The problem with Magblade

Victor_Blade · January 2020

Every class has some kind of burst heal that they can pair along with various other forms of healing for defense or to get out of execute range. All but magblade.

Templars have bol along with a gap closer that stuns, no cast time ultimate and the best purge in the game. Sorc has pets or even no pet sorc has crit surge, dark deal, best mobility with streak, best shield in the game and boundless along with one of the best single target burst combination in the game

Magblade on the other hand has no healing aside from 200 health every 2 seconds from swallow soul(lmao), siphoning attacks is decent sustain ig but bad compared to dark deal, cloak can be op but it's way better on a stamblade and it has one of the most predictable and easily avoidable burst combo.

Now that's out of the way I want to ask why can magblade not have a burst heal? It feels lacking in PvP cos people run dark cloak on magblade which still isn't good enough to help us out in a fight and you already lose 70% of your mobility when you use dark cloak cos no invisibility.

The class is really lacking in every department say sustain, healing and damage. Soul havest had a cast time which already is wonky and everyone can just dodge roll to avoid merciless bow proc. The class needs to be fixed in Al departments to make the class a tad more reliable. A burst heal is necessary and you're free to take out the mitigation buff from merciless cos every sane magblade main shoots the bow as soon as it's up cos that's their only way of putting pressure on the enemy.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

LADYKiLLER · January 2020

The problem with magblade is that they dared to be a nightblade after 2019. [snip]

Edit for bait.

MartiniDaniels · January 2020

Well, everyone received at least small buffs. Nightblades receives nothing, typical.
Class is not under-performing by opinion of majority of PVP community. No needs to buff NB, no sir.
/s

SRASinister · January 2020

To be honest, I wouldn't need a burst heal if the HOTs from my abilities are buffed quite a bit while Dark Cloak duration is maybe doubled or something. I still want the cast time removed though from my soul harvest/ tether though.

Kalante · January 2020

I haven't fought a single magblade this entire month, or to put it simply I haven't seen a single magblade other than your typical bomber and thats SAD.

Iskiab · January 2020

Maybe the Zo$ complaints have some merit after all.

People usually pick rogues as their first class. We might be going into a DLC stamclass meta. Good way to keep the treadmill going.

MartiniDaniels · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

Maybe the Zo$ complaints have some merit after all.

People usually pick rogues as their first class. We might be going into a DLC stamclass meta. Good way to keep the treadmill going.

But what benefits to stamblade after this patch? none. We don't know how new blastbones will work, but given nerf of dizzy, looks like 100% stamplar's patch.

Rianai · January 2020

I do not want to see a generic burst heal for magblade. The class healing was always based arround HoTs and it used to be fine, so instead of more homogenisation i'd prefer to see nerfs reverted and/or buffs that bring back old strength. No need to change the class into something completely different than what it used to be. If you want to play a class with a burst heal, there are others to choose from.

Aside from this, lack of survivability isn't even the main issue with magblade.

thankyourat · January 2020

With magblade I don’t think the main problem is a burst heal. I think the main problem is magblade damage is pitiful so you can’t kill anyone. Magblade has multiple ways to escape and reset fights the problem is you don’t have the burst damage to make that maneuverability mean anything. I think ZoS is intending to make magblade a Mobile but squishy class so they have invisibility and a teleport in place of a burst heal. That game design is fine in my opinion. ZoS should take steps into making magblade competitive while playing that way.

A damage boost will let magblade keep that edgy play style that they intended while making it a viable class for players to use. Currently magblade is more an annoyance to fight against than they are a legitimate threat to kill you. I’m not actually against a burst heal though I just think that ZoS should try to fix magblade using what they intended to be it’s class identity before they rework the class completely.

Iskiab · January 2020

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Maybe the Zo$ complaints have some merit after all.

People usually pick rogues as their first class. We might be going into a DLC stamclass meta. Good way to keep the treadmill going.

But what benefits to stamblade after this patch? none. We don't know how new blastbones will work, but given nerf of dizzy, looks like 100% stamplar's patch.

Nerf? I read dizzy getting a buff. No damage reduction and will now stun with off balance.

exeeter702 · January 2020

Rianai wrote: »

I do not want to see a generic burst heal for magblade. The class healing was always based arround HoTs and it used to be fine, so instead of more homogenisation i'd prefer to see nerfs reverted and/or buffs that bring back old strength. No need to change the class into something completely different than what it used to be. If you want to play a class with a burst heal, there are others to choose from.

As I said before, magblade was always about attrition. It excelled in scenarios where you could keep the target on their toes and heal yourself back when refreshing path did damage, swallow soul had minor vit and a cheap cost and argonians had respectable passives. Morrowind magblade was in a good spot. They dont need a self burst heal as long as zos allows them to build into properly self hot defense that actually has some *** potency.

MartiniDaniels · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Maybe the Zo$ complaints have some merit after all.

People usually pick rogues as their first class. We might be going into a DLC stamclass meta. Good way to keep the treadmill going.

But what benefits to stamblade after this patch? none. We don't know how new blastbones will work, but given nerf of dizzy, looks like 100% stamplar's patch.

Nerf? I read dizzy getting a buff. No damage reduction and will now stun with off balance.

It is one time stun, after that cooldown for 15 seconds or such...

Iskiab · January 2020

Rianai wrote: »

I do not want to see a generic burst heal for magblade. The class healing was always based arround HoTs and it used to be fine, so instead of more homogenisation i'd prefer to see nerfs reverted and/or buffs that bring back old strength. No need to change the class into something completely different than what it used to be. If you want to play a class with a burst heal, there are others to choose from.

Aside from this, lack of survivability isn't even the main issue with magblade.

Sounds good in theory, but in practice I don’t think this will work.

If you read between the lines in the patch notes damage will be going way up. Detect pots will also allow people to target you with single target abilities.

Hots could work but they’d need to be a lot stronger then they are now. The last time magblade was competitive it was because of the high mitigation combined with hots. Mitigation went down and hots didn’t go up, so it went as expected.

Damage would have to be crazy buffed to be competitive, which will never happen because it’ll break pve.

Someone who knows what they’re doing can kill people in 2 GCDs by damage stacking. I don’t think hots are going to cut it.

Rianai · January 2020

Magblade used to shine in a fast paced high dmg, low ttk meta. Without burst heal. It can work.

SRASinister · January 2020

Iskiab wrote: »

Rianai wrote: »

I do not want to see a generic burst heal for magblade. The class healing was always based arround HoTs and it used to be fine, so instead of more homogenisation i'd prefer to see nerfs reverted and/or buffs that bring back old strength. No need to change the class into something completely different than what it used to be. If you want to play a class with a burst heal, there are others to choose from.

Aside from this, lack of survivability isn't even the main issue with magblade.

Sounds good in theory, but in practice I don’t think this will work.

If you read between the lines in the patch notes damage will be going way up. Detect pots will also allow people to target you with single target abilities.

Hots could work but they’d need to be a lot stronger then they are now. The last time magblade was competitive it was because of the high mitigation combined with hots. Mitigation went down and hots didn’t go up, so it went as expected.

Damage would have to be crazy buffed to be competitive, which will never happen because it’ll break pve.

Someone who knows what they’re doing can kill people in 2 GCDs by damage stacking. I don’t think boys are going to cut it.

Unless they change the Battle Spirit some way without touching the PVE. HOTs outside the Resto ability definitely need a buff I think while maybe decreasing the cost of swallow soul or reverting it back. I also want something to change with dark cloak by either allowing it to purge like before, increasing the uptime, or changing the passive that grants major ward and resolve to be light armor instead of heavy.

Iskiab · January 2020

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Maybe the Zo$ complaints have some merit after all.

People usually pick rogues as their first class. We might be going into a DLC stamclass meta. Good way to keep the treadmill going.

But what benefits to stamblade after this patch? none. We don't know how new blastbones will work, but given nerf of dizzy, looks like 100% stamplar's patch.

Nerf? I read dizzy getting a buff. No damage reduction and will now stun with off balance.

It is one time stun, after that cooldown for 15 seconds or such...

That’s not how it works.

Off balance lasts for 7 seconds or so, then 14 or so seconds of cooldown of off balance. That will mean you can spam dizzy for 7 seconds straight and each one will be a stun because cc immunity usually breaks.

You’ll either catch the dizzy stun immediately and break free (can sometimes work really fast if you catch it on the same GCD) or you’ll be toast. If you dizzy and someone else uses a stun on that same GCD, death because break free will break.

They haven’t done anything to address break free being buggy.

merevie · January 2020

Mageblades do well if they pick targets by class/get to know enemy player's builds.
Mitigation is smarter than healing.
Mitigation is easy.

YandereGirlfriend · January 2020

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Admittedly, I only recently made a Dunmer magBlade, but when I took her to non-CP Cyrodiil the single-target damage was comparable to or even better than on my magSorc.

Troll tanks were still a chore (...what else is new?) but for everyone else my newbie magBlade Lotus Fan -> Incap -> Spectral Bow -> Execute (if even needed) combo was more than enough to bump people off. Of course, quality of opponent does vary, which could well contribute to some of that success.

I haven't played on her enough to really master the ways of cloak spam, but using Swallow Soul as a spammable kept me topped up when fighting at range and when things got too rowdy I could usually get away with Mist and LoSing until it was safe to cloak again.

IDK, to me Nightblades are meant to avoid and evade damage rather than tanking or healing through it, such is the way of the rogue after all.

And0ssus · January 2020

Problem with nightblade is they are build for high Burst Dmg but they cuted dmg Buffs and replaced it with Tank Buffs and added a Casttime to the Ult, which was Part of the Burstcombo. That in Combination with the already existing travel time of the spectral bow, makes the Combo way to slow.
The heals they are added, are way to unreliable.
Dark Cloak is a hot that scales with Health ...not the best requirements for a DD.
Spectral Bow you normally use for Dmg, not for the Heals.
Swallow Soul gets double punished in PvP. In PvE its a really good heal for a Magicka DPS, but in PvP where damage and Healing recevied is cut by 50% and the dmg is cut down from mitigations .... well, there are better Things ^^
Siphoning attacks are a pretty nice Off heal, but nothing to crazy.

One way would be, they redesign offering, so the ability can heal yourself or they so something about swallow Soul, so the ability doesn't get Double punished in PvP. They could Swallow Soul Ignore the 50% less Healing recevied or they build Something in the passives. Like "If you heal yourself or an ally with a Siphoning ability, you heal yourself for xxx too".

An other Option could be, they Buff the DMG abilitys. Get rid of casttimes, give them acces to minor berserk Back again, make Teleport Strike less clunky to use or other Buffs/debuffs build into usefull dmg abilitys.

Hamboot · January 2020

just buff soul tether ulti,by increasing the dmg based on how many players are hit by x %, and lotus fan aoe radius increased by a couple of meters so that it hit more targets. Wouldn't mind sap essence to either have it's cost decreased or it's dmg increased based on how many players are hit.

Hamboot · January 2020

I just want stronger magblade aoes make them hit harder.

Casterial · January 2020

You have a very powerful bow and teleport, you're suppose to be a glass cannon more or so.

Iskiab · January 2020

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Admittedly, I only recently made a Dunmer magBlade, but when I took her to non-CP Cyrodiil the single-target damage was comparable to or even better than on my magSorc.

Troll tanks were still a chore (...what else is new?) but for everyone else my newbie magBlade Lotus Fan -> Incap -> Spectral Bow -> Execute (if even needed) combo was more than enough to bump people off. Of course, quality of opponent does vary, which could well contribute to some of that success.

I haven't played on her enough to really master the ways of cloak spam, but using Swallow Soul as a spammable kept me topped up when fighting at range and when things got too rowdy I could usually get away with Mist and LoSing until it was safe to cloak again.

IDK, to me Nightblades are meant to avoid and evade damage rather than tanking or healing through it, such is the way of the rogue after all.

Issue is against experienced players.

You’ll never pull that combo off. You’re describing 4 GCDs of uninterrupted damage without a stun. Typically all it takes is a dodge roll when you hear the Incap sound and your burst is done. Add in pets everywhere, people playing tight and evading, and a weak targeting system all make single target abilities easy to evade. Dodge rolling a spammable like dizzy or sweeps is a losing game because of the cost, but an ultimate is definitely worth it.

Plus, stam who knows what they’re doing can burst you with a dizzy - onslaught - executioner combo at will.

The couple of times I died to a magblade as a magtemplar it’s because I got cocky. I didn’t want to waste an ultimate against a magblade.

fred4 · January 2020

thankyourat wrote: »

With magblade I don’t think the main problem is a burst heal. I think the main problem is magblade damage is pitiful so you can’t kill anyone. Magblade has multiple ways to escape and reset fights the problem is you don’t have the burst damage to make that maneuverability mean anything. I think ZoS is intending to make magblade a Mobile but squishy class so they have invisibility and a teleport in place of a burst heal. That game design is fine in my opinion. ZoS should take steps into making magblade competitive while playing that way.

A damage boost will let magblade keep that edgy play style that they intended while making it a viable class for players to use. Currently magblade is more an annoyance to fight against than they are a legitimate threat to kill you. I’m not actually against a burst heal though I just think that ZoS should try to fix magblade using what they intended to be it’s class identity before they rework the class completely.

I think I agree with this. Magblade playstyle used to be healing through damage and that is arguably still somewhat viable, albeit I, for one, feel the need to use Troll King to make that work.

Magblade once had FAR better sustain through damage when Siphoning Attacks restored, what was it, 1K mag and stam per hit? This was deemed egregious, but you have to consider two things:

Using cloak as a defense is expensive. I find I need far more sustain on magblade than on magplar, for example, and magplar gets 480 regen without doing anything. That's not just on paper, I play one and it sustains like a dream. Magblade has to stay on attack to benefit from Siphoning Attacks.

I also find that I need high stam sustain more on magblade than on magplar and much more than on sorc. The latter can substitute streaks for dodge rolls and fight fully from range. Magblade needs to go in close for burst, e.g. Soul Harvest.

I may be on the extreme end of the spectrum in my views on stam regen, but for illustration I use 1.3K on magblade (dual-regen drinks, a big sacrifice), whereas I get away with around 1K on magplar (Amber Plasm + Bloodspawn) and just Bloodspawn on sorc.

In other words, I feel there was something to the original design of magblade, specifically Siphoning Attacks, that was fundamentally correct. You could say "give magblade more damage" or you could give magblade the old Siphoning Attacks back, which indirectly boosts damage.

I am a perma-clocking magblade. I build that way, but very squishy and low health, because that works best for me. However if Siphoning Attacks was restoring 1K mag and stam again, that might make someone like me change playstyle. Siphoning Attacks was fundamentally good design as it gave nightblades a reason not to stay in cloak, but on the attack, and not to build completely for sustain, but rely on Siphoning Attacks.

Other than that, nightblade was nerfed by means of various bug fixes over the years. I don't know whether this was entirely conscious, but it's had big effects. I'm talking about things like Funnel Health double dipping in crit and Shadowy Disguise making all heal ticks crit.

Could nightblades use a burst heal or better healing options in general? Many people seem to think so. I think I agree with thankyourat, though. Once you're engaged in combat on a squishy nightblade, you want to stay on attack and you need to make the most of your burst window after Soul Harvest. I think the original design with Siphoning Attacks for sustain and Shadowy boosting heal ticks by making them all crit had a lot going for it.

It's still possible to play this way to a degree. I think the OP misrepresents healing a little. Siphoning Attacks is a good heal, critting for 1.5K in CP, if I recall correctly, which is followed by an Infused Restore Health enchant in my build and Swallow Soul coming in last place. The latter is important to activate Troll King, though, as it keeps ticking. The problem really is that you are forced to adopt solutions like that. For me and my playstyle it's very hard to get away from Caluurion and, to a lesser extent, Troll King. I also wouldn't live without that Infused Restore Health enchant.

kadar · January 2020

Agreed about the cast time Ults. This more than any other change has put mNB in the attic.

Soul Harvest has a cast time and Crescent Sweep does not?

Consider the difference between power level and number of people playing mNB vs. magplar.

kaithuzar · January 2020

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Well, everyone received at least small buffs. Nightblades receives nothing, typical.
Class is not under-performing by opinion of majority of PVP community. No needs to buff NB, no sir.
/s

I respect you, but I disagree.
Spend a month playing a magblade in BG's & tell me you don't have to work harder than any other class in there.

kaithuzar · January 2020

Casterial wrote: »

You have a very powerful bow and teleport, you're suppose to be a glass cannon more or so.

Glass cannon implies you can kill something this meta, something that's very hard to do in recent bg's vs groups of 4 stamdens or any combination of stamden, templar, stamdk.

kaithuzar · January 2020

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Admittedly, I only recently made a Dunmer magBlade, but when I took her to non-CP Cyrodiil the single-target damage was comparable to or even better than on my magSorc.

Troll tanks were still a chore (...what else is new?) but for everyone else my newbie magBlade Lotus Fan -> Incap -> Spectral Bow -> Execute (if even needed) combo was more than enough to bump people off. Of course, quality of opponent does vary, which could well contribute to some of that success.

I haven't played on her enough to really master the ways of cloak spam, but using Swallow Soul as a spammable kept me topped up when fighting at range and when things got too rowdy I could usually get away with Mist and LoSing until it was safe to cloak again.

IDK, to me Nightblades are meant to avoid and evade damage rather than tanking or healing through it, such is the way of the rogue after all.

The ONLY "quality of opponent" we should be comparing against are "skilled players" most likely from high mmr bg's.
Comparing against anyone else doesn't really matter because anyone can kill a potato (new/bad player).

Against these "better/high end players" magblade is & has been in the dumps for the last ~3 months. Incap/soul harvest cast time makes that combo almost completely unusable against skilled opponents. I've spammed impale on targets below 20% health & watched them heal to full while spamming it. The probability of your bow getting blocked, dodged or dodge rolled, at least appears as though it's 60% miss chance for you, unless you've perfectly timed your prior CC with ZERO lag or ran them out of stam to break free.
If you're running Lotus Fan then welcome to jumping right in the middle of 4 players spamming AOE dmg abilities & getting melted before you can finish your combo; do you not play BG's?

OWLTHEMAD · January 2020

kadar wrote: »

Agreed about the cast time Ults. This more than any other change has put mNB in the attic.

Soul Harvest has a cast time and Crescent Sweep does not?

Consider the difference between power level and number of people playing mNB vs. magplar.

Honestly, on my magblade. Once i got used to it the templar sweeps was never really an issue its so heavily telegraphed it becomes easy to avoid. For me its been that da** bubble eclipse skill thing (i dont know its name) its as much of a nuisance as dk wings used to be. Not as much of a shut down but darn close.

Any how, I definitely dont think giving us a self burst heal is the way to go, wed be unkillable with cloak. I do think buffing hots and sustain would help tremendously. In my build I stack max mag for sustain and damage and pair with a weapon and disease glyph and just fight in bursts, bailing when ever i drop below 25% mag. Agree with another poster who argued that it would be better to buff our damage or make changes so that our burst combos would line up properly again. Buffing fear so that nightblades dont have the inferior form of what was originally a key part of our class identity would be nice (im still MAD that they gave fear to literally everyone and made it superior to the class version)

Ideally i think the class just needs tweaks and usability improvements. Put sneak movement speed bonus in a passive, not on a spammeable. Rework concealed weapon to actually be useful as more than a passive slot on your bar, buff fear just a little bit, even if indirectly, Alter dark cloak so it scales a bit better for damage dealers that dont like to cloak (though seriously, why wouldnt you use cloak?) Make either the bow proc, or soul harvest/incap a little bit snappier to line up those combos, maybe put expedition back on cripple and give path something else? I dont know path needs its own identity reworked give it blind status or something, its supposed to be a path of 'darkness' anyway. And rework bolstering/veil of blades seriously, it doesnt really fit into any niche at the moment except for doing damage while protecting squishy's in pve. Which is honestly not that helpful in endgame anything with competent players.

Anyway im rambling ill stop there

ccfeeling · January 2020

When you ask to buff the class , ZOS nerf it .

Take a look the NB nerf list since 2 years ago , how surprising .

OWLTHEMAD · January 2020

I will say i do like the dynami of malevolent offering being really powerful but costing health, being that we are a blood mage theme i would love to see more of that, kind of goes hand in hand with the high risk, high reward playstyle that night blades are known for. Like maybe a burst damage ability or really strong dot that costs health. Or if we did get a burst heal do it like old version of offering when it first appeared that lets us survive right now, but puts a dot on us compromising our survivability after the fact.

Power at a price.