Surprise Attack is not Right

Wuuffyy · July 2022

There isn’t a single reason to remove the stun or have guaranteed crit. Why are these unnecessary changes being pushed so hard here?

Jeezye · July 2022

lmao I find it super funny.
The abilities were super overlaoded. A stun on spammable with that many debuffs/buffs is also not right.

The big nono is, taking it away without granting any compensation. Now you're forced again into using fear, while your whole kit is getting dodged or absorbed from enemy skills overshadowing the nightblades toolkit by miles.

There's so much wrong with the class by now that anything besides a ganker or bomber is just getting trampled. They even nerfed dark cloak again lol.

Szende · July 2022

I'm sad about it. I don't want to play pure ganker

xDeusEJRx · July 2022

I like zos's thought process. They think a skill needs a buff so they buff it, then people think it's overperforming so zos goes and nerfs something completely unrelated to the problem.
This is exactly what happened with crystal weapon on Sorc

Like who asked for veiled strike to get nerfed? Now non-cloakblades are forced to use fear in order to get any proper CC's off. Good luck with bar space now on a nightblade who can't go invis, now you need too many utility skills to be able to kill anything in pvp. And this is gonna hurt both stam and magblade even though magblade didn't even remotely need a nerf?

Stncold · July 2022

So now it's slot fear or just give up and move on if you don't delete someone in the initial strike because they'll just run away and heal. Basically just literally never attack a templar or DK because what's the point.

Also don't play brawlblade ever.

Got it. Think I'll wind up skipping this patch at this rate because both my magsorc and stamblade won't be fun to play.

KingExecration · July 2022

The stun removal is the only positive for update 35. Slot a stun like every other class

React · July 2022

Honestly, the surprise attack stun being removed is a good change. Keep in mind that surprise attack still applies off balance from behind, so you now have a more consistent stun that is off the global cooldown, allowing you to deal far more burst damage than what was possible with a surprise attack stun.

ESO has severe location desync, which hasn't been fixed by the new servers on PC NA and has progressively gotten worse over time. If you do not know what location desync is, it is the inability for the server to accurately determine your location in relation to other players.

The result of this location desync is that abilities like surprise attack, which are supposed to stun from behind, often times stun players that are facing directly towards you from in front of you. Not only is this unfair for the receiving party, but as the user it also prevents you from using surprise attack to effectively pressure your opponents - often times you will just CC them with no control over the CC whatsoever, which removes your ability to apply a stun when they're low health or vulnerable.

I'm happy to see this change personally. I've been asking for it for quite some time now. Location based functions in ESO simply do not work, and if zenimax wanted to keep them they would first need to fix the massive location desync that plagues the game.

dinokstrunz · July 2022

KingExecration wrote: »

The stun removal is the only positive for update 35. Slot a stun like every other class

This and the Savage Werewolf change

Stx · July 2022

I love how everyone in the universe is like WTF did you do!?? 100% crit is broken!!

ZoS is like, I know, let's keep the crit but remove the stun!

News flash, it's still broken. This devalues critical chance stat for NBs, makes PvE rotations very one dimensional and boring, and also encourages pvp NBs to build a very specific way that is going to be imbalanced as hell.

Kalitas · July 2022

This is a joke at this point. I'm upset I even came back to try ESO after the PVP server upgrade. I'm done with this trash tier game, once again.

KingExecration · July 2022

dinokstrunz wrote: »

KingExecration wrote: »

The stun removal is the only positive for update 35. Slot a stun like every other class

This and the Savage Werewolf change

So much chaos that I forgot about that too lmao

Shadowasrial · July 2022

On top of that now that it doesn’t stun we loose a source off balance. We didn’t ask for the guaranteed crit they should have left surprise attack the way it was before pts it was just fine

FangOfTheTwoMoons · July 2022

NB already had a hard time lining up burst with how slow Bow Proc/Incap come out. Now it'll be even worse.

The best part was the dev comment:
"We previously enabled this ability to crowd control targets, as other forms of CC in the Nightblade kit were rather lackluster. After the pass in this Update, this issue has been amended and we're comfortable that the class will still be just as efficient from the shadows without Veiled Strike’s stun, allowing the new morph biases to be the main selling points of the spammable."

Fear as a CC tool is still lackluster, so I have no idea what they're talking about. My other option now is to hit SA from behind then Medium Weave? Gotta jump through more hoops just for my burst to be dodged. I'd have no problem doing that if it NB burst was more consistent to land, but as it stands it's not. Now NB's have to do more than any other class to line up burst but are still the easiest to get away from.

"We're comfortable that the class will still be just as efficient from the shadows without Veiled Strike’s stun." So Brawler Blades should just go rot in a sack right? So much for playing how I want. Guess all NBs are gankers in ZOS' eyes.

I'd rather keep the the morphs the same as they are on live and just ditch the new concepts all together.

Atrael7 · July 2022

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

I'd rather keep the the morphs the same as they are on live and just ditch the new concepts all together.

This. 100% crit is ridiculous in a pvp setting, and so is gutting the stun off of the skill.

As others have mentioned already, if you aren't playing with Shadowy Disguise, in order to get a stun off you're gonna need to find a slot for fear, which, good luck landing that with any amount of consistency with the game's skill lag and positional desyncs, or work extra to get an off balance stun once every 21 seconds.

Buff some class dot or other if nightblades are lagging behind in pve instead of supercharging an already juiced spammable with even more effects and let us have our stun.

Didgerion · July 2022

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

There isn’t a single reason to remove the stun or have guaranteed crit. Why are these unnecessary changes being pushed so hard here?

Because on their spreadsheet the skill was marked with orange. Then they added 100% crit and the skill got the purple marking... but what they actually want is a solid green!

Everaen · July 2022

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

I'd rather keep the the morphs the same as they are on live and just ditch the new concepts all together.

Same. Maybe I've just played too many rogue/thief variants in too many MMOs. It seems pretty sacrilegious for the rogue archetype not to have a baked stun out of stealth option.

CaptainVenom · July 2022

Stun was OP from a long time now. I'm glad this **** is over.

xylena_lazarow · July 2022

Does this version still stun when used from invisibility?

Why did they ever add the "stun from the flank" thing in the first place?

If NB needed more PvE dps, why not buff their dots instead?

None of this makes sense, and the artificial delays on the gap closer, charge nuke, and ults are still miserable.

Tigertron · July 2022

We still get the 100% stun from sneak right? I hope. Still not enought.

Again a nerf to a skill I use in PvE for the sake of the PvP crowd.

I solo a lot in PvE and the stun from SA was part of the way I CC a large group. I would much rather have less damage than less CC.

Thanks for nothing.

master_vanargand · July 2022

It's ridiculous to get rid of the stun.
Remove 100% critical.
I'm tired of despair.

Kusto · July 2022

master_vanargand wrote: »

It's ridiculous to get rid of the stun.
Remove 100% critical.
I'm tired of despair.

No.
It's good for pve.

master_vanargand · July 2022

Kusto wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

It's ridiculous to get rid of the stun.
Remove 100% critical.
I'm tired of despair.

No.
It's good for pve.

No.
It's not good for PvP.

Who wanted "100% critical"?
No one wants it.
Also, it is useless in Sunspire.

auz · July 2022

master_vanargand wrote: »

Kusto wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

It's ridiculous to get rid of the stun.
Remove 100% critical.
I'm tired of despair.

No.
It's good for pve.

Also, it is useless in Sunspire.

So is the stun.

auz · July 2022

Stocked they are finally getting rid of the stun. Can't believe they took this long.

Jeezye · July 2022

As a nightbalde main, the stun was super overtuned on a spammable and I was feeling gimped not to run this skill. Rather buff fear a tad more to compensate, but this change was long overdue

Mr_Stach · July 2022

Jeezye wrote: »

As a nightbalde main, the stun was super overtuned on a spammable and I was feeling gimped not to run this skill. Rather buff fear a tad more to compensate, but this change was long overdue

Issue is I still think the other options for stuns in the NBs kit need to be a little more responsive. Maybe they'll get that going in the next 3-6 months?

Wuuffyy · July 2022

Jeezye wrote: »

As a nightbalde main, the stun was super overtuned on a spammable and I was feeling gimped not to run this skill. Rather buff fear a tad more to compensate, but this change was long overdue

Maybe other spammables could be buffed up to it’s level. It’s successful but you can’t spam it and kill people most of the time like current jabs. Also, how is the stun a “long time coming” while guaranteed crit doesn’t matter to you?

Jazraena · July 2022

Honestly, regardless of 'too strong' or 'too weak' or 'long overdue' in either direction, I think we can agree it's mostly just random. One patch they add an autocrit, the other they remove the stun to compensate, and next one it'll probably autoproc Hemorrhaging or somesuch.

What I'm failing to see is the actual plan. It feels like they're throwing dice. Like P&P Generation Tables - Roll 1d100 to generate the next Patch.

ManDraKE · July 2022

I agree that the stun on SA it's a bit too much, but now they want us to use Fear and anyone with basic understand of the class knows that Fear doesn't fit in ANY of the nightblade combos, specially afteer they added cast time to ultimates.
All our skills are single target & doggeable, any competent player CC breaks the fear and dodges before the incap lands.

This change only makes non-ganking nighblades more one-dimensional by forcing all the combos to use a 120ult incap. Remove the stun from Surprise attack and remove the 120cap requierment for the incap stun, i dont want to run bloodspawn just to get a mediocre CC uptime.

Chilly-McFreeze · July 2022

It's almost like they realized they buffed SA a tad too far with 8.1.0 but are too proud to acknowledge and take the change back. Anyway, horrible change that definitely feels like it was designed with only ganking in mind.

katorga · July 2022

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

NB already had a hard time lining up burst with how slow Bow Proc/Incap come out.

They seem to line up burst just fine.

Seriously the class got so many buffs this patch that it led to some pointed comments being made on the forum about a biased developer.

Note, way back when, ZOS said spammables should not have CC, or overloaded with other major effects. Shortly after nerfing the CCs on Dizzy Swing, Crystal Frags, and other spammables, they started loading up Surprise attack with CCs, debuffs, now 100% crit.

Damage + sundered is all it deserves.