Deathlord92 wrote: »

Very happy about grim focus I dare even say I’m actually looking forward to this patch 😊

ExistingRug61 wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I don’t see how you can think magblades aren’t underpowered.

For class skills a lot are less powerful than guild skill abilities. I’d say the only good magblade abilities are cloak, lotus fan, buff abilities like phantasmal escape and impale..: though impale is mainly good in pve. Most builds I come up with are how to get class passives and use the least amount of magblade abilities possible.

I may have adapted and been playing magblade for too long that when I think of it getting the suggested buffs it seems to be too good. I'm definitely not saying im 100% right though and im just voicing out my opinions. I might have been desensitized to the clunkiness. xD

I will certainly say though, that to perform well with magblades is soooo much harder that magsorcs and magplars. It feels like a vary high skillcap toon that feels a bit like feast or famine. I have those bad days as well, and when I do I switch to magplar and magsorc.

Maybe that's where the complaints come from because offense and defense-wise I really think they're okay.

I see 5 NB issues:

1. The damage bonus from stealth or invisibility sucks for the class. Complaints about the class always revolve around gank potential, and the passive’s the reason. Whenever a NB ability’s buffed to parity with other classes it’s nerfed because it can be used to gank. Then even now there are complaints because you can’t nerf snipe, dizzy swing and onslaught without effecting other classes so NBs stay being complained about with garbage class abilities.

2. Mitigation is good, but it isn’t backed up with self healing. This again favours a stealth playstyle. If you only need the mitigation to escape onslaught and defile attacks then the mitigation is okay, if you want to brawl forget about it.

3. The class has no burst abilities. Merciless can hit hard and do a lot of damage but you can’t stack it on top of another ability for burst. This is key for pvp, compared to a sorc or stamwarden who can time 3+ abilities to hit at once merciless damage is low. That’s why reducing damage and being off the GCD is a good idea imo, combined with the stealth passive nerf NBs would be comparable to other classes.

4. NB damage attacks suck, they’re undertuned across the board. It’s like they’ve been balanced expecting the stealth passive to be in effect. The most effective magblade damage specs I’ve found uses onslaught and prox det or force pulse and elemental weapon. For healing it’s using support abilities with NB buffs. Even Stamblades abuse the heck out of snipe with the cloak buff or cloak - dizzy - executioner. Since the class is missing any form of damage ability stacking using weapon or guild abilities is better. Just get the class passives and use the least amount of class abilities possible.

5. The class is missing any form of off-stat recovery. Sure there’s the health, mag and stam recovery passive but it isn’t enough for pvp. You can get a steady stream of stamina back playing a MagDK or MagWarden, for a NB with a 4.5k cost to break free you’re going to run out of stamina.

You can still do okay as a magblade but that isn’t the point really. It’s more about why play a magblade when you can play another class and just be better. You have to REALLY like the theme or cloak to stick with it.

You know, when I first read your point #1 I was like "but that's part of NB identity" but on further consideration and reading the post I changed my mind and agree that the stealth passive may be hampering the class, especially non-stealth builds.

I wonder if this passive could be reworked in such a way that it also helps address your point #3 with NB lack of delayed burst abilities. I'm fine with NB not having such an ability as that is part of other classes identities, but instead NB needs some other way to set up to deal a lot of burst in one or two GCD, and perhaps this passive could be changed to provide that. The key thing would be that it needs to be a significant bonus for a short time but require a trigger or activation, ie: you use 1GCD to set up so that next 2GCD of abilities get buffed to do closer to 3GCD worth of damage. Could be something like a very short penetration buff or something based on certain ability usage (but not cloak/stealth).

Regarding point #2 I may be in the minority but I think that cloak-NBs probably shouldn't have strong burst heal. This can be part of the compromise of having the ability to cloak, as instead of simply burst healing up you have to use cloak to let your HoTs bring you back up. I quite like idea of the morph choice between shadowy disguise and dark cloak for this reason. But this means that Dark Cloak needs to be a good enough ability on its own to enable non-cloak brawler/healer/group builds, however I don't have experience on this playstyle so don't know if it actually provides that and would leave it to others to comment.

Totally agree on point #5, especially for magNB. The class toolkit pushes magNB to be at least a partially close range build, with Lotus, Concealed, Bow heal etc, which I find requires more frequent break free and roll dodge than a more ranged style build so I find the lack of off-stat regen to be problematic.

Hopefully these areas can be looked at in a future update that looks at the NB class passives/identity.