fred4 wrote: »

ZOS use objective criteria to balance the game, thus they felt Crippling Grasp was overloaded. I call that bean counting, because it is not based on combat experience and does not take into account the relative value of different buffs. The developers do not appear to have an instinctive feel for how skills actually play. I agree that Crippling Grasp was destroyed as a result. Skills that look overloaded on paper are not necessarily overloaded in practice.

Yeah. The reasoning that abilities couldn't do so many things at once was unevenly applied and must have been abandoned at some point. I play two other classes, and both have some seriously stacked skills in their class kit. They're fun, but the contrast is annoying.

Well said @fred4

I share the sentiment, and knew when I heard wheeler (and Gilliam iirc) talking about this shift in ability design philosophy that magblade in particular will be hit hard if fundamental shifts in its skill lines werent made.

I realize the surface level value of having a uniform power budget applied to skills in a game with this many opitions and alternative analogous skills, both from a logistical standpoint for developer balance and from coding, but unless you have a very strong, and I mean VERY strong grasp of every possible build option and deep understanding of class performance in all aspects of content in the game, which at this point I'm not entirely sure zos has if I'm being honest, and for anyone who knows me, that is not something I say lightly in any mmo (developers are generally not as daft or inept as players often assume in alot of online games), then there will almost always be losers and winners on the balance spectrum. With the type of game zos has built, that discrepancy shows itself far more clearly with a fraction of scrutiny.

Magblade has found itself in that place and has been their for nearly 2 years now.

Metemsycosis wrote: »

As a long time magblade main I couldn't agree more. The gutting of speed rather than damage disparity between its stamina counterpart is what made me change to stamina. I have all the lethality on my magblade but I do not have the mobility to brawl and especially to fight outnumbered.

Yes being ushered into a resto can suck but I still feel like self healing isnt the most pressing issue for magblade. I used to be able to keep up with top tier mag sorcs and stam sorcs now fights with them are entirely optional for them.

I still think having "redundancy" here means higher uptime on expedition in a way that flows well with skill use

Could NOT agree more. The old Crippling Grasp was CRITICAL for the success of my light armor, melee build. Once the speed was nerfed, that build essentially died.

exeeter702 wrote: »

I realize the surface level value of having a uniform power budget applied to skills in a game with this many opitions and alternative analogous skills, both from a logistical standpoint for developer balance...

I kind of agree, but I want to play devil's advocate and I'll say: What logistical standpoint? The major / minor system takes care of most of that. All we're talking about is Major Expedition uptime. If ZOS were balancing magblade in a vacuum, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but there is precedent for how much power your give the class via higher Major Expedition uptime: A stamblade with a bow. That's basically every stamblade out there. You can actually think your way through this without playing the game. You only need to know that stamblades favor bows on the back bar, even if they are not snipers, and that speed is very important in PvP, particularly for nightblades. The Summerset patch should have driven home the latter to the developers. In this light retaining Major Expedition only on Path, the skill where it makes the least sense, is just rubbing it in that "we don't like magblades". No, I don't really think that. I don't think ZOS are aware of this. I am disappointed with Gilliam, though, assuming he wields any power within the combat design team. He used to play a nightblade, but I think he played a slightly off-meta brawler stamblade with, perhaps, a 1H+Shield back bar. I guess that's where this is coming from.

You could very well argue that speed is OP on a nightblade, because it is. I play a speed build. Using extreme speed is what makes melee magblade viable. You need speed for kiting too. Cloak starts to work better, simply due to the ground you cover, the speed with which you can create range and avoid detection. However, this only works well at the extreme end of the spectrum. You need to be faster than the majority of your opponents. You make so many sacrifices to get there and, in my case, to sustain cloak well, that speed is basically your main defense. You can't be tanky as well, which makes this a fairly unforgiving playstyle. That's the tradeoff, but this is something that Gilliam has possibly not actively experienced with his own builds. Is that why he assumes too much speed is OP? Well, then the game is unbalanced, though. This is one of the reasons stamblades are stronger. One of you said magblade needs speed more than the heal every other magblade is clamouring for? Either will do, to be honest. If I didn't need a resto, I'd seriously consider running a bow backbar on my magblade.

Metemsycosis wrote: »

i have front barred the bow in the past and used mark to cover the loss of penetration. It helps but again to me it's about the flow of skills.

A burst heal would be OP on a cloak blade imo

How? You mean like a stamblade? Are you saying stamblades are currently OP? Because I think they are decent, but not OP.

Stamblades may not have the cloak sustain magblades have (although they can come close with Darloc Brae), but they have a burst heal in Rally. Furthermore Rally does not uncloak them, whereas Rapid Regen and Healing Ward both do. This is one of the reasons I find myself so dependent on cloak sustain on my magblade in the first place. I can't heal without uncloaking and thus I am forced to run, in cloak, until I can LoS and heal. It's a double whammy of not being able to stay in the fight (boring) and having to build for a lot of sustain, gimping my damage. A stamblade can only cloak once or twice, but that's all they need, because they can Rally up while doing that and not be exposed at that crucial point where they are still vulnerable.

TheEndBringer wrote: »

Yeah it would be nice to have a built-in skill for it BUT... Running race against time also gives minor force for the extra crit damage. I run it on my stam and magblades. It's a must have.

I actually run it on my stamblade too at the moment. The point of having the speed on more skills is not just about using those skills as an alternative to RAT, but in addition. Many a stamblade can just dodge roll on the bow bar and get Major Expedition without using a GCD. This is about uptime and opportunity cost. Looked at it another way, EVERY single skill on the bow bar of a bow-wielding stamblade is overloaded with Major Expedition, because you can get it in the same GCD as that skill. I find this is one of the noticeable differences between playing a magblade and a stamblade. It is perhaps not a terribly big deal, but it is one of those things that add up to make stamblade play better. I was never a heavy Crippling Grasp user, but the people here who say deleting Major Expedition ruined that skill for them - I believe them.

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Rally isnt a burst heal on demand

OK, your post is worth answering in detail and I hope this isn't going to turn into a total standoff. I assume you are referring to the time it takes for the Rally heal to ramp up by saying it is not "on demand". This is true and I agree the skill is not quite the same as a true on demand heal. You've suggested Siphoning Strikes as a version of Rally yourself. I agree with that, so we seem to agree on something here. I would not give Siphoning Strikes the full power of a Rally heal. I was thinking of it more like Living Trellis. No burst heal on first cast, but a smaller-than-full-Rally heal on expiry or recast. Is that something we might agree on?

and it requires a 2h.

To which my reply is: 2H is meta for every melee stamina class. Now Rally might well be the only reason it is on stamblade (who does not need Dizzying nor the ult, execute or gap closer). It still seems to me that stamblade is not giving anything up, though. A bow main might give up a 1H+S back bar, but in general I don't think 2H is a sacrifice.

Stamblades aren't OP

I never said they were. I said they were decent and better than magblade, the latter of which has frequently ended up near the bottom of everyone's tier list for quite some time.

unless they use shade without fail

I don't actually use shade on my magblade. I think you can play either class with or without the shade. That skill is very much needed on either class, if you don't build for very high speed. However I find that cloak works well on it's own when (and only when) combined with very high speed and with at least 1K stamina sustain for dodge rolls. I am not one who can live with merely a high-ish stamina pool (Sugar Skulls) on magblade. This is why I give stamblades the edge. They have that stamina sustain by default and don't need to make any sacrifices for it. Yes, magblades have Concealed, but stamblades have that zero GCD access to Major Expedition from the bow passive (and better sprint speed) which is so important to get you into cloak in the first place. RAT is nice and all, but it does take a GCD. This hampers magblades trying to create the distance needed for successful cloaking. Absent the shade, of course.

Mag blade can cloak forever and that cloak forever is next to invincibility.

You're invincible, if you never engage and give streaking / Lightning Form sorcs a wide berth. If you do engage, you IMO have the same problem as stamblade: How to extricate yourself from the fight again when you need to. I don't know exactly what scenarios you refer to where perma-cloak makes you invincible. I agree it is great for quality of life. Specifically you avoid being ganked and you avoid having to deal with NPCs. It can be much harder to shake aggro from Imperial City NPCs on a stamblade, for example.

A stamblade cannot do it.

They actually can, though you might not like the set. Try a Darloc Brae back bar. Most people wouldn't gimp their damage by wearing a set like that, I suppose, but building a magblade to truly perma-cloak requires a lot of sacrifice as well. Yes, it makes a difference. I do it and I love it. I have compromised on mag sustain in the past and what can happen is that you run out of mag while trying to cloak away and you will get killed.

Good players will hunt me down either way. It's only the less experienced players that have trouble pinning me down, even when they're trying to and they have superior numbers. Most good players simply try to burst nightblades while they're visible. Some use detection potions and/or have figured out a nightblade hunting playstyle. Those ones are absolutely brutal to fight, at least absent the shade. Some will drop everything and gap close (Toppling Charge, Leap, Streak) a nightblade the second it uncloaks. They come down like a ton of bricks. Sorcs will use detection potions in addition to Streak and Lightning Form. It is, then, completely one-sided and all about my survival. No way I could actually touch such players on my compromised perma-cloak build.

If you can shade, perma cloak, and insta heal your defenses are OP in OW.

As discussed, neither of us are looking for a true insta-heal. In fact, if Healing Ward or Rapid Regen simply didn't uncloak me, that may be all I truly want. If I was getting a class heal, I'd be looking for something on Siphoning Attacks, just like you said.

But mag blade is intended in a lot of ways to sustain thru damage. You get health and magicka back by attacking. (Maybe nowhere near enough, idk).

I feel this is kind of a myth at this point, it's been nerfed so much. Kena articulated this viewpoint a long, loooong time ago in a possibly famous video. He demonstrated how magblade could stay on attack, play heavy armor, letting it's health run down, but come out on top. What can I say about that?

It's not completely gone. I've duelled strong magblades who play like that, though they are really rare (in open world). I have also found myself in the situation where I would win against a magplar in a straight up damage exchange, Swallow Soul versus Puncturing Sweeps. This is rare, however, and shouldn't happen against a properly built, full CP magplar, because Sweeps does so much more damage than Swallow Soul. I also use an Infused return health enchant in addition to Siphoning Attacks in a desperate bid to make that playstyle work again, because it's all magblade really has going for it. It's not nothing and I much prefer playing a character with a bit of healing from damage than, say, a stamplar. At the same time it doesn't work well enough that you can stay on attack for more than a few seconds against a competent opponent. With Dark Cloak, maybe, but not on a perma-cloaking build. Other classes do it better, notably wardens and necros. Unfortunately that is as it should be. You have to be forced into damage avoidance. You can't be so tanky that you heal better than other classes that don't have Cloak (or Streak).

When Kena made that video, certain things were different. Siphoning Attacks did not heal you, but gave you an inordinate amount of sustain. It rewarded weaving more than now. It rewarded getting to Assassin's Will. It rewarded simply staying on attack. It especially gave you the stamina sustain, something like 1K per strike, that allowed you to throw in dodge rolls and not run the risk of dying to a CC. Nowadays I cloak away when too low on stam, because I know I will die otherwise.

Funnel Health was also seriously broken back then. The heals double-dipped in crit. The heals were initialised from the first attack at the beginning of a fight. Your first attack out of cloak would be a guaranteed crit. So what did you do? If you wanted to fight attrition-style, you made sure to start with Funnel Health (full damage and healed friends back then) as this would make sure all your Funnel Health heals would crit for the remainder of the fight. They could also, randomly, dip in crit for a second time. The real hammer was that, if you were in Imperial City, you would start the fight by attacking an NPC. Battle Spirit does not apply to those, thus you do much more damage to them and, in turn, you initialised much higher healing for the remainder of the fight. Add the Shadow mundus and you healed yourself and a friend for up to 8K Funnel Health healing ticks in Imperial City. Healing via attacking worked back then. This is why.

Lastly there was a real payoff getting to Assassin's Will. To the best of my recollection Soul Tether was an unblockable stun and we didn't have these ulti and Assassin's Will delays. Tether combos were the thing to use. Funnel Health didn't kill people, but allowed you to stay alive until you would one shot them with the combo. Still more of a duelling thing than open world, but arguably more viable back then. I see bombers reviving this playstyle lately, I believe simply because people die more easily this patch and they have the right skills on their bar anyway.

I agree it would be a shame to homogenize magblade to where it simply matches some other class. I'm not looking for a burst heal that exactly matches Rally. In fact, I'm actually quite happy with the performance of my Imperial City build in the current patch. It's possibly the best it's ever been and feels almost balanced (though certainly not OP), except I know it will be absolutely slaughtered next patch by the proc changes.

In the context of this thread, all I'm saying is: I can understand Crippling Grasp complaints. That skill has been languishing in my arsenal too.

fred4 wrote: »

Metemsycosis wrote: »

Rally isnt a burst heal on demand

OK, your post is worth answering in detail and I hope this isn't going to turn into a total standoff. I assume you are referring to the time it takes for the Rally heal to ramp up by saying it is not "on demand". This is true and I agree the skill is not quite the same as a true on demand heal. You've suggested Siphoning Strikes as a version of Rally yourself. I agree with that, so we seem to agree on something here. I would not give Siphoning Strikes the full power of a Rally heal. I was thinking of it more like Living Trellis. No burst heal on first cast, but a smaller-than-full-Rally heal on expiry or recast. Is that something we might agree on?

and it requires a 2h.

To which my reply is: 2H is meta for every melee stamina class. Now Rally might well be the only reason it is on stamblade (who does not need Dizzying nor the ult, execute or gap closer). It still seems to me that stamblade is not giving anything up, though. A bow main might give up a 1H+S back bar, but in general I don't think 2H is a sacrifice.

Stamblades aren't OP

I never said they were. I said they were decent and better than magblade, the latter of which has frequently ended up near the bottom of everyone's tier list for quite some time.

unless they use shade without fail

I don't actually use shade on my magblade. I think you can play either class with or without the shade. That skill is very much needed on either class, if you don't build for very high speed. However I find that cloak works well on it's own when (and only when) combined with very high speed and with at least 1K stamina sustain for dodge rolls. I am not one who can live with merely a high-ish stamina pool (Sugar Skulls) on magblade. This is why I give stamblades the edge. They have that stamina sustain by default and don't need to make any sacrifices for it. Yes, magblades have Concealed, but stamblades have that zero GCD access to Major Expedition from the bow passive (and better sprint speed) which is so important to get you into cloak in the first place. RAT is nice and all, but it does take a GCD. This hampers magblades trying to create the distance needed for successful cloaking. Absent the shade, of course.

Mag blade can cloak forever and that cloak forever is next to invincibility.

You're invincible, if you never engage and give streaking / Lightning Form sorcs a wide berth. If you do engage, you IMO have the same problem as stamblade: How to extricate yourself from the fight again when you need to. I don't know exactly what scenarios you refer to where perma-cloak makes you invincible. I agree it is great for quality of life. Specifically you avoid being ganked and you avoid having to deal with NPCs. It can be much harder to shake aggro from Imperial City NPCs on a stamblade, for example.

A stamblade cannot do it.

They actually can, though you might not like the set. Try a Darloc Brae back bar. Most people wouldn't gimp their damage by wearing a set like that, I suppose, but building a magblade to truly perma-cloak requires a lot of sacrifice as well. Yes, it makes a difference. I do it and I love it. I have compromised on mag sustain in the past and what can happen is that you run out of mag while trying to cloak away and you will get killed.

Good players will hunt me down either way. It's only the less experienced players that have trouble pinning me down, even when they're trying to and they have superior numbers. Most good players simply try to burst nightblades while they're visible. Some use detection potions and/or have figured out a nightblade hunting playstyle. Those ones are absolutely brutal to fight, at least absent the shade. Some will drop everything and gap close (Toppling Charge, Leap, Streak) a nightblade the second it uncloaks. They come down like a ton of bricks. Sorcs will use detection potions in addition to Streak and Lightning Form. It is, then, completely one-sided and all about my survival. No way I could actually touch such players on my compromised perma-cloak build.

If you can shade, perma cloak, and insta heal your defenses are OP in OW.

As discussed, neither of us are looking for a true insta-heal. In fact, if Healing Ward or Rapid Regen simply didn't uncloak me, that may be all I truly want. If I was getting a class heal, I'd be looking for something on Siphoning Attacks, just like you said.

But mag blade is intended in a lot of ways to sustain thru damage. You get health and magicka back by attacking. (Maybe nowhere near enough, idk).

I feel this is kind of a myth at this point, it's been nerfed so much. Kena articulated this viewpoint a long, loooong time ago in a possibly famous video. He demonstrated how magblade could stay on attack, play heavy armor, letting it's health run down, but come out on top. What can I say about that?

It's not completely gone. I've duelled strong magblades who play like that, though they are really rare (in open world). I have also found myself in the situation where I would win against a magplar in a straight up damage exchange, Swallow Soul versus Puncturing Sweeps. This is rare, however, and shouldn't happen against a properly built, full CP magplar, because Sweeps does so much more damage than Swallow Soul. I also use an Infused return health enchant in addition to Siphoning Attacks in a desperate bid to make that playstyle work again, because it's all magblade really has going for it. It's not nothing and I much prefer playing a character with a bit of healing from damage than, say, a stamplar. At the same time it doesn't work well enough that you can stay on attack for more than a few seconds against a competent opponent. With Dark Cloak, maybe, but not on a perma-cloaking build. Other classes do it better, notably wardens and necros. Unfortunately that is as it should be. You have to be forced into damage avoidance. You can't be so tanky that you heal better than other classes that don't have Cloak (or Streak).

When Kena made that video, certain things were different. Siphoning Attacks did not heal you, but gave you an inordinate amount of sustain. It rewarded weaving more than now. It rewarded getting to Assassin's Will. It rewarded simply staying on attack. It especially gave you the stamina sustain, something like 1K per strike, that allowed you to throw in dodge rolls and not run the risk of dying to a CC. Nowadays I cloak away when too low on stam, because I know I will die otherwise.

Funnel Health was also seriously broken back then. The heals double-dipped in crit. The heals were initialised from the first attack at the beginning of a fight. Your first attack out of cloak would be a guaranteed crit. So what did you do? If you wanted to fight attrition-style, you made sure to start with Funnel Health (full damage and healed friends back then) as this would make sure all your Funnel Health heals would crit for the remainder of the fight. They could also, randomly, dip in crit for a second time. The real hammer was that, if you were in Imperial City, you would start the fight by attacking an NPC. Battle Spirit does not apply to those, thus you do much more damage to them and, in turn, you initialised much higher healing for the remainder of the fight. Add the Shadow mundus and you healed yourself and a friend for up to 8K Funnel Health healing ticks in Imperial City. Healing via attacking worked back then. This is why.

Lastly there was a real payoff getting to Assassin's Will. To the best of my recollection Soul Tether was an unblockable stun and we didn't have these ulti and Assassin's Will delays. Tether combos were the thing to use. Funnel Health didn't kill people, but allowed you to stay alive until you would one shot them with the combo. Still more of a duelling thing than open world, but arguably more viable back then. I see bombers reviving this playstyle lately, I believe simply because people die more easily this patch and they have the right skills on their bar anyway.

I agree it would be a shame to homogenize magblade to where it simply matches some other class. I'm not looking for a burst heal that exactly matches Rally. In fact, I'm actually quite happy with the performance of my Imperial City build in the current patch. It's possibly the best it's ever been and feels almost balanced (though certainly not OP), except I know it will be absolutely slaughtered next patch by the proc changes.

In the context of this thread, all I'm saying is: I can understand Crippling Grasp complaints. That skill has been languishing in my arsenal too.

We seem to agree on quite a bit here actually and as always I appreciate your detailed replies, fred. You'd be surprised how closely our build theories are. For example I really believe speed is vital to mag blade survival and I know it waters down some damage but is almost always a worthy trade off.

With reference to darloc brae you would also need vampirism and it is actually hard to re enter stealth when engaging combat unless you're a sniper. Not so with cloak and speed. Near invincible. Yeah it's sorcs and dragon leap lol that get me. I also agree about healing ward and regen would indeed help a ton.

Also have you tried a semi hybrid melee magblade using rally and or vigor? 2h front bar. The heal actually kinda works.

Where procs are allowed ive been running EV with amber plasm and two infused damage glyphs with balorgh and all I feel I lack is speed.