Surprise Attack is not Right

xylena_lazarow · July 2022

katorga 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.

It's obviously not impossible, but unnecessarily sweaty and frustrating compared to how smooth the class used to feel.

Mannjdyr · July 2022

KingExecration wrote: »

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

Yep !!! 100% agree

DrNukenstein · July 2022

Hear me out on this. This is not an all bad change.

The stun from concealed weapon/surprised attack means you usually blow your stun on the opener. Which means if you're going to win, you have to one shot or put the target so far into the danger zone that they can't get out. You also get a regular stun, as opposed to the much more potent knock down.

Now you can choose to open with a stun by opening from crouch, or save your stun to get the much more potent off-balance heavy stun. This will be awesome for fighting tougher targets, and raises the ceiling for skill expression in ganking.

You see a 20-30k hp build, business as usual. Stun and dunk.

You see that 40k+ hp build? You can work them down to right before they'd heal then get them with that clutch heavy stun> soul harvest/weak incap> execute. Thats not really an option right now if you use the incredible spammable known as surprise attack. Or if you like using the bow, you can get the stun with a ranged heavy and throw that bow proc down town. The point is it's not a bad thing to have more control over your stun. I guess someone really smart might cleanse off balance, but I think I've seen that happen 3 times if ever since Plaguebreak came out.

And in the bigger picture, no one's going to be scared of a heavy attack...

Wuuffyy · July 2022

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Hear me out on this. This is not an all bad change.

The stun from concealed weapon/surprised attack means you usually blow your stun on the opener. Which means if you're going to win, you have to one shot or put the target so far into the danger zone that they can't get out. You also get a regular stun, as opposed to the much more potent knock down.

Now you can choose to open with a stun by opening from crouch, or save your stun to get the much more potent off-balance heavy stun. This will be awesome for fighting tougher targets, and raises the ceiling for skill expression in ganking.

You see a 20-30k hp build, business as usual. Stun and dunk.

You see that 40k+ hp build? You can work them down to right before they'd heal then get them with that clutch heavy stun> soul harvest/weak incap> execute. Thats not really an option right now if you use the incredible spammable known as surprise attack. Or if you like using the bow, you can get the stun with a ranged heavy and throw that bow proc down town. The point is it's not a bad thing to have more control over your stun. I guess someone really smart might cleanse off balance, but I think I've seen that happen 3 times if ever since Plaguebreak came out.

And in the bigger picture, no one's going to be scared of a heavy attack...

Entirely disagree. Would agree more if they weren’t just removing it for the sole reason of pushing an even more insane change, as you all have said, guaranteed crit on the strongest instant spammable. I’d rather have it stun me than crit all the time.

boi_anachronism_ · July 2022

I honestly am sad. Nightblade is gonna become a 1 button smash on dummies, useless in vss and only good for gankers in pvp. Le sigh.

Tigertron · July 2022

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

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?

Exactly. How do you think being hit with a crit 100% of the time is better than a 3 second stun. Not to mention you still get stunned when I come out of stealth. Now I stun you AND 100% crit you with SA. Because all I can do is live the gankers life.
ZOS needs to just stop making NB a hated class.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 2022

Literally not a single NB player asked for this. If spamables are not good, those should be buffed to the point in which they are good. Veiled Strike & morphs is already in a good spot, so touching it does not make any sense whatsoever. Just buff other spamables.

The removal of stun pretty much means that NBs are being pigeon-holed even more into ganking spec. Stun was making this skill kinda reliable to use, for what it is (single target spammable with short range that can be dodge). It did not mattered if you attack from stealth or if you are brawler, as the skill in general is already hard to land more than 1 time, as it is easy to avoid. And the positioning & server lag... it can be very random. You were lucky if you landed Veiled Strike 2 times in a row. Stun was a huge part of it.

Now, without the stun it will be even harder to land more than 1 time & not from stealth, and therefore you will need other abilities. Like fear cc or incap stun - and it further limits your build options, as you lose utility Surprise Attack provided, but at the same time it makes NB better at ganking.... yes, better, and here is why (I think):

Previously - stun (since it is hard CC) provided CC immunity after it ended / you break free. So burst window for a NB was way shorter.
Now, you will get hit by Veiled Strike (no stun, but off-balance is applied to you) so fear or incap and you are open for burst, and you have of-balance on you.

As for the "Guaranteed Crit" part - I run a PvP NB build that has around 40% crit chance - quite a lot for PvP. On top of that I have NB passive + minor force. The point is, Surprise Attack was criting quite often for me. And the dmg from it was decent, but if I was fighting vs some one tanky - they barely even felt that. The thing that most good players seem to be really afraid of is off-balance as it increases dmg you take. For the most part it is the damage you take "after" you have off-balance status that is killing people. So it is every 2nd or 3rd Surprise Attack hit or damage from other sources that kills people.

My prediction is that in PvE probably not much will change as, rotation will be easier for NBs and that's about it.

In PvP however, it will make NB worse in a brawler style builds (looks also at Dark Cloak

) as they lose a utility (Veiled Strike's stun). Class will be generally harder to play for new / less skilled players, but for experienced players - it will be a huge buff. Especially if we are talking about ganking. I can imagine min-maxed Khajiit NB with Shadow mundus that go for highest possible crit modifier + penetration, totally ignoring crit chance, as they have 2 "guaranteed" skills that provide 100% crit chance - Cloak for any next ability you use & Surprise Attack.

^ And, I don't need to remind everyone how that works - stuff gets abused, people complain, stuff gets nerfed to oblivion & we have to wait 2 years till it is buffed again to the point when it is usable. No sane NB would want to go through it again. We already had Elsweyr update & I guess no NB wants another.

TlDR:
- ZOS should not touch Veiled Strike & morphs at all, and bring other spamables that are underperforming to same or similar level.
- ZOS should instead of trying to improve already a good skill, look at other NB abilities that are kinda bad and bring them up - like Consuming Darkness for example. It is probably to worst ulti in the entire game...

Also, a side note:
You may not remember that if you don't play this game long enough, but there were times in ESO history when NB's were almost a non-existing class. This was the Elsweyr update I mentioned earlier. It gutted the class. Quite literally. If you think that sorc class was nerfed hard this patch, then look for Elsweyr patch notes. Only recently NB kinda recovered and with upcoming update they may fully recover. But there is a catch. That catch is Surprise Attack changes. Lets not afraid to say it - it is going to be over-buffed and will be a reason of substantial nerf in the future. And I am NB main, that tries very hard to be objective, as often things can get blurry if you main certain class or use certain abilities.

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

Did you guys scroll past the thing at the top where they say it's not even guaranteeing crit from flank?

If you think it will be remotely near 100% from flank, my failure to routinely crit from cloak would like to have a word.

I wonder how many people upset that NB is getting a minor buff after being nerfed either directly or indirectly for over a year play the actual top classes but pretend like they don't.

boi_anachronism_ · July 2022

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

This was the Elsweyr update I mentioned earlier. It gutted the class. Quite literally. If you think that sorc class was nerfed hard this patch, then look for Elsweyr patch notes.

I just looked at these 0_o holy crap. That is a capital N nerf. As a NB main I'm really not pumped. I'm mostly mag and all they did for mag with nerf twisting path 😂😭

schoober · July 2022

Magblade is so bad atm in pvp that they will take away one of the few viable skills for gankers

Jeezye · July 2022

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

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?

Theres more than enough nbs doing just that and being very effective with it. Guaranteed cries will benefit these players even more.

I’ve always played brawler magblade with SS, but given the loaded veiled morphes I’m actually almost forced running a melee build to stay competitive

Falcon_of_light · July 2022

KingExecration wrote: »

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

So maybe nb get tankiness like every other class or maybe gapcloser with stun like all other classes, or have in face dps like all other classes?

xDeusEJRx · July 2022

The veiled strike change just seems like a nerf to gank builds and completely disregard nightblades that don't play with shadowy disguise. How exactly are we gonnna fit fear into our toolkit and be able to combo with it? It's going to arguably be worse than before.

Fear > incap/soul harvest > assassin's will? 3 skills just to get our combo off now? There's no chance you can land a combo the way they "intend" us to play with the toolkit

Incap already has a cast time and bow has a slow travel time that is easy to dodge and if you try to combo that way you will almost never hit someone unless they are already stam checked...

The only cc possibility is trying to medium weave a heavy attack to stun from off balance. But even then, there's no guarantee you can even do that with how small a burst window you get in PVP. I can off balance them with veiled strike but they can easily cc me or body block me. People in PVP swarm very often so trying to target 1 guy while people body block them makes off balance stunning people really bad to play with.

I literally think this change was only made with shadowy disguise builds in mind, considering it came with a caluurion's legacy nerf. No more surprise attack incap caluurion out of stealth. But severely gimps nightblades who play dark cloak brawl style. And they gave a new buff to replace concealed weapon's passives STILL only applies to people who use shadowy disguise, once again it's not universal buffs.

ZoS only make updates for shadowy disguise play and always gimp people who don't like cloak play and this is another one that will just make playing no-cloak even less fun than it is now. So much for variety and play how you want

Anti_Virus · August 2022

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

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?

Every class has to use slot a CC skill, now nightblades have to aswell get used to it.

Vetixio · August 2022

It is one of the most overloaded skills atm and will still be the highest damage spammable in PvP but without its pretty much guaranteed stun players might be able to react to Stamblades high burst damage.

X_K · August 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?

SA should proc off balance. proc sundering and do slightly more than it does now. but without guarenteed crit. the crit is so unhealthy for PvE and PvP

birdik · August 2022

X_K wrote: »

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?

SA should proc off balance. proc sundering and do slightly more than it does now. but without guarenteed crit. the crit is so unhealthy for PvE and PvP

You mean does nothing?) Vs plar's aoe, slow, heal/major brutality

FlopsyPrince · August 2022

Getting an unbreakable stun and then death makes PvP so much fun!

xDeusEJRx · August 2022

Anti_Virus wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

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?

Every class has to use slot a CC skill, now nightblades have to aswell get used to it.

Yeah but most classes have multiple skills all wrapped in one. Whereas nightblades have to slot a ton of skills to do 1 thing. You need a spammable (veiled strike), reaper's mark(source of breach), entropy/rally/drain power(source of brutality/sorcery), fear now(cc source), siphoning attacks(source of sustain and small healing), Cloak(source of major resolve), Grim focus(your burst ability)

7 skills which are not flex spots at all, and you will need to have all in order to get your basic stat needs
Meanwhile other classes:

Warden: major sorcery/brutality and sustain all in 1 skill(netch), burst and major breach in 1 skill(deep fissure), New warden wings grants CC immunity and movement speed, (as well as minor berserk in one morph or minor evasion in another morph) all in 1 skill. Arctic blast is now an AoE instant stun that also has an instant heal on activation that scales off highest stats now and a DoT all in 1 skill.

Necromancer: Beckoning armor is major resolve and a pull CC in one skill(not the best CC but still a cc nonetheless) in 1 skill, Restoring tether (super sustain and healing) all in 1 skill, Expunge and modify (purge and sustain in 1 skill)

Templar: rune focus(heal, armor buff and sustain in one skill), repentance (super source of sustain, grants instant stamina per corpse and health as well as increasing recoveries), Backlash (has source of breach and burst in one skill)

I could continue on, but the point is so many other classes get all their utility abilities all in one kit meanwhile nightblades kit forces you to run so many abilities just to get the same results allowing NO flexibility in pvp. And this just forces your toolkit to be more tight than it already is.