fairly tanky which helps to secure the delayed burst. If you want to secure your delayed burst on a magblade this patch you have to spec much harder into damage and overburst with the full combo. If you build tanky you really won't have the pressure to have a TTK other than your opponent walking into hugely telegraphed delayed burst or them running dry on rss. Which is not a path to success in open world or in BGs.

Next patch???

True, magblade pve dps is reliant on blockade, twisting path and impale. All the abilities magblade pvp specs don’t use, is that the class’ fault or the player’s?

The answer is a bit of both: magblades feel like they don’t have the mitigation to get close enough to use these abilities, or the skill slot for impale with reflections, so don’t use their highest damaging abilities.

Yes, it'd be so nice for my opponents to kindly stand in my AOEs and never dodge or block...
I did accidentally not morph Twisted Path back to refreshing for the heal recently and was vaguely impressed. Though not impressed enough to keep myself alive while missing healing.

PVE bosses just have much bigger health bars and you don't overkill as much with Impale. Perhaps the problem with magblade damage balance between PVE and PVP is Impale. So much of the spec's DPS budget is in that skill which is bad for anything other than kill stealing in PvP.

A lot of the time a magblade is most vulnerable is when we have to go melee to get a SH->Fear->AW combo off when we were ranged/shade kiting damage before. Happens to be when we would have 4-5 stack funnily enough. Yet it will be dangerous to go for it and miss which is precisely in theme for the skill and class. I think it will play very well.

Yea, I think the difference is high movement in pvp and impale for sure.

With impale it’s sub-25% and health values jump around a lot. People can jump from in and out that execute range between impale fires.

The other issue is twisting/refreshing path is a small area. With the high movement in pvp twisting is too small to be effective without combining it with Ice blockade or permafrost... something to them people in it.

Impale will become a ton better because of reflection changes. When I see a DK at low health I don’t even use it, guaranteed they’ll be spamming wings. Post patch it’ll hit hard enough that even with half the damage cut from projectiles a DK will go down.

darkblue5 · April 2019

Iskiab wrote: »

darkblue5 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Nerftheforums wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

All I’m saying is mitigation is probably the most important pvp stat in the game, class doesn’t matter.

Think of it this way: ST dps has pretty much been standardized across classes. Put a typical sorc against a magblade and who wins? The sorc usually. Why? The NB and sorc have similar damage potential (with an edge to NB) proven with pve parses. So why is the NB retreating from the sorc?

The answer is mitigation. The sorc is running armour master, Chudan, 2x protective trait jewellery. What’s the magblade running?

Self healing even if tripled doesn’t help someone if they’re too squishy. They’re vulnerable to being bursted and become unhealable - I see it all the time in BGs.

Precisely, you said it. The sorc runs 2 defensive sets and 2 defensive traits, getting mitigation from sets is easy af in this game, no need to put it on a skill. Buffing healing is way more difficult via sets, yet it used to be one of the defining features of magicka nbs. If I had to chose between a variable damage mitigation and a flat minor vitality, I'd take the latter tbh.

Agreed but depending on how they do it it’ll be better. Think about it this way, 15% mitigation is equal to 9900 resistances. People run maybe 25k resistance and 10k pen in tanky light builds, so that’s only 15k resistances left over.

Depending on how it works, 5 stacks of merciless will be worth almost as much mitigation as your entire armour set - immune to penetration! You could even try 7 light or 6 light 1 heavy with buffer of the swift and minor protection for 33% always up immune to penetration resistances! Ignoring resistances altogether and pumping other stats.

10% buffer
15% relentless
8% minor protection

The only reason sorcs only use 2 pieces of resistance rings is that is all that will fit. I’m sure if players could slot more they would, I know I would.

darkblue5 wrote: »

To be fair @Iskiab magsorcs in BGs have nice upfront pressure thanks to the new amplitude passive even while built fairly tanky which helps to secure the delayed burst. If you want to secure your delayed burst on a magblade this patch you have to spec much harder into damage and overburst with the full combo. If you build tanky you really won't have the pressure to have a TTK other than your opponent walking into hugely telegraphed delayed burst or them running dry on rss. Which is not a path to success in open world or in BGs.

Next patch???

True, magblade pve dps is reliant on blockade, twisting path and impale. All the abilities magblade pvp specs don’t use, is that the class’ fault or the player’s?

The answer is a bit of both: magblades feel like they don’t have the mitigation to get close enough to use these abilities, or the skill slot for impale with reflections, so don’t use their highest damaging abilities.

Yes, it'd be so nice for my opponents to kindly stand in my AOEs and never dodge or block...
I did accidentally not morph Twisted Path back to refreshing for the heal recently and was vaguely impressed. Though not impressed enough to keep myself alive while missing healing.

PVE bosses just have much bigger health bars and you don't overkill as much with Impale. Perhaps the problem with magblade damage balance between PVE and PVP is Impale. So much of the spec's DPS budget is in that skill which is bad for anything other than kill stealing in PvP.

A lot of the time a magblade is most vulnerable is when we have to go melee to get a SH->Fear->AW combo off when we were ranged/shade kiting damage before. Happens to be when we would have 4-5 stack funnily enough. Yet it will be dangerous to go for it and miss which is precisely in theme for the skill and class. I think it will play very well.

Yea, I think the difference is high movement in pvp and impale for sure.

With impale it’s sub-25% and health values jump around a lot. People can jump from in and out that execute range between impale fires.

The other issue is twisting/refreshing path is a small area. With the high movement in pvp twisting is too small to be effective without combining it with Ice blockade or permafrost... something to them people in it.

Impale will become a ton better because of reflection changes. When I see a DK at low health I don’t even use it, guaranteed they’ll be spamming wings. Post patch it’ll hit hard enough that even with half the damage cut from projectiles a DK will go down.

Getting through DK's super high wings mitigation will be a reason to run it so long as DKs run new wings. Which I certainly wouldn't bet against.

burglar · April 2019

Edit: Just read patch notes for 5.0.1 and 5.0.2. The changes to debilitate and double take make sense considering the change to lotus fan. Get around with lotus fan like the old dayz, and keep cripple on your back bar. On top of that, the change to grim focus is relieving as it opens the doors for our back bar... correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe grim focus should outperform healing ward in damage mitigation, and the burst heal from the damage proc should function similar to the heal you would expect from healing ward's 300% proc. The balance is there too, because the condition for receiving the heal is not passive like healing ward - very risky and rogue-like, which to me justifies the retained high burst damage grim focus has always had.

For sustain, if we combine siphoning attacks with debilitate, we should be good with those alone, opening options for our back bar. Which means more potential builds for magblade, especially melee magblades.

Regarding the changes being less rogue-like, maybe they can change the wording of the tool tip for grim focus to state that "when active, with each light attack, you become more nimble 'evading' 3% of the damage directed at you, stacking up to 5 times". Either way the end result will be the same, and much more rogue-like than spamming shields imo.

Also, it's true that they've removed some movement bonuses. But, by doing so they're increasing the value of anything that helps you get around, like shadow image; concealed weapon (and therefore cloak); the wood elf dodge roll passives; as well as any snares the nightblade applies to the enemy - slowing down an enemy is just about as good as speeding yourself up.

These changes are creating so much potential for a magicka focused NB, whether they be melee, or ranged.