Skarzog wrote: »

Although I think Night Blade has its issues, many of which are just bugs that for some reason have not been fixed for months going into Beta. But ZOE's lack of ability to fix bugs is beside the point.

I think a larger issue which people naturally tie into the NB class is a light armor vs medum armor and magicka vs stamina issue. Most people want to play the medium armor / stamina weapon based NB, so this issue is more prevalent for this class.

In terms of light armor vs medium armor, its quite simple; light armor is just better. It offers better resource management, it offers better damage buffs, it offers better damage mitigation. The last three talents from the medium tree are all pretty situational or down right bad.

1. Improved sneak is a good talent, but its highly situational. Beside the opening strike this talent is fairly useless. It would be better placed in the assassination or shadow tree.

2. Haste is just bad right now. If you know how to properly manipulate animations, you should barely be benefiting from haste.

3. Last talent is dedicated to increasing sprint speed, useless in combat. And reducing dodge roll cost, but dodge roll does not help if mobs are just beating on you with unavoidable light/ranged/spell attacks.

In comparison to the increased spell resist, crit chance, and spell resist ignore from light armor, these talents are crap for combat.

There is also the issue of magicka vs stamina, in that magicka is the dominant stat. There are plenty of viable magicka only builds at the moment, but the reverse is not true for stamina. Primarily because all class abilities are magicka based.

Nailed it!

martymart76_ESO wrote: »

Jarnhand wrote: »

gloryhammer wrote: »

Damm.. I rolled a NB, cause I wanted to be a Khajit with knives (claws) and NB seemed to be the best suited choice.. So far its nice (lvl 25), but if everyone is saying it sucks later in the game..
Maybe I'll try to level my argonian DK in parallel (lvl 15). Chose DK for him cause he kinda looks like a dragon Dont think dragons are best knows for swiming 50% then other creatures, but it still looks suitable

Try specing heavy in Assassination. With DW weapon. What I am trying out. At low levels at least, high damage. Far higher then what my DK had at similar levels.

Yeah that'll stop once you get to 50+. Then you will see DK's and Sorcerers and some Templars putting your damage to absolute shame.

Liar. No class takes out a mob at the speed a NB does. No class skill hits as hard as a veiled strike either.

ahspear37 wrote: »

Does anyone think that a slight nerf to vet content difficulty would help as well? I just keep hearing how difficult it is and I can't help but think that, because it's so difficult, it pigeon-holes people into only a few builds, and leaves the rest to re-spec or create an alt. I'm not saying to make it super easy, I just mean that perhaps it's too difficult for all but a few select builds. If that is the case, then clearly it's broken as well, and maybe the solution isn't to add more AoE skills, but to scale down the packs of mobs in vet content, or maybe rework the aggro system, anything to open the door for more diverse builds in vet content. If they did this, and rebalanced the NB along with fixing the general bugs in the game, I think it would not only solve a lot of PvE problems, but even some PvP problems people are having. Any thoughts?

It wont solve problems just postpone them. So youll be able to get through VR content with a weaker build/class... great. Then you start doing AZs, people want to get to the leaderboard and all of a sudden your class/build/favorite playstyle turns out to be severly underperforming and noone accepts you in their group.

merfpmerfinton wrote: »

I always find it kind of funny when people try to say the NB isn't an assassin class.
While it's true you don't have to play it that way, it is the default setup.

Create a new NB and cycle through the armor options. You're shown in full leather w/ dual daggers. If you don't think that means anything, then take a look at our class lines. Aside from having a line actually named "Assassination"...we have several actives and passives that involve stealth.
Master Assassin
Shadow Barrier
Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon.
Ambush doesn't need to be used from stealth, but it certainly implies it. You don't ambush someone while in plain sight...
I doubt anyone who didn't have previous insight into this class picked it with the intention of using a staff.

My problem with the class is that it feels overwhelmingly mediocre.

Our single target dps basically consists of turning on Siphoning Strikes and spamming Surprise Attack and a sta dump. While this gives good numbers it's F'ing ***.

Pretty much. We have to put in alot of buffs/toggles we shouldnt need to do any dmg at all, and then we only have room for 2 or 3 attacks per bar.
If you are melee, like most rolled NB to be, along with bow, you end up pretty much spamming veiled strike. Bow is so crappy dmg its not even viable.

What makes it even worse, is that you need light amor for the passive magicka bonuses to do more dmg with class skills, but you need medium armor to get more crit for the class skills.
NB shoulda been a pure stamina class from the start.

martymart76_ESO wrote: »

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

Now your dead wrong. NB are not assassin, in oblivion assassin and nb were 2 deferent class. NB is to rogue what a battlemage is to warrior

Assassin TYPE class. Rogue. Thief. Whatever the hell you want to nitpick and call it. You're trying to derail the topic which is that Nightblades need some buffing, and arguing about silly side-track stuff.

Actually NB are NOT Rogues or Thieves or whatever you want to call it.
Its just a frame with a few skills. I play a shadowknight type char and it works great. You can play an Illusionist caster, a Bloodhealer and many more.
I really dont get why people so often say that a "true" NB has to wear medium armor and use bow / daggers.
That is completely not true.
What i do agree on is that if people chose that playstyle, it should be viable.

I'll tell you what. Make the class skill trees stamina based and change the last two medium armor skills to something more useful and this class should perform a whole heap better.

I don't understand why they even have a stamina bar in this game. Of course the class is going to be useless when you try and play it with medium armor like you would expect to when you roll a nightblade.

Aside from just a couple bugs, I really enjoy the Bloodmage build, and I've actually outlasted a DK tank in a public dungeon running heal/dps (this just happened last night actually).

However, I ran a dungeon with a NB that was 6 levels above me, specced for rogue/assassin, and they were dying any time they got out of range of my healing. They were good enough on paper, but even they commented on how little damage they were doing with their bow and how broken their stealth was. They couldn't use their stealth to help us in the dungeon and basically was relegated to long range bow damage, which was minimal. I'm sure it's common knowledge to those on this thread, but I don't play my NB as a Rogue and it's the first time I have ever seen one in battle. After seeing it, I definitely recognize how underpowered it is as a build. I'm really hoping this new patch fixes some bugs that are reducing NB to glass cannons with no reward for the high risk.

FrauPerchta wrote: »

There's a lot of ZOS's stated game philosophy for ESO that the Devs totally missed the mark on. NB is very viable if you play/build around the game mechanics that are present rather than building on how you think the class should work.

Adapt to the game because the game isn't going to adapt to you.

If thats the attitude the devs have, I dont see a very bright future for this game.

FrauPerchta wrote: »

There's a lot of ZOS's stated game philosophy for ESO that the Devs totally missed the mark on. NB is very viable if you play/build around the game mechanics that are present rather than building on how you think the class should work.

Adapt to the game because the game isn't going to adapt to you.

Ambush, hit from cloak/stealth, its not meant to be played like that? Who not playing it like that? OFC you can be healer or tank as NB too.

Kypho wrote: »

I dont think NB is weak compared to other classes. Its unique at least in my opinion. Had never better playtime than with NB, bugged or not. and i stick to it.

If the class skills worked properly, then yeah, I'd agree NB is fine. And tbh, since I imagine ZOS intend to fix the broken skills fairly sharpish, I could /thread there.

I'm not gonna, tho, since I think the problem is more in both the medium armour line (which is the weakest armour choice full stop) AND in the dual wield line - the NB skills are fine. There's some decent skills in DW, but they don't really synergize with anything else and they don't really synergize together, either. Nightblades see this more due to the relative popularity of medium armour/DW in the class - you just don't see other classes using these two lines in conjunction. And that's because they're both weak. It's only because we kinda of expected the NB to be the medium armour dual-wielder (and people who have come from playing rogues in other games have naturally gone for exactly that) that NBs are the ones really suffering here.

DW has less damage than 2handed and has less AOE; it lacks the range advantages of the bows and staffs, and it's not got the survivability and bash advantages of sword and board. It's the worst weapon choice, for the most part.

Add to that Medium Armour's very obvious limitations (awful active, poor passives) and this kinda screws any DW build in medium armour (in high vet content, anyway) for ANY class.

DW should really build up crit chance a lot more. I mean a LOT more. This is the usual weapon set of the assassin, yet it's 2-hander that gets an autocrit skill? I'd have expected a 3-rank passive adding +5% per point in this tree as the first available - rather than the lackluster Slaughter - and to be seeing NBs with crit rates of 50%+ running around, relying on weapon damage and luck to nuke down single-targets. Instead, while DW is good on single target, it isn't good enough to make up for no AOE.

Meanwhile, Medium Armour needs some actual mitigation in the tree. See that 15% dodge from Evasion? That should probably be a passive and permanent. Like 1% dodge chance per piece of medium armour equipped, for example. At all times. Pin that on Agility and you have a 2-point skill giving upto 7% dodge chance permanently... THAT would make it worthwhile. The active could be switched to a stamina-costing version of Cloak of Shadows... or a knockdown, or a stun. Things which a worth using a slot for, and would complement the rest of the build.

i play NB, i own ppl hard, and when i do that i jsut realise how BAD they are, how much *** bad they are...

*sigh*

I usually play a healing class in MMO's, but decided to try nightblade in this game, since it was advertised as more open playstyles. I enjoyed it at very early levels, but started struggling in my 20's. I decided to try bows, and that made it fun again for a while, but I started struggling again in my 30's. My husband often plays rogues, and talked me into trying his light armor destr/resto staff stealth NB build, I guess it is the bloodmage style. He also talked me into going vampire. It does work better than dw or bows, but it is still just painful to play.

Spent almost 10k to respec.

I can now one hit most single mobs, 2 or even 3 I can handle. But if I am caught off guard, or get an add, there isn't much I can do.
It isn't a lot of fun. I'm stealthing along, taking out singles and 2's in a dungeon, snaking by mobs, and a sorc or dk comes blazing by killing everything in their path at full speed. I can't really say how depressing that is!

So I rolled a sorc. I have never ever in 13 years of playing mmo's played a base mage class, but damn! I don't even know what I am doing and I can take on large groups of mobs. My sorc is 45 now, and I NEVER had that "weak" feeling like I did with my NB.

I have no desire to ever play my NB again in pve. I still log on as she is my provisioner and enchanter and now my main bank mule.

So yes, the disparity is huge. Can NB's be powerful? Yes. My sorc can't one shot mobs like my NB can. But it is extremely situational, and it is slow. My sorc has more utility in almost every situation, and with points into resto staff with dark exchange, also makes an excellent group healer! I can solo, am desired in groups, and have all sorts of cc and/or aoes for pvp.

NB as is might be fun if this were a single player game, but it isn't.

Agree with everyone here, please give our NB's some love!

Noone wants to dumb down the class to a single archetype. In fact its quite the opposite. People would like multiple equally viable playstyles to be contained within it. Theyd also like the class to be equally viable to others. I dont mind high skill cap classes, but if its supposed to be the risk vs. reward class im not seeing the rewards compared to the easier classes.

martymart76_ESO wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

If I remember correctly, I thought I saw something in the Reddit AMA that they would be toning down the vet content slightly? Having just hit VR3 on my NB (only character), I've already respecced twice. The Medium armor, bow/duel wield build I had leveling up just does not cut it anymore. The new build I'm running has yielded much more success but now I'm in full light armor, running a bow/destroy staff. Not what I had envisioned when I created him. That's not to say I'm not enjoying the build, because I am. What I'm saying is that I shouldn't be forced out of a playstyle due to broken skills and lackluster survivability.

This. 100 times this. "The class is fine l2p" crowd all play extremely similar builds and live in an ivory tower in which everything is totally fine.

i didnt get my build from a forum or a video and i do quite well in the single player VR PvE content. I knew what I wanted to do: smash faces up close and personal, use very little of the sorc class specific tree-line, don't die a lot. Simple. There were a few times I had to go to the drawing board and rethink my strategy but i made what I wanted to do a viable option. I am VR 6 btw and I play a melee sorc with 0 points in Magica, 12 health and 37 sta. For my bars I am 2h/2h the primary being the action bar and the 2nd a buff/utility bar. I wear 5 med and 2heavy. both my health and sta are at the soft caps for max and recovery. My weopon dmg is at the soft cap with surge and rally active. my down time between fights is negligible. My biggest challenge is the big hp pool or something with recovery ie...troll or storm atronacht.

I have to be careful when I attack groups of 3 or more, but not soo careful that I lose fun. is this not what we want out of a game...a challenge, a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of satisfaction when you draw up a character play style and through practice and guile you are able to make it work? Everyone loved ninja gaiden and that game for most who played was impossible, myself included. I can remember all three quests in ESO that I could not finish without help. Only 3 in the 2/3rds of the game i have played through. Acceptable statistics in my opinion.

I notice that when I am wreckless or try to steamroll the enemy they steamroll me. This is not like other MMOs i have played where the outcome of a battle is pre-determined by my level or gear...each fight is different based on how well i react to what the enemy is doing. I Love It. I hate getting killed by minions, but it happens when I think I dont have to pay attention.

I absolutely feel that if you are struggling with the single player content it is due to your game plan and skill level more than the difficulty of the game.

My biggest complaint with the combat system is all system performance items such as broken passives and skills and swinging through the enemy. I wholeheartedly want the broken active and passives to be addresses and I am faithful they will be. I am also confident the random unresponsiveness of combat will be fixed. It is very difficult to block the heavy attacks when I never see them coming.

Guess that was a very long winded way of saying "it's not the game it's you, Learn to Block and Roll Dodge"

happy hunting