Are you kidding me? Shadow Image nerfs after being broken for a year and COST NERF prior patch

susmitds · September 2019

Shadow Image (morph): The teleport for this morph is now 22 meters, down from 28, since this morph is meant to operate on our gap closer or creator standard. This also prevents confusion in areas where the tooltip range would increase for the teleport, but fail to actually increase.

Decreased the damage per hit of this ability and the Shadow Image morph by approximately 42% per hit.

Are you serious right now?

I can get behind the cost nerf but the range nerf for kiting play is BS. It is already a significant strain on magicka for the most part if you cast it every 20 secs. After the nerf, it will hardly be worth the opportunity cost of placing it, given the additional work needed to relocate to a suitable location to keep it up.

You want to kill skillful play and promote sniping, zerging and other BS? Cause this is how you do it. Especially when a skill requires actual brainwork to use, rather than mindlessly spamming. What happened to "rule breaker" and "kiss curses", I wonder?

susmitds · September 2019

@ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Yiko · September 2019

Totally agree with the OP.

Shade has been on and off broken for years. We finally got one patch where it has worked (alongside a 50% cost increase, from 2700 to 4050), and the next patch, it's receiving almost a quarter of its range removed? I can understand the loss in damage on it given all of the DoT nerfs, but why is the range being touched? It's one of the few cerebral skills left to use in the game. Cutting down on the part of the skill that actually takes some strategy, planning, and consideration is unwarranted, but it's unfortunately par for the course, it seems. If this change goes through, I expect the cost increase to be reverted, at the very least.

When was it decided that Shade was meant to operate on the gap closer/creator standard? You can't gap close through LoS or straight up a tower (Z-axis). This ability is outside of the bounds of the gap closer/creator standard, and this change is straight contrived. Once ZOS FINALLY fixes Undo, are they going to limit the travel distance to 22m? Shade doesn't even create or close distance ON INITIAL CAST. The player has to move and then recast for that to happen. ZOS is forcing an ability into a category for the sake of having it categorized. In no way do I think this ability is being changed with respect to a natural gameplay or balance perspective - it's simply to satisfy an arbitrary desire for categorization.

nsmurfer · September 2019

THis is a very bad change, if I have ever seen one. It is the single skill in the game with a real learning curve and with range nerf, it feels so much less rewarding considering the cost. I had to watch multiple gameplay videos and play with it for hours and hours to even get a proper feel for it, let alone learn to use it successfully. Now why even bother, especially given the cost?

Quoting myself

nsmurfer wrote: »

zos, please reconsider your nerf to Shadow Image. As someone who has complained a lot about NBs in general being OP in the past(check my post history), I will acknowledge that they are now a husk of their former self. NBs are the worst class in Bgs and small scale and have no unique utility to provide others.

After I finally started playing NBs since a year(magsorc main btw), I considered Shadow image a useless skill as I could not effectively use it after being used to the easy teleport of Streak. Then I finally decided to watch good NBs to learn to use Shadow image. Nothing beats the thrill of the finally pulling off a good escape with it after hundreds of tries. Ever since then I have used it tons of times but still am far mastering it and can't use it properly.

It is the only skill in the game that rewards proper brainwork and planning, you can't spam it like gap closers or streak. THe extra range does not make it Op as it is a double cast and you are working with a fairly short timer so you can't go far beyond the scope of the shade anyways. Please just make it an exception to Alliance war range passive(like Cloak duration is an exception to the Shadow duration passive).

Edit: I did test in PTS, the range is way too low to justify the cost and time needed to properly set it up.

HowlKimchi · September 2019

I support this thread

React · September 2019

Big ole' kick in the balls huh? The skill was legitmately broken for a year, fixed for a patch, broken for a further 9 months, then fixed again this previous patch (although not fully, still bugs out) while getting a cost increase. Then they decide "Yeah now that it actually somewhat works it's far too strong, lets nerf that down a bit".

Poor MNB mains man. They have legit had maybe two good patches in the past 2 years.

Insco851 · September 2019

28m was bad enough... 22 will feel almost pointless. For a class that has to stay as mobile as possible to not get insta gibbed, that’s a massive nerf

Mayrael · September 2019

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler
This change is unjustified nerf that will be a nail in the magblade coffin. Magblades are in desperate need of buffs not nerfs. Do you read your forums? Do you play your game? How many magblades you can find in high MMR battlegrounds? How many magblades you can find in Cyrodiil when compared to other specs? How successful they are? In all seriousness, magblades are one of the weakest if not the weakest spec in PvP, please don't nerf shade range.

Insco851 · September 2019

Mayrael wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler
This change is unjustified nerf that will be a nail in the magblade coffin. Magblades are in desperate need of buffs not nerfs. Do you read your forums? Do you play your game? How many magblades you can find in high MMR battlegrounds? How many magblades you can find in Cyrodiil when compared to other specs? How successful they are? In all seriousness, magblades are one of the weakest if not the weakest spec in PvP, please don't nerf shade range.

GAP CLOSER OR CREATOR STANDARD!

Woooooo!

IamDestiny · September 2019

What Zos does not get and its bothering me so much is THAT NOBODY SLOTS SHADE FOR THE DOT.
Its a SUPPORT SKILL not a DOT SKILL.

The dot is just an extra. I rather have a low cost shade that does nothing but standing there.
Remove the maim i dont care. Give me a low cost shade that supports skillful play rather than something thats almost impossible to sustain in no cp.

Insco851 · September 2019

“We’ve fixed the tool tip”

BY NERFING THE SKILL RANGE TO 22!

Zevrro · September 2019

Nerfing the damage just shows how stupid trying to standardise abilities is. They don't care about how the individual ability is used they just care that its a dot so it deserves a 42% nerf. Same with path, it was already a terrible ability that nobody slotted but in the name of standardisation it got a 33% nerf.

ccfeeling · September 2019

Dev, shame on u.

evoniee · September 2019

it is still working nonetheless.
the only reason to use this is for dueling and apply strong debuff minor maim that other class cant get it easily.
use race against time or shuffle is better in open.

HowlKimchi · September 2019

evoniee wrote: »

it is still working nonetheless.
the only reason to use this is for dueling and apply strong debuff minor maim that other class cant get it easily.
use race against time or shuffle is better in open.

using shade with race against time and cloak is great tho

hobicabobjob · October 2019

Not a lot of magblades left to make a big fuss about changes like this, but the range nerf is very, very harsh.

If the stated rationale of the tooltip range being incorrect is real, then lowering the range as your fix is shockingly lazy.

HowlKimchi · October 2019

They mentioned shadow image in the known issues section of 5.2.2.

I wish they do something with this skill to make it better. But if they don't, they should just revert the range nerf.

Lucky28 · October 2019

susmitds wrote: »

Shadow Image (morph): The teleport for this morph is now 22 meters, down from 28, since this morph is meant to operate on our gap closer or creator standard. This also prevents confusion in areas where the tooltip range would increase for the teleport, but fail to actually increase.

Decreased the damage per hit of this ability and the Shadow Image morph by approximately 42% per hit.

Are you serious right now?

I can get behind the cost nerf but the range nerf for kiting play is BS. It is already a significant strain on magicka for the most part if you cast it every 20 secs. After the nerf, it will hardly be worth the opportunity cost of placing it, given the additional work needed to relocate to a suitable location to keep it up.

You want to kill skillful play and promote sniping, zerging and other BS? Cause this is how you do it. Especially when a skill requires actual brainwork to use, rather than mindlessly spamming. What happened to "rule breaker" and "kiss curses", I wonder?

they're not putting any thought into individual skills. they're just blanket nerfing *** because everything has to be the same now.....

Legendry · October 2019

Well, barely any nightblades left in this game but still. I don't see the point in nerfing the range, maybe an identity thing my small mind can't understand?

Zevrro · October 2019

Legendry wrote: »

Well, barely any nightblades left in this game but still. I don't see the point in nerfing the range, maybe an identity thing my small mind can't understand?

I think its because they're trying to fix how it works with the reach passive from alliance war but can't figure out how to do it properly.

Mayrael · October 2019

Legendry wrote: »

Well, barely any nightblades left in this game but still. I don't see the point in nerfing the range, maybe an identity thing my small mind can't understand?

On the twitch stream they said it's a QoL IMPROVEMENT because players got confused by the tooltip so instead of fixing tooltip they have decided to reduce the range of the skill. We should be thankful I guess.

Can we get some of those QoL improvements for templars to? :P

Edziu · October 2019

ahh, how good I stopped playing this game lately while still seeing not just incompetence of devs, but even intensified incompetence!

this game thanks to ZOS and ZOS itself is biggest shame of all MMO games

even EA isnt that bad in compare to ZOS as thay atleast know what they are doing and and what and how they want
Im very surprised how that many people after years of experience with zos still have hope and trust to them and this game, I guess it is probably higher lvl of stupidness if not stockholm syndrome :d

Zelos · October 2019

You guys do realize it will be broken again after they, "fix it" so this wont even matter. They will reduce the range, wont matter because it wont work:) who cares the new range of the teleport, I wont even teleport period.

Stibbons · October 2019

I will fly by your shadow with magic sorc teleport

Vlad9425 · October 2019

If people were as vocal about all the other Nerfs to NB as they are about Shadow image maybe we'd still have a great class...