MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Ranged can just poke from a safe distance all the while doing more damage 9 times out of 10, and this applies to all classes.

Bro have you even played this game.

Edit: double post

I'm just gonna leave this right here... LOL

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/566239/video-evidence-stealth-detection-is-completely-broken#latest

TLDR:
Cloaked Enemy is Visible and Targetable:




Wood Elf Detection Radius is ~20m vs Crouched Enemies:




RIP cloak (again LOL) and even RIP sneak

Here's my feedback.

Veiled Strike
Update 1.5.2 changed the ability to no longer stun and off-balance enemies who dodged the attack. This is fine and good to correct the bugged interaction; However, Update 1.6.5 changed the skill to no longer stun enemies or cause them to go off-balanced, if they dodged the initial attack. Update 1.5.2 failed to address the bugged interaction with dodge roll. Still inside Update 1.6.5 the Developers went forward to change Surprise Attack to apply Major Fracture. Update 2.7.5 reshuffled the Shadow tree’s ordering with the goal to make sure early skills in the tree are simpler and more damage focused. Well, they still haven’t fixed the bugged interaction with dodge roll. Updated 3.3.5 fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs would still stun and set enemies off-balance conditions. Then Update 5.0.5 went forward to remove Major Fracture from Surprise Attack by replacing it with applying a 5% reduction to the enemy’s physical resistance. The developers thought this was good to reduce redundancy within its own kit – isn’t this an ironic attempt to push Nightblades into a using multiple GCD. Surprise Attack still was effective, then Update 6.0.5 changed the ability, and its morphs, to synergize with the Exploiter (1.0 CP passive) by updating the ability to stun and set the enemy off-balanced. As though that was their only option to improve the skill, and now we’re into 2.0 CP without this synergy.

The Developers thought the best decision was to change the skill to synergize with CP passives than provide the class with a clear, identifiable damage skill. Concealed Weapon needs an unblock able stun and Surprise Attack should regress and regain its Major Fracture debuff.

Shadow Cloak
This skill had a unique property to remove ticking damage from DoTs and channeled attacks while they’re invisible and an evasion against gap closers when the ability was activated before the gap closer contacts. These three defensive qualities of the ability shaped the classes’ unique identity. This was the classes’ damage shield mechanic variance to avoid damage, whereas, Sorcerers had the option to shield stack with good efficiency and other classes had strong damage mitigating heals. I believe it’s important to review the history of the ability, and why it’s the iconic talent of the class for those who never had the pleasure to play in its proper form. The elusive power it brought to the class on the battlefield had no other unparalleled from other classes. It was the signature of the class.

THEN nerfs to the skill began. Update 1.4.3 created exceptions where it would no longer remove ticking damage abilities and all proc sets. This updated introduced other bugged behavior of the skill, such as the infamous ticking damage removing cloaked players from invisibility from all sources. Update 1.6.5 made an interesting change where the damage over time component from Poison Arrow would remove the player from Shadow Cloak and fixed an issue where Spear Shards and Volley would not hit an enemy using Shadow Cloak, and the ability was not removing damage over time effects while in combat. These two updates destroyed the defensive properties of Shadow Cloak. Update 2.0.1 fixed the ability when it wasn’t removing channeled damaged abilities, such as Radiant Destruction. Update 2.1.4 was meant to fix an issue where direct attacks were still hitting the player while the ability was active, which may be a direct connection to the mechanics of channeled abilities. Yet. The Developers decided in Update 2.1.4 the ability will no longer cancel channeled attacks i.e., gap closers and channeled attacks. Update 2.3.5 changed the ability to no longer suppress ticking damage over time effects that have already applied to the caster while the ability is active versus removing damage over time effects due to the baseline changes of Shadow Cloak. When Update 2.3.5 released, the Developers have removed any, and all, the defensive properties the ability offered for the class; hence, destroying the classes’ unique identity. It was never a cheap costing ability then and now.

All Nightblades should take a long hard look at the harm the Developers did to our one iconic defensive skill, and protest to have our defensive properties get reverted back that removes all ticking damage from abilities and procs, removes channeled attacks and procs, and restore the evasion against gap closers while the ability is active. The history of changes to Shadow Cloak revolves around fixing the original defensive benefits of the ability centered around ticking damage abilities and procs.

When Summerset was released, Update 4.0.5, the Developers introduced the DD, Healer, Tank trilogy concept for all classes. Dark Cloak was then converted to a 32% max health heal over time and gained Minor Protection. This would be a very strong tanking skill, IF they reverted and carried through all the defensive properties of Shadow Cloak into its morphs: Simply remove Minor Protection then and buff the heal effect to 50% max health over 3 seconds.

The Developers made a poor decision to exclusively identify Shadow Cloak solely, as a castable invisibility when the ability was our defensive skill more than a castable utility skill. The ability synergized its defensive nature with Shadow Barrier. We need this back. MagBlade need this back!

Path of Darkness
The morphs are very good. Path of Darkness needs a buff. Right now, it’s a skill sink prerequisite for the morphed abilities. Buff the Major Expedition to last 12 seconds upon exiting the area effect. Let it have a strong group utility to boost’s a groups movement speed.

Teleport Strike
Teleport Strike was our class kit gap closer. Update 2.4.5 reduced the damage of the ability and its morphs. Update 3.3.5 also decreased the damage dealt by the ability and its morphs. The Developers had the comment Gap Closers have no cooldown and can hit for extreme amounts of damage. Now, 2021, Update 29 proc sets have no conditions and can hit for extreme amounts of damage. Still, Update 5.1.5 decreased Teleport Strike morph Lotus Fan ticking damage down by 22% to standardize all ticking damage abilities. However, Developers did recognize these changes hurt the magBlades, and decided to add Minor Vulnerability to Lotus Fan.

Personally, Teleport Strike and its morphs should not be block-able and replace all Snare components with an Immobilize target component; AND increase the direct damage of the ability and its morphs. I feel Minor Invulnerability would be better suited for Marked Target.

Marked Target
This is a straight up debuff ability against enemies. Update 1.6.5 improved the ability by granting Major Breach and Major Fracture but restricted the ability to single-target only. Reaper’s Mark now grants the Major Berserk buff after the target is killed. Instead of Major Berserk, Reaper’s Mark should have debuff the target with Minor Vulnerability for the duration of the morph and still considered 3 negative effects to make it difficult to remove the debuff. Update 4.2.5 later changed Piercing Mark by decreasing the anti-stealth/invisibility penalty down to 5 seconds, which was unfortunate because it gave incentive to include Nightblades in group PVP to counter the previously mentioned defensive properties of Shadow Cloak and to assist group play by countering Nightblades reset//escape ability: A Nightblades worse enemy is their class parable. Piercing Mark anti-stealth/invisibility component should last for the entire duration of the mark, and make the skill threatful against other Nightblades.

Blur
This is an unusual assassination ability. Update 1.6.5 added Major Evasion, Mirage gained Minor Resolve and Double Take granted Major Expedition for 4 seconds. The ability still lacked many traits to be unique and identifiable. Update 5.0.5 renamed Double Take into Phantasmal Escape and removed Major Expedition, instead it granted immunity to Snares and Immobilizes for up to 4 seconds; but Race Against Time was a better version that also granted Minor Force.

This is one of those rarely slotted skills with a lot of potential benefits. Blur and its morphs should be changed to grants Dodge Roll damage avoidance against DD when activating the ability, still costing magicka. Phantasmal Escape should teleport/move the character forward 5-8 meters, in addition, to granting up to 4 seconds immunity to Snares and Immobilizes. The Mirage morph should replace the Minor Resolve with a basic Purge up to 3 negative effects.

These suggested changes would better provide Nightblades with an improved defensive class skill and provide a unique pattern play for its class identity.

Strife (Siphoning Soul and Funnel Health)
Considering, the original class kit relied on Strife and its morphs, as the class kit’s primary healing source when Update 1.6.5 granted Minor Vitality buff while slotted and later nerfed in Update 2.3.5 reduced the heal over time effect of Funnel Health. Developers commented once, they were comparing our healing skill to Lava Whip and Force Shock. They increased the cost of the ability and its morphs but Update 4.2.5 again reduced the damage (e.g., healing potential) with an increase to the Heal component. The Developers wanted to retain its current function to deal high damage while also providing a healing utility to the player; BUT the impact of their changes was far reaching and further hurt the magBlade subclass. Funnel Health pre-Update 4.2.5 had a decent group heal utility that was a class kit alternative to Regeneration, or synergize with Regeneration and its morphs.

The skill needs to be a direct heal that heals for 50% of the damage done, and return Minor Vitality to the Siphoning Soul morph and increase the damage of Funnel Health, so its functionality works better with the synergy use of Restoration staves, or be an independent group utility heal. It should not be a spammable damage skill for magBlades under its current version, the heal over time is wasteful to the cost of magicka per cast. Improve the skill by changing the heal into a direct heal, so you get the full benefits of the skill since you lose on the heal over time component being a spammable.

Siphoning Strikes
Nightblades were designed to be excellent resource managers. Siphoning Strikes synergies with our other abilities, such as Shadow Cloak and offers another thread of direct heals on light/heavy attacks. The ability did not release without its problems. Such as, the resource desync bug that was fixed in Update 1.2.3 but the original version had a reduced damage penalty while active. That was then, and this is now. The developers changed Siphoning Strikes with a significant reduction to the resources restored by the ability but added the Health restore to improve the class’s survivability in Update 3.0.5 with more healing. Healing has been a constant issue for the class kit. Update 4.2.5 added charged heavy attacks restore twice the amount of health. Whereas, Update 6.0.5 fixed an issue where the ability and its morphs could proc off Mend Wounds and its morph but commented soul-stealing power is now reserved for damaging attacks – Please revisit this statement with Strife and its morphs.

Siphoning Strikes soul-stealing power would gain traction to include Major Brutality to Leeching Strikes and Major Sorcery to Siphoning Attacks morphs. Each rank should increase the duration of Siphoning Strikes to 20 seconds but increased by 1 second up to 30 second per rank invested in the skill and its morphs. The Siphoning Strikes ability is an excellent skill choice to grant both Major Brutality and Sorcery, and remove these components from Drain Power and its morphs.

Drain Power
The core ability for the classic “Sap Tank.” This may have been reverted when they removed the target cap from area effect abilities; but they capped the skill to 6 targets in Update 1.6.6. Update 2.4.5 changed the Physical Damage to Disease Damage that offered a chance for Minor Defile from the diseased status effect. Later, Update 6.0.4 introduced the status effect for magic damage. Update 5.2.5 changed the static heal potential from Sap Essence without hitting targets by 20% per cast until it reached a -100% that stopped healing. This did remove one area effect heal for group play that was exclusive for Nightblades, whether or not the heal was fantastic or competitive with the Restoration Staff area effect heals.

An increase in the damage and heal component per cast would help revitalize the classic “Sap Tank,” to compensate for the removed Major Brutality and Sorcery component (e.g., moving those buffs to Siphoning Strikes) and by removing the -20% per cast would offer Nightblades a class kit alternative for group healing. Maybe integrate the Proximity Detonation damage increase per target hit, as the direction to improve the ability’s damage and heal component.

Malevolent Offering (formerly known as Agony)
Revert Strife and its morphs to its former glory and Nightblades won’t have a need for the Health costing heal someone ability. This ability before Update 16 where it was renamed and redesigned was a second available class kit DOT. The DOT was paired up well with Crippling Strike. The Developers could have used the former version of the skill for some variant synergies between DOTs when paired with Crippling Strikes where each morph offered different buffs, debuff, or status effect component then changing one of our damage skills.

An unexplored area of potential that may offer magBlades options than proc sets to generate reliable burst and pressure on enemies with class kit skills. We can argue over different semantics but many of the Nightblade skills have lost their identity due to bugs, forced fixes because the Developers couldn't fix the bug, and unnecessary changes into the forced trilogy roles. As the games progresses into a heavy-leaning proc set environment, many of our skills need to regain their defensive properties, such as Shadow Cloak and introduce better defensive components, such as Blur, to elevate both subclasses of the class; more particularly, restoring the defensive skills magBlades very much need in PVP content.

SHOW wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

the target is in sneak, can we have a gif of them being revealed from that distance while under shadowy disguise?.

The first gif is the distance at which cloak (shadowy disguise) is revealed and targetable.

The second gif is the distance at which sneak (crouch) is revealed and targetable.

A few years ago, when everyone was on the warpath against Shadow Cloak, I went out with a buddy in Cyro to experiment on range detection. We've noticed players have a 180 degree "vision" arc when using detection methods e.g. someone activating a detection potion doesn't auto-reveal the target until the camera pans in their direction. LOS used to block targeting would also interfered with detection when camera panning to detect hidden targets.

Inner Light detection was very short ranged where the target could literally be on top of you before you could react, whereas Radiant Magellight had a better spot distance but the target would still be fairly close to launch their ambush. The mage guild skills are primary a counter at the moment the Nightblade activates Shadow Cloak, and it's so-so situational to spot a hidden target otherwise. This is also the same situation when using the Fighter's Guild skill.

It was also noticeable between the difference of armor weights then e.g. heavy versus medium, light versus medium since the reduction of detection seem to reduce the detection abilities' range. I would test this further but there was a noticeable difference during the "hide and seek" testing in Cyro. I should also note this was for EVERYMAN can Stealth test on how close can a hidden target get before their spotted, not to be confused between the Shadow Cloak invisibility and Crouching.

[Edited] I would gamble the developers are struggling with a collision effect e.g. detection radius and detection reductions when a player has an active stealth effect. Hence, reasons where LOS block targeting would interfere with detections - not always but sometimes. They couldn't fix the earlier problems with removing ticking damage and channeled abilities, so they [snip] the whole skill up by removing the best defensive attributes and turned our defense skill into something it's not meant to be, an exclusive castable invisibility spam skill. Don't take my word for it, you can read the Update notes and see they failed and were forced to break our unique skill.

[edited for profanity bypass]

I think that Cloak is in a pretty good spot now.*

*really highlights how other class defensive abilities could use a little love and attention.

echo2omega wrote: »

I think that Cloak is in a pretty good spot now.*

*really highlights how other class defensive abilities could use a little love and attention.

It's not. When you played with the earlier release and watched our defensive skill continually be sent to the chopping block. You would not say this.

People whine about the cloak so much that ZOS destroyed its original function. Play where Cloak stopped ticking damage for the duration, or evade gap closers IF you were under invisible at the time of contact, or using Cloak to break channeled attacks. Whats sad, the skill was not OP since it costed more than casting a damage shield. The amount of potential damage mitigation was our equivalent damage shield; stamina users would not be able to maintain recasting and magblades had more functional use of the skill then than now, other than being a proc set trigger skill.

Sahidom wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Vlad9425 wrote: »

Can we talk about how Surprise attack got nerfed again please because it applies the new sundered effect now which seems like a buff however this new sundered effect triggers very often when you deal any type of physical damage therefore the buff that is attached to surprise attack is completely worthless since you would be getting this effect anyway from dealing physical damage.

Surprise Attack is a very good performance.
The damage of the Sundered status effect is small, but it still increases the damage of Surprise Attack by about 5%.
Minor Breach in the Sundered status effect is great in both PvP and PvE.
Now Surprise Attack is the strongest performance in Nightblade history.

They should give Minor Breach to both morphs and also increase Concealed Weapon to at least be on par with Eviscerate.

It's the Sundered status effect of Physical Damage, not Minor Breach.
They are similar and different.
Concealed Weapon is magic damage and already has a speed bonus to Sneaking and invisible.
Light Armor also significantly increases Spell Penetration, so Concealed Weapon don't need Minor Breach.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Why not have Cloak be on a cooldown when pulled out of cloak say 4 seconds? But when activated its permanent until you leave stealth or get detected. If this is a bad idea fair enough... just spit balling ideas. I mean maybe their could be some kind of utility attached to certain skills when attacking from stealth to give it more utility. Maybe Ambush could add a bleed when attacking from cloak or Death Stroke could deal extra damage to low health targets or something.

There should be no reason to pull someone out of Shadow Cloak. This completely breaks the purpose of Cloak. ZOS made the horrible mistake since they couldn't fix 1.xx coding then and turned the skill into a castable Invisibility skill. Trust me, and may original veteran players know this already, but this was our signature defensive skill. Remember when it had an offense (auto-critical next hit) and defensive (minor protection) versions then the skill still went through the chopping block; and Summerset basically went in a radical direction with Shadow Cloak.

The only method to pull someone out of Shadow Cloak should be detection methods. That requires the opponent to use more conscious thought and resources than overly relying on AOE damage to pull the NB out. Shadow Cloak was meant to defend the NB against ticking damage, ZOS broke that, and evade gap closures, ZOS broke that, and break Channeled Attacks, ZOS broke that. This is what newer players don't understand. They feel the skill is working right, it's not and ZOS hasn't made any attempt to correct the coding from patch 1.6.x to have our skill work properly; instead, they broke the core function of the skill, as our defensive skill vs. damage and our evasive mobility. No other skill in the class kit can compare to this signature skill. Anyone who says otherwise, hasn't experienced what this skill was meant to be.

How many ticking damage proc sets that are running around in meta? Unleashed, Syvarra's Scales, several Arena Weapons, Oblivion's Foe, and much much more. How could any magBlade survive these layered proc sets without the original design of the Shadow Cloak? StamBlades have more latitude with Heavy and Medium armor; but not so much for MagBlades.

Need change Drain Power's Major Brutality and Major Sorcery to Siphoning Strikes.
And Drain Power, Sap Essence, Power Extraction needs to be redesigned.

[My idea]
Change Drain Power's Major Brutality and Major Sorcery to Siphoning Strikes.
Change Minor Cowardice of Power Extraction to Drain Power.
Adds an effect to Power Extraction that "the more enemies hit, the more damage Power Extraction do".
(It's like the Titanic Cleave of the Master Weapon set for two-handed skill)

The summary is as follows.

Drain Power
AoE damage + Minor Cowardice

Power Extraction (Stamina Morph)
AoE damage + Minor Cowardice + "the more enemies hit, the more damage Power Extraction do"

Sap Essence (Magicka Morph)
AoE damage + Minor Cowardice + "Same heal effect as before"

Siphoning Strikes
Major Brutality and Major Sorcery + "Same effect as before"