U35 - Surprise attack is blatantly overpowered.

olsborg · July 2022

It definitely does not crit on every hit with SA even if mobs are stunned and their butt is staring right at you. Something is wierd I dunno what.

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Fhritz wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You guys do realize that Caluurions is nuked for NBs on the pts, right? That's why our skill damage was increased. They didn't put it in the notes.

There are other proc sets. Flame blossom comes to mind as a good alternative. Caluurions was overloaded anyways.

Shadow of the red mountain is basically soft Caluurion (~1k difference with 2 sec shorter cooldown). Way of fire also have a great dps (4k/2 sec), but is more aimed for pressure rather than gank

Red mountain is a big giant red flare coming out of a volcano with a big travel time. The only proc set with a worse chance to hit is coldharbour's favorite.

MetallicMonk wrote: »

NB hits hard enough without caluurions or other procs, especially if you build into crit damage. Seems like a lot of uinformed people who specifically only gank lmao.

NB spammable was already literally one of the hardest hitting if not the hardest hitting in the game if you had a good build, absurd change from a PvP perspective.

It's not the hardest hitting as is. Can we really still using "one of the best of" when there are only 6 classes? Being in the 66th percentile isn't the same as being number one. It's #3 behind Puncturing and whip on live.

When the meta is high healing, high mitigation classes, which won't change, then the high burst, low survivability class needs to have the damage to compete. Just blowing up your crit damage with a set like wrath with a damage set like stygian isn't, in the current live game, enough output to attack a magDK or templar of equal skill level UNLESS you're running oakensoul.

People have been screaming about Caluurions forever. Now they're nerfing it so we gotta complain about SA getting a flank crit when it already crits more often than not anyway and you can just counter it by moving correctly.

Seems like you didn't even read what I wrote, caluurions wasn't the only way nb had damage, surprise attack hits as hard as some classes burst abilities and it's their spammable. Do you really think because they nerfed a set that wasn't even needed to begin with on nb to do damage, that they needed an ability that did not need a buff to be brought up even more? That's just disingenuous.

It stuns, has an incredibly high tooltip, sunders, sets off balance, and now will crit constantly. Not to mention the fact eso just can not read positional requirements well at all, the server and positional desync does not allow it, it's why you get stunned by surprise attack whether it's behind you or not and it's why this will now crit randomly whether they're flanking or not.

One, you're already stunning from stealth. Most NB CC's are from stealth, not the cc attached to SA or Incap. If you're hit from a cloaked NB, that's the CC that hits you. The SA and incap CC's are useful when chasing people down out of cloak.

Two, its damage is less than whip and jabs.

Three, it will not crit constantly. It will only crit from flank. So if your NB leads with a heavy attack, you'll get the one SA crit from flank but most people will still go incap/soul after the heavy because it's a lot more damage. So now you have 1.5 seconds after the heavy to move to counter flank.

If you lead with SA rather than a heavy, you're going to crit anyway.

I'd understand this reaction if they were putting a 10% crit DAMAGE buff to the skill. All this is going doing is give you a little better consistency on your damage. People acting like they brought back Mechanical.

Everything else you said is a.server side issue that can happen with any CC in the game.

Surprise attack hits harder than jabs and whip unless it's a triple stacked molten whip or corrosive is up, so wrong.

Also it will not only crit from the flank because as I previously started ESO can not read positional requirements on moving targets, it just does not work. It's not going to crit 100% of the time but it will randomly crit quite often, so wrong again.

I'm still looking for the justification that one of the highest damage, burstiest classes in the game needed a damage boost besides the fact a set that most good nightblades don't even use got nerfed.

I'm not wrong. Both of those skills hit harder. Feel free to go look at the base tool tips with associated passives.

Right now you can talons someone into desync and then hit a flame lash. Your next lash will be a lot more damage, plus a heal, plus half the cost. You also reduce the enemy's Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds AND a damage increase from passives.

That's better than even this version of SA. Saying otherwise is just argumentative.

"Most nightblades don't use Caluurions."

My man, I spend millions of gold every update trying to find the best way to attack the top tier classes. I also play those other classes to figure out how to attack them.

For the live version of this game, if you are not an oak blade, you are not killing DKs, templars and necros of similar skill level with hopes and dreams. I've tested everything. I've tried every configuration.

Feel free to show me a non Caluurions build that can compete right now and I'll run it for a week. I hate Caluurions and resisted using it.

What I assume you're going to do is show me a brawler blade build that can 1vX. I'd rather play my sorc.

fred4 · July 2022

I wrote a diatribe about Concealed vs SA and why I think the buff to SA is unwarranted for PvP in another thread. Sorry about the length, but fits into this thread as well, so here it s:

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Out of those 2, Concealed is actually way better. Minor Expedition just for slotting is very nice. On top you get 300 weapon / spell damage when exiting stealth.

If you know how Veiled Strike works in PvP, then you probably know that it is hard to land more than 2 times, as it has short range & a distinct sound que. So every consecutive use of this skill is almost always dodged or blocked or target just moves away. You can speak of a success if you land it 2 times in a row. Usually you have to either use it from stealth or use some battle chaos to your advantage to successfully land it - it is that predictable.

And you still have guaranteed crit chance from nb's cloak. So good players will actually use this combo.

The Surprise Attack feels more like a PvE morph or morph for PvP brawler build.

I guess they wanted to make people use Concealed Weapon more, so they buffed it, but later they realised that if they don't add anything to Surprise Attack - then no one would use Surprise Attack morph.

Personally, I like what they did because you have 2 very good morphs to pick and you need to decide. And it is actually better than non-class skills.

I disagree. Surprise Attack already has a flanking bonus. The chaos of combat is a fair point and all of that is true, however I believe the flanking window is pretty large, more like 200+ degrees than strictly from behind [EDIT: may not be accurate, but is already clarified in this thread]. I accept that you're not fully in control of your flanking angles or even hitting the target successfully at all, however what this change essentially boils down to is giving stamblade substantially more crit% while they're spamming Surprise Attack, but without having to build into crit. All medium, Shadow mundus, axes, that will be the meta. This is IMO way too strong.

As a melee magblade main, I will add this: I like the permanent speed, even if I lose 10% speed in cloak. I think that will be a net win, especially with hybridisation, having a good self heal, and being able to choose a bow as one of the weapons for the Major Expedition, or running RAT as usual. However, having the speed tied to Concealed was always a problem.

If you're a pure ganker, you're a different breed. You build for maximum damage and you choose your targets carefully. Preferably isolated targets. If you're a cloaking melee magblade, like me, who wants to participate in all out brawls, that's when you're really reliant on the speed. Shadow Image is a different playstyle again. For my playstyle, without Shadow Image, I find myself reliant on speed so much, being at the cap is basically the only way I survive. My survivability has already taken a hit due to the Oakensoul meta, using that ring over Wild Hunt. Being fast in cloak is what has set magblade apart from stamblade thus far. It feels quite different.

The above was for context. Perhaps you'll understand when I now say: To use the Concealed speed buff successfully, you end up double-slotting it. Cloak naturally resides on your defensive bar (Oakensoul won't be forever). You need Concealed there. It's also too good of a skill for your offensive bar. The stun, combined with the damage of a spammable is hard to beat. I've tried mixing it up. I played with a melee and a ranged bar in the past, but having to bar swap within your offensive window is basically a no. It doesn't play well. You also really want Concealed, Cloak and Barrier on the same bar, for the +10% magicka recovery to improve cloak sustain and have more flexibility in your mundus, set and jewelry choices overall.

In short, using the Concealed speed bonus has resulted in double-slotting the skill in the past. This is the real reason I've always been jealous of stamblades and their Surprise Attack. Stamblade, as a package, works so much better. Melee magblade pays dearly for the cloak sustain and the speed in cloak. Now, I grant you, Minor Expedition in combat, not just in Cloak, is nothing to be sneezed at. This will make it more viable to single bar the skill on the offensive bar. However, if I want to retain my identity as the "I am fast in cloak" build, which feels so distinctly different to stamblade, the one edge that melee magblade has held for me up to this point, I may still end up double-slotting Concealed. Giving up a slot to do so is the reason why Concealed is not as attractive as you make it out to be, at least for my playstyle.

Your mileage may vary, I guess. It tends to be heavily influenced by your paystyle and the tradeoffs you've become accustomed to, the tradeoffs you subsequently take for granted I guess.

By the way, it was someone else, another long-term magblade, switched to stamblade, that remarked how much better stamblade "flows" as a class, how much better everything fits together. I didn't press them as to why, but I would say it's using a bow for the Major Expedition, it's the naturally greater dodge roll sustain, it's the +5% speed you get from being one of the favorite races, a woodelf.

You could say everything is hybrid now, but that's not exactly true. If you're a Breton for the magblade sustain, especially the Cloak sustain, try building for maximum stamina. It doesn't work. Due to racial passives and Siphoning passives, building for magicka is better. I'd have to go back over all my UESP trial and error, but I think that was even marginally true when I built my woodelf as a magblade.

At any rate, it's the stam sustain that's always been a big factor for me. You want to be a melee nightblade, I find that roll dodge sustain, not merely high stamina but actual sustain, trumps or at least equals all other forms of defense (such as the light armor shield) on average. Hybrids are nice and all, but how many people actually use the Torc? I know I don't. Building and playing hybrids is hard. Having a single stat pool for most of your needs means you're more flexible in how you use that. A stamblade at full stamina may decide to blow their stat pool on attack, or they can blow their entire pool on defense by dodge rolling, sprinting and so on. I grant you there is fatigue, but still. Dodge rolls are that powerful, especially on a nightblade.

I'm married to my magblade. I got extremely used to high cloak sustain since the early days, when I didn't know how to fight and this was by far the best way to survive in Imperial City from among my characters. Yes, it has advantages over stamblade. Big ones in IC, because sustained cloaking allows you to disengage from NPCs in a way that mixed cloak and crouch does not. On the other hand, I've always had to gimp myself by building into speed, into mag sustain and, on top of that, into stam sustain to make this playstyle work. As a pure PvP tool, stamblade has historically always felt stronger, so I don't know why it needs or deserves a buff to Surprise Attack. Only the current Oakensoul patch is so weird, I don't know for sure. Waiting for some sort of normality next patch.

MentalxHammer · July 2022

ninjagank wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Fhritz wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You guys do realize that Caluurions is nuked for NBs on the pts, right? That's why our skill damage was increased. They didn't put it in the notes.

There are other proc sets. Flame blossom comes to mind as a good alternative. Caluurions was overloaded anyways.

Shadow of the red mountain is basically soft Caluurion (~1k difference with 2 sec shorter cooldown). Way of fire also have a great dps (4k/2 sec), but is more aimed for pressure rather than gank

Red mountain is a big giant red flare coming out of a volcano with a big travel time. The only proc set with a worse chance to hit is coldharbour's favorite.

MetallicMonk wrote: »

NB hits hard enough without caluurions or other procs, especially if you build into crit damage. Seems like a lot of uinformed people who specifically only gank lmao.

NB spammable was already literally one of the hardest hitting if not the hardest hitting in the game if you had a good build, absurd change from a PvP perspective.

It's not the hardest hitting as is. Can we really still using "one of the best of" when there are only 6 classes? Being in the 66th percentile isn't the same as being number one. It's #3 behind Puncturing and whip on live.

When the meta is high healing, high mitigation classes, which won't change, then the high burst, low survivability class needs to have the damage to compete. Just blowing up your crit damage with a set like wrath with a damage set like stygian isn't, in the current live game, enough output to attack a magDK or templar of equal skill level UNLESS you're running oakensoul.

People have been screaming about Caluurions forever. Now they're nerfing it so we gotta complain about SA getting a flank crit when it already crits more often than not anyway and you can just counter it by moving correctly.

Seems like you didn't even read what I wrote, caluurions wasn't the only way nb had damage, surprise attack hits as hard as some classes burst abilities and it's their spammable. Do you really think because they nerfed a set that wasn't even needed to begin with on nb to do damage, that they needed an ability that did not need a buff to be brought up even more? That's just disingenuous.

It stuns, has an incredibly high tooltip, sunders, sets off balance, and now will crit constantly. Not to mention the fact eso just can not read positional requirements well at all, the server and positional desync does not allow it, it's why you get stunned by surprise attack whether it's behind you or not and it's why this will now crit randomly whether they're flanking or not.

One, you're already stunning from stealth. Most NB CC's are from stealth, not the cc attached to SA or Incap. If you're hit from a cloaked NB, that's the CC that hits you. The SA and incap CC's are useful when chasing people down out of cloak.

Two, its damage is less than whip and jabs.

Three, it will not crit constantly. It will only crit from flank. So if your NB leads with a heavy attack, you'll get the one SA crit from flank but most people will still go incap/soul after the heavy because it's a lot more damage. So now you have 1.5 seconds after the heavy to move to counter flank.

If you lead with SA rather than a heavy, you're going to crit anyway.

I'd understand this reaction if they were putting a 10% crit DAMAGE buff to the skill. All this is going doing is give you a little better consistency on your damage. People acting like they brought back Mechanical.

Everything else you said is a.server side issue that can happen with any CC in the game.

Thanks for participating in the thread and voicing your opinion. I’d like to clarify some things that might be getting misinterpreted. The word “desynch” is used to describe a few different phenomena that happen under poor server conditions. It seems like you are using desynch to describe what occurs when the HP bar your client is displaying is not in line with your HP the server is keeping track of, which can result in sudden unexpected drops in your HP.

The positional desynch that a couple players have referred to describes the instance where the position of a player being displayed by your client is not accurate with the position of said player on the server. This can result in aoe’s missing or positional skills (surprise attacks flank abilities) not operating as expected. The argument some have made is that due to positional desynchs, positional abilities are often a poor introduction to the game as they do not behave accurately.

You’ve mentioned that NB relies on certain proc sets and overpowered items such as oakensoul to compete in PvP. You are completely entitled to this opinion, but that doesn’t mean it is an objective reality. Your opinion is heard, and I respect it. But keep in mind it’s also important to respect the opinion of other players, especially when some of us have many thousands of hours of experience on the class.

J18696 · July 2022

The flanking window in this game is so large and easy to hit this might aswell have been worded as this skill just always crits this is a insane buff and makes 0 sense talking from a pvp perspective

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

fred4 wrote: »

I wrote a diatribe about Concealed vs SA and why I think the buff to SA is unwarranted for PvP in another thread. Sorry about the length, but fits into this thread as well, so here it s:

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Out of those 2, Concealed is actually way better. Minor Expedition just for slotting is very nice. On top you get 300 weapon / spell damage when exiting stealth.

If you know how Veiled Strike works in PvP, then you probably know that it is hard to land more than 2 times, as it has short range & a distinct sound que. So every consecutive use of this skill is almost always dodged or blocked or target just moves away. You can speak of a success if you land it 2 times in a row. Usually you have to either use it from stealth or use some battle chaos to your advantage to successfully land it - it is that predictable.

And you still have guaranteed crit chance from nb's cloak. So good players will actually use this combo.

The Surprise Attack feels more like a PvE morph or morph for PvP brawler build.

I guess they wanted to make people use Concealed Weapon more, so they buffed it, but later they realised that if they don't add anything to Surprise Attack - then no one would use Surprise Attack morph.

Personally, I like what they did because you have 2 very good morphs to pick and you need to decide. And it is actually better than non-class skills.

I disagree. Surprise Attack already has a flanking bonus. The chaos of combat is a fair point and all of that is true, however I believe the flanking window is pretty large, more like 200+ degrees than strictly from behind [EDIT: may not be accurate, but is already clarified in this thread]. I accept that you're not fully in control of your flanking angles or even hitting the target successfully at all, however what this change essentially boils down to is giving stamblade substantially more crit% while they're spamming Surprise Attack, but without having to build into crit. All medium, Shadow mundus, axes, that will be the meta. This is IMO way too strong.

You wrote a long post and I don't have the time to write a full reply. But just to touch on that last sentence. If you run all medium with axes and shadowy mundus, your penetration will be under 10k. All the crit damage in the world will not matter when you have to carve through 33k+ armor.

The meta will likely be a mix of medium and light, with a set like order of wrath, with lover mundus and axes. This will keep your penetration high enough that the crit damage will cut through. But we'll see how it shakes out.

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

MentalxHammer wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Fhritz wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You guys do realize that Caluurions is nuked for NBs on the pts, right? That's why our skill damage was increased. They didn't put it in the notes.

There are other proc sets. Flame blossom comes to mind as a good alternative. Caluurions was overloaded anyways.

Shadow of the red mountain is basically soft Caluurion (~1k difference with 2 sec shorter cooldown). Way of fire also have a great dps (4k/2 sec), but is more aimed for pressure rather than gank

Red mountain is a big giant red flare coming out of a volcano with a big travel time. The only proc set with a worse chance to hit is coldharbour's favorite.

MetallicMonk wrote: »

NB hits hard enough without caluurions or other procs, especially if you build into crit damage. Seems like a lot of uinformed people who specifically only gank lmao.

NB spammable was already literally one of the hardest hitting if not the hardest hitting in the game if you had a good build, absurd change from a PvP perspective.

It's not the hardest hitting as is. Can we really still using "one of the best of" when there are only 6 classes? Being in the 66th percentile isn't the same as being number one. It's #3 behind Puncturing and whip on live.

When the meta is high healing, high mitigation classes, which won't change, then the high burst, low survivability class needs to have the damage to compete. Just blowing up your crit damage with a set like wrath with a damage set like stygian isn't, in the current live game, enough output to attack a magDK or templar of equal skill level UNLESS you're running oakensoul.

People have been screaming about Caluurions forever. Now they're nerfing it so we gotta complain about SA getting a flank crit when it already crits more often than not anyway and you can just counter it by moving correctly.

Seems like you didn't even read what I wrote, caluurions wasn't the only way nb had damage, surprise attack hits as hard as some classes burst abilities and it's their spammable. Do you really think because they nerfed a set that wasn't even needed to begin with on nb to do damage, that they needed an ability that did not need a buff to be brought up even more? That's just disingenuous.

It stuns, has an incredibly high tooltip, sunders, sets off balance, and now will crit constantly. Not to mention the fact eso just can not read positional requirements well at all, the server and positional desync does not allow it, it's why you get stunned by surprise attack whether it's behind you or not and it's why this will now crit randomly whether they're flanking or not.

One, you're already stunning from stealth. Most NB CC's are from stealth, not the cc attached to SA or Incap. If you're hit from a cloaked NB, that's the CC that hits you. The SA and incap CC's are useful when chasing people down out of cloak.

Two, its damage is less than whip and jabs.

Three, it will not crit constantly. It will only crit from flank. So if your NB leads with a heavy attack, you'll get the one SA crit from flank but most people will still go incap/soul after the heavy because it's a lot more damage. So now you have 1.5 seconds after the heavy to move to counter flank.

If you lead with SA rather than a heavy, you're going to crit anyway.

I'd understand this reaction if they were putting a 10% crit DAMAGE buff to the skill. All this is going doing is give you a little better consistency on your damage. People acting like they brought back Mechanical.

Everything else you said is a.server side issue that can happen with any CC in the game.

Thanks for participating in the thread and voicing your opinion. I’d like to clarify some things that might be getting misinterpreted. The word “desynch” is used to describe a few different phenomena that happen under poor server conditions. It seems like you are using desynch to describe what occurs when the HP bar your client is displaying is not in line with your HP the server is keeping track of, which can result in sudden unexpected drops in your HP.

The positional desynch that a couple players have referred to describes the instance where the position of a player being displayed by your client is not accurate with the position of said player on the server. This can result in aoe’s missing or positional skills (surprise attacks flank abilities) not operating as expected. The argument some have made is that due to positional desynchs, positional abilities are often a poor introduction to the game as they do not behave accurately.

You’ve mentioned that NB relies on certain proc sets and overpowered items such as oakensoul to compete in PvP. You are completely entitled to this opinion, but that doesn’t mean it is an objective reality. Your opinion is heard, and I respect it. But keep in mind it’s also important to respect the opinion of other players, especially when some of us have many thousands of hours of experience on the class.

Oh, I so appreciate what you are saying and I totally respect your statements even if they are a little condescending.

You are more than welcome to show me a build that doesn't use caluurions or oakensoul that uses shadowy disguise and not dark cloak. I will spend whatever gold it takes to outfit it and run it. I will highlight it on my stream for everyone to see. Until then, let's look at the obvious. Meta isn't meta because it sucks. It's meta because it works. Melee NBs have been running caluurions for several updates. Most do. Every now and then you'll run into someone who didn't want to farm it, so they'll run red mountain that rarely does much of anything other than create a nice fireworks show.

I have tested every combination of damage sets available to me. So please, before you make another "thousands of hours" comment, understand that I have nearly 2 years of game time on XB alone, plus more on PC, and most of that has been on a NB. I don't pretend to be the smartest or most knowledgeable, but I know what works.

React · July 2022

ninjagank wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Fhritz wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You guys do realize that Caluurions is nuked for NBs on the pts, right? That's why our skill damage was increased. They didn't put it in the notes.

There are other proc sets. Flame blossom comes to mind as a good alternative. Caluurions was overloaded anyways.

Shadow of the red mountain is basically soft Caluurion (~1k difference with 2 sec shorter cooldown). Way of fire also have a great dps (4k/2 sec), but is more aimed for pressure rather than gank

Red mountain is a big giant red flare coming out of a volcano with a big travel time. The only proc set with a worse chance to hit is coldharbour's favorite.

MetallicMonk wrote: »

NB hits hard enough without caluurions or other procs, especially if you build into crit damage. Seems like a lot of uinformed people who specifically only gank lmao.

NB spammable was already literally one of the hardest hitting if not the hardest hitting in the game if you had a good build, absurd change from a PvP perspective.

It's not the hardest hitting as is. Can we really still using "one of the best of" when there are only 6 classes? Being in the 66th percentile isn't the same as being number one. It's #3 behind Puncturing and whip on live.

When the meta is high healing, high mitigation classes, which won't change, then the high burst, low survivability class needs to have the damage to compete. Just blowing up your crit damage with a set like wrath with a damage set like stygian isn't, in the current live game, enough output to attack a magDK or templar of equal skill level UNLESS you're running oakensoul.

People have been screaming about Caluurions forever. Now they're nerfing it so we gotta complain about SA getting a flank crit when it already crits more often than not anyway and you can just counter it by moving correctly.

Seems like you didn't even read what I wrote, caluurions wasn't the only way nb had damage, surprise attack hits as hard as some classes burst abilities and it's their spammable. Do you really think because they nerfed a set that wasn't even needed to begin with on nb to do damage, that they needed an ability that did not need a buff to be brought up even more? That's just disingenuous.

It stuns, has an incredibly high tooltip, sunders, sets off balance, and now will crit constantly. Not to mention the fact eso just can not read positional requirements well at all, the server and positional desync does not allow it, it's why you get stunned by surprise attack whether it's behind you or not and it's why this will now crit randomly whether they're flanking or not.

One, you're already stunning from stealth. Most NB CC's are from stealth, not the cc attached to SA or Incap. If you're hit from a cloaked NB, that's the CC that hits you. The SA and incap CC's are useful when chasing people down out of cloak.

Two, its damage is less than whip and jabs.

Three, it will not crit constantly. It will only crit from flank. So if your NB leads with a heavy attack, you'll get the one SA crit from flank but most people will still go incap/soul after the heavy because it's a lot more damage. So now you have 1.5 seconds after the heavy to move to counter flank.

If you lead with SA rather than a heavy, you're going to crit anyway.

I'd understand this reaction if they were putting a 10% crit DAMAGE buff to the skill. All this is going doing is give you a little better consistency on your damage. People acting like they brought back Mechanical.

Everything else you said is a.server side issue that can happen with any CC in the game.

Thanks for participating in the thread and voicing your opinion. I’d like to clarify some things that might be getting misinterpreted. The word “desynch” is used to describe a few different phenomena that happen under poor server conditions. It seems like you are using desynch to describe what occurs when the HP bar your client is displaying is not in line with your HP the server is keeping track of, which can result in sudden unexpected drops in your HP.

The positional desynch that a couple players have referred to describes the instance where the position of a player being displayed by your client is not accurate with the position of said player on the server. This can result in aoe’s missing or positional skills (surprise attacks flank abilities) not operating as expected. The argument some have made is that due to positional desynchs, positional abilities are often a poor introduction to the game as they do not behave accurately.

You’ve mentioned that NB relies on certain proc sets and overpowered items such as oakensoul to compete in PvP. You are completely entitled to this opinion, but that doesn’t mean it is an objective reality. Your opinion is heard, and I respect it. But keep in mind it’s also important to respect the opinion of other players, especially when some of us have many thousands of hours of experience on the class.

Oh, I so appreciate what you are saying and I totally respect your statements even if they are a little condescending.

You are more than welcome to show me a build that doesn't use caluurions or oakensoul that uses shadowy disguise and not dark cloak. I will spend whatever gold it takes to outfit it and run it. I will highlight it on my stream for everyone to see. Until then, let's look at the obvious. Meta isn't meta because it sucks. It's meta because it works. Melee NBs have been running caluurions for several updates. Most do. Every now and then you'll run into someone who didn't want to farm it, so they'll run red mountain that rarely does much of anything other than create a nice fireworks show.

I have tested every combination of damage sets available to me. So please, before you make another "thousands of hours" comment, understand that I have nearly 2 years of game time and most of that has been on a NB. I don't pretend to be the smartest or most knowledgeable, but I know what works.

I went ahead and watched some of your gameplay.

You don't properly weave or manage resources. You often fail to connect any sort of combo with the targets you choose, even with the advantage of hitting them from stealth. You do almost no animation cancelling at all. Despite being a ganker, you seem to frequently run in groups of 4-6, often amongst many more of your own faction, and target people who you have a numbers advantage on.

It is pretty clear to me why you think that calu is the only set NBs can use - because you are incapable of performing well enough without a proc dealing 30-50% of your burst combo for you.

Mental tried to be super respectful towards you, but your response makes it clear that you truly believe that you're playing the class to it's fullest potential. You're not.

Zekka · July 2022

Completely unwarranted buff on one of the most overloaded skills in the game, you have to be a terminally stamblade only player to defend it.
If the decision was PvE related then ZOS should find another candidate in nightblade's kit to buff.

Lapin_Logic · July 2022

I would like to poll how many here have been on the PTS to try it for more than 10 minutes.

J18696 · July 2022

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

I would like to poll how many here have been on the PTS to try it for more than 10 minutes.

I spent a few hours on pts now since it has Been patched to u35 and I struggle to see the intended improvement for accessibility across the board it feels as if the opposite effect has happened since the content itself isn't also tweaked around the changes

but this has nothing todo with surprise attack pvp wise surprise attack is arguably the best or close to the strongest spammable skill in the game and adding more to it is just adding to a already loaded skill

If this change was aimed to help pve dps it would have been a much better idea to adjust another part of the nb kit to accomplish this

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

React wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

MentalxHammer wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

Fhritz wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You guys do realize that Caluurions is nuked for NBs on the pts, right? That's why our skill damage was increased. They didn't put it in the notes.

There are other proc sets. Flame blossom comes to mind as a good alternative. Caluurions was overloaded anyways.

Shadow of the red mountain is basically soft Caluurion (~1k difference with 2 sec shorter cooldown). Way of fire also have a great dps (4k/2 sec), but is more aimed for pressure rather than gank

Red mountain is a big giant red flare coming out of a volcano with a big travel time. The only proc set with a worse chance to hit is coldharbour's favorite.

MetallicMonk wrote: »

NB hits hard enough without caluurions or other procs, especially if you build into crit damage. Seems like a lot of uinformed people who specifically only gank lmao.

NB spammable was already literally one of the hardest hitting if not the hardest hitting in the game if you had a good build, absurd change from a PvP perspective.

It's not the hardest hitting as is. Can we really still using "one of the best of" when there are only 6 classes? Being in the 66th percentile isn't the same as being number one. It's #3 behind Puncturing and whip on live.

When the meta is high healing, high mitigation classes, which won't change, then the high burst, low survivability class needs to have the damage to compete. Just blowing up your crit damage with a set like wrath with a damage set like stygian isn't, in the current live game, enough output to attack a magDK or templar of equal skill level UNLESS you're running oakensoul.

People have been screaming about Caluurions forever. Now they're nerfing it so we gotta complain about SA getting a flank crit when it already crits more often than not anyway and you can just counter it by moving correctly.

Seems like you didn't even read what I wrote, caluurions wasn't the only way nb had damage, surprise attack hits as hard as some classes burst abilities and it's their spammable. Do you really think because they nerfed a set that wasn't even needed to begin with on nb to do damage, that they needed an ability that did not need a buff to be brought up even more? That's just disingenuous.

It stuns, has an incredibly high tooltip, sunders, sets off balance, and now will crit constantly. Not to mention the fact eso just can not read positional requirements well at all, the server and positional desync does not allow it, it's why you get stunned by surprise attack whether it's behind you or not and it's why this will now crit randomly whether they're flanking or not.

One, you're already stunning from stealth. Most NB CC's are from stealth, not the cc attached to SA or Incap. If you're hit from a cloaked NB, that's the CC that hits you. The SA and incap CC's are useful when chasing people down out of cloak.

Two, its damage is less than whip and jabs.

Three, it will not crit constantly. It will only crit from flank. So if your NB leads with a heavy attack, you'll get the one SA crit from flank but most people will still go incap/soul after the heavy because it's a lot more damage. So now you have 1.5 seconds after the heavy to move to counter flank.

If you lead with SA rather than a heavy, you're going to crit anyway.

I'd understand this reaction if they were putting a 10% crit DAMAGE buff to the skill. All this is going doing is give you a little better consistency on your damage. People acting like they brought back Mechanical.

Everything else you said is a.server side issue that can happen with any CC in the game.

Thanks for participating in the thread and voicing your opinion. I’d like to clarify some things that might be getting misinterpreted. The word “desynch” is used to describe a few different phenomena that happen under poor server conditions. It seems like you are using desynch to describe what occurs when the HP bar your client is displaying is not in line with your HP the server is keeping track of, which can result in sudden unexpected drops in your HP.

The positional desynch that a couple players have referred to describes the instance where the position of a player being displayed by your client is not accurate with the position of said player on the server. This can result in aoe’s missing or positional skills (surprise attacks flank abilities) not operating as expected. The argument some have made is that due to positional desynchs, positional abilities are often a poor introduction to the game as they do not behave accurately.

You’ve mentioned that NB relies on certain proc sets and overpowered items such as oakensoul to compete in PvP. You are completely entitled to this opinion, but that doesn’t mean it is an objective reality. Your opinion is heard, and I respect it. But keep in mind it’s also important to respect the opinion of other players, especially when some of us have many thousands of hours of experience on the class.

Oh, I so appreciate what you are saying and I totally respect your statements even if they are a little condescending.

You are more than welcome to show me a build that doesn't use caluurions or oakensoul that uses shadowy disguise and not dark cloak. I will spend whatever gold it takes to outfit it and run it. I will highlight it on my stream for everyone to see. Until then, let's look at the obvious. Meta isn't meta because it sucks. It's meta because it works. Melee NBs have been running caluurions for several updates. Most do. Every now and then you'll run into someone who didn't want to farm it, so they'll run red mountain that rarely does much of anything other than create a nice fireworks show.

I have tested every combination of damage sets available to me. So please, before you make another "thousands of hours" comment, understand that I have nearly 2 years of game time and most of that has been on a NB. I don't pretend to be the smartest or most knowledgeable, but I know what works.

I went ahead and watched some of your gameplay.

You don't properly weave or manage resources. You often fail to connect any sort of combo with the targets you choose, even with the advantage of hitting them from stealth. You do almost no animation cancelling at all. Despite being a ganker, you seem to frequently run in groups of 4-6, often amongst many more of your own faction, and target people who you have a numbers advantage on.

It is pretty clear to me why you think that calu is the only set NBs can use - because you are incapable of performing well enough without a proc dealing 30-50% of your burst combo for you.

Mental tried to be super respectful towards you, but your response makes it clear that you truly believe that you're playing the class to it's fullest potential. You're not.

Thank you for the view. Allow me to run through your rather interesting criticism, since I apparently struck a nerve.

Weaving.
I do weave, actually. I always weave LAs. On last last short video, you can see clearly I am using LAs, except on people who died before that part of my rotation. I can post some slow mo shots if you like.

Combos
It's not my fault if they die before I go through my entire bar. I have three rotations based on the target's health and class. I make sure to remember anyone of note that I come across and remember for the next time so I can use the right rotation. I know exactly what to do after the heavy based on gamertag or health and class.

Resources
My resource management is fine. I do hit my buffs a little more frequently than I need to, but that's because it bothers me for them to get low. I have a lot of little things like this because I'm on the spectrum. Either way, I rarely have to leave a fight because I ran out of resources, unless it's caused by another player, whether drain poisons or they just were eating my damage like donuts.

SOLO SHAME
I didn't realize it was a crime to run small scale and that somehow makes me "lesser." I don't like not having anyone in my headset to talk to, because I get bored. Having said that, I do play solo sometimes. I guess I'm not in the cool club for ganks if I don't sit alone at some random outpost hoping for someone to come along and siege it so I can get a cool solo clip. It's a warzone. There are always people around. I don't really care whether you think I'm a crap player anymore than I would a random person on the street telling me they hate my shirt. You're a name on the screen, my man. A name on the screen.

So for the twentieth time:

Show me a build, right now, using shadowy disguise that doesn't use caluurions, and I will run it. Maybe it's something I never thought to try out. Maybe you'll open my eyes and I'll see the promise land. Or maybe I'll drop a burst on a magDK and they will laugh in my face. We shall see! But hey, you have about one hundred more subs than me, so that must mean you're better, right?

Funny enough, when I look at your channel, you only have one NB video, which is a magNB 1vX build. So as I said earlier, I imagine a lot of this blustering talk is about ganking and how "real" NBs should be 1vX brawlers.

I tried to be soo super respectful as well, so I appreciate that we are all being tip top epitomes of respect. Thank you very much.

But, to recap:

SA crit from flank is not a world beater. Concealed will be better, but it could use a little more base damage to the tooltip to make it attractive over SA. I love killer's blade being useful, as I find it a more fun single target execute than executioner. Sap Essence and Swallow Soul could use some love, too.

React · July 2022

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

I would like to poll how many here have been on the PTS to try it for more than 10 minutes.

I've already been signed into the pts for over 10 hours since yesterday.

On average in 1v1s, where the majority of attacks go off from the front of your target, I am seeing surprise attack average about 30% more crits than my crit chance & other abilities in cmx.

I.e, while I have 47% crit and my other direct damage abilities are all critting about 44-50% of the time on CMX, surprise attack is critting 70-75% of the time.

It does not need to do that. Applying sundered, off balance, and stunning are already far more effects than the ability needs.

There was an argument for concealed to be buffed, which I wish they had done better - but the surprise attack buff is completely unwarranted.

Cuddlypuff · July 2022

The damage is manageable but there seems to be technical issues with the positioning and break-free from Surprise Attack that makes the skill frustrating to deal with. These need to be fixed first. In any case I'd prefer mitigation nerfs over damage buffs.

fred4 · July 2022

ninjagank wrote: »

You wrote a long post and I don't have the time to write a full reply. But just to touch on that last sentence. If you run all medium with axes and shadowy mundus, your penetration will be under 10k. All the crit damage in the world will not matter when you have to carve through 33k+ armor.

My current Oakensoul bowsorc would like to differ

. Building for weapon damage, crit % or crit multiplier benefits your healing. I believe it lags behind building more rounded, e.g. including pen, but believe that builds with very high other stats can also work. Depends on the meta.

The meta will likely be a mix of medium and light, with a set like order of wrath, with lover mundus and axes. This will keep your penetration high enough that the crit damage will cut through. But we'll see how it shakes out.

Sure. It probably won't be exactly like I said, because you'll want to weigh the most stat-dense options against each other, whatever they are. I do think knowing you have 100% crit on flanking SA will influence those choices, though. Given the insane damage meta we have right now, it just seems like such a bad idea. Guess we'll have to see how much the LA/HA nerf affects burst. And what have they done with the boosted heavy attacks from out of combat / crouch / from behind?

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

fred4 wrote: »

ninjagank wrote: »

You wrote a long post and I don't have the time to write a full reply. But just to touch on that last sentence. If you run all medium with axes and shadowy mundus, your penetration will be under 10k. All the crit damage in the world will not matter when you have to carve through 33k+ armor.

My current Oakensoul bowsorc would like to differ . Building for weapon damage, crit % or crit multiplier benefits your healing. I believe it lags behind building more rounded, e.g. including pen, but believe that builds with very high other stats can also work. Depends on the meta.

The meta will likely be a mix of medium and light, with a set like order of wrath, with lover mundus and axes. This will keep your penetration high enough that the crit damage will cut through. But we'll see how it shakes out.

Sure. It probably won't be exactly like I said, because you'll want to weigh the most stat-dense options against each other, whatever they are. I do think knowing you have 100% crit on flanking SA will influence those choices, though. Given the insane damage meta we have right now, it just seems like such a bad idea. Guess we'll have to see how much the LA/HA nerf affects burst. And what have they done with the boosted heavy attacks from out of combat / crouch / from behind?

Absolutely good points.

I just think SA will continue to be after Incap/Harvest. I definitely think for an elite player who can stay in flank in a longer fight, SA will rock.

I'm gonna try out concealed first, honestly.

Solariken · July 2022

10% increased crit chance at flank sounds like a fine compromise to me.

I'm super excited for the Concealed changes though, I think they did a great job with that.

FrankonPC · July 2022

Surprise attack is one of the 3 best spammables in the game and this buff was not needed. #reactisright

If you want to make adjustments to nightblade, removing cast times would do more than this buff could ever do, or speed up spectral bow, or both!

olsborg · July 2022

It doesnt work as stated in the patch notes, just try to find a sinle crit on SA here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhhmFm17z-o

Vetixio · July 2022

It's not like stamblades need anymore damage lol

Joosef_Kivikilpi · July 2022

Klingenlied wrote: »

People got it the wrong way. Nightblade spamable now has flavor, uniqueness, power. It's great!

Wanna complain? Complain why Necro or Warden spamable just pale in comparison. Give us cool stuff for all classes. Not just for one or two. They nerfed enough. I do not need more power then we do have on live. But I don't want us nerfed into the ground like they did with some PTS classes.

Lolz be careful. They just destroyed the one actual good ability from Templars, their jabs, instead of give every class an ability of that level which makes it feel good in your toolkit.

Tannus15 · July 2022

Spammables are the most important part of your build in PTS.

Nightblades badly needed their spammable buffed because of the huge nerfs to their dots, in particular twisting path.

MentalxHammer · July 2022

Tannus15 wrote: »

Spammables are the most important part of your build in PTS.

Nightblades badly needed their spammable buffed because of the huge nerfs to their dots, in particular twisting path.

I don’t think I’ve ever been killed by a dot nightblade. With the dot nerfs a burst meta will arise, nighblade is the strongest burst class in the game. This will only make NB’s more prevalent over other classes in the upcoming meta.

Firstmep · July 2022

Tannus15 wrote: »

Spammables are the most important part of your build in PTS.

Nightblades badly needed their spammable buffed because of the huge nerfs to their dots, in particular twisting path.

Everyone got their dots nerfed, yet nb is the only class that gets a buff.

jtm1018 · July 2022

Finally, I can get a kill in a bg match, yes I know I am terrible nb in non cp pvp, bg to be exact. I am terrible but not worthless, I do get 20 to 30 kill assist. Thats something right?
Right?
fml.....

merpins · July 2022

It's definitely strong, but PVE nbs have needed a buff for like 3 years. Let em have fun for a few patches, and if you PVP players have complaints, beg the devs to balance PVE and PVP separately like they should so both sides can be happy.

divnyi · July 2022

It's easy to buff crit damage without even having a single set dedicated on that. This change easily pushes SA damage into unnerfed jabs range, which is ridiculously high for a skill that is not a multipart channeling, and SA also stuns.

Ppl who say cloak gives crit don't think about heavy attack -> SA from cloak, which is now 2 guaranteed crits in first GCD.

Ppl who say SA stun isn't important because attack from stealth stuns, you do understand that it only works for attacks from *stealth* state, right? Not cloaked state. And speaking about SA setups, it's power in being able to stun mid-fight instead on first hit.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO · July 2022

Watching the forums go from "WE DID IT BROS! WE DEFEATED THE EVIL GANKERINOS! NO MORE CALURIONS!!111", to "NOOOOOO!!!!! plz don't surprise attack me!!!" is going to feel good. Like watching someone showboat right before crossing the finish line only to trip and lose. Really should have learned by now that Zos ALWAYS leaves in a way to gank. Whether on purpose or for reasons that will get 100% get me [snipped] if I dare speak them aloud, they always leave a way.

The next meta proc set + nu surprise attack is going to be better then calurions + old surprise attack.

Stx · July 2022

So this change definitely isn't needed in pvp. And in pve NB needs help, but this is the wrong way to do it... first of all surprise attack is already a good spammable in pve, it's not the best, but its far from the worst.. secondly, this crit change makes dots 99% worthless on NB, because with the reduced damage of DoTs, its better to literally spam surprise attack than refresh dots.

katorga · July 2022

Remember when ZOS said spammables should not have secondary effects, and they nerfed Dizzy taking away the CC, nerfed Crystal Frags taking away the CC and so on?

Then they almost immediately turned around and added CC to Surprise Attack

The skill is way overloaded. If it is going to keep the the crit, then it needs to lose the other effects.

Nothing bugs me more than when the Dev's violate their own stated plans.