"Imbue Weapon" / "Crystal Weapon": I simply don't understand why a setup skill that relies on something as basic as light or heavy attacks is deemed too dangerous—it makes no sense. Right now, gankers are just weak glass cannons compared to Werewolves and DKs.

To be honest, this isn't an adjustment that balances the skill; instead, it renders it useless for this specific combat situation. If you’re exposed and take the time to wind up a heavy attack, you’ll just get interrupted or hit by a Lava Whip immediately... there are surely better solutions. At the very least, for melee fighters, these abilities don't affect a projectile that has already been fired—unlike the bow's arrow, which actually received a buff here.

The expert hunter change to be the same as a stealth detect potion is WILDLY OP and UNNEEDED and UNFAIR. Thats like making an ability that turned off sorc's streak in a 43.5m radius or turned off Dmg shields or removed DKs ability to use their sustain tools that allow them to sustain while hold block forever or to turn off all cleanses in a 43.5m radius with one ability. The stealth detect potion lasted like 13 seconds, and was plenty strong and made 90% of NBs an easy kill while good NBs don't need cloak as much and can survive just fine with shade and traditional survival tools. This just makes the class even more annoying to play compared to a sorc or dk. I am sick of stealth and cloak always eternally having these systemic counters added into the game just to invalidate my most class defining ability. I don't need cloak, but I would like to be able to use it on my rogue coded class without everyone being able to just turn it off with no cool down because everyone has infinite sustain and can spam it now that its on an ability. Stealth detect pots were fine because it was on a 45 second cool down, but this is just terrible.

They focused on these toxic DM changes like they're predujidec against cloak and NB as a concept instead of QoL things like making Dark vigor and Magicka flood work while an ability is slotted on EITHER BAR and not just the bar where its slotted! I literally lose 4k HP for switching to my FB all because I like cloak and shade on my BB. Or how about class mastery changes? NB got the WORST class mastery nerfs with the battle spirit condition making them inconsequential in PVP.

Nb was already widely considered in a bad state and they go and make it even worse to play while not touching DK hardly at all. NB, the class nobody plays rn, got more changes than Dk and it was 95% nerfs

And don't even get me started on Rally stealth changes!

I feel like a man with 1 pet sheep that I love like daughter who is having it taken away and stolen so the guy with 50k sheep can feed it to his guest without having to take from his own

It feels so bad I'm going to quit because the game was already heavily imbalanced and not in an acceptable state. The only thing is I had hope for this patch and to see good changes. My hope is gone and Zos is going the opposite direction. I'm not paying any more money. I was thinking about buying a year of ESO plus for the first time too. Glad I waited

XVestigeXx wrote: »

The expert hunter change to be the same as a stealth detect potion is WILDLY OP and UNNEEDED and UNFAIR. Thats like making an ability that turned off sorc's streak in a 43.5m radius or turned off Dmg shields or removed DKs ability to use their sustain tools that allow them to sustain while hold block forever or to turn off all cleanses in a 43.5m radius with one ability. The stealth detect potion lasted like 13 seconds, and was plenty strong and made 90% of NBs an easy kill while good NBs don't need cloak as much and can survive just fine with shade and traditional survival tools. This just makes the class even more annoying to play compared to a sorc or dk. I am sick of stealth and cloak always eternally having these systemic counters added into the game just to invalidate my most class defining ability. I don't need cloak, but I would like to be able to use it on my rogue coded class without everyone being able to just turn it off with no cool down because everyone has infinite sustain and can spam it now that its on an ability. Stealth detect pots were fine because it was on a 45 second cool down, but this is just terrible.

They focused on these toxic DM changes like they're predujidec against cloak and NB as a concept instead of QoL things like making Dark vigor and Magicka flood work while an ability is slotted on EITHER BAR and not just the bar where its slotted! I literally lose 4k HP for switching to my FB all because I like cloak and shade on my BB. Or how about class mastery changes? NB got the WORST class mastery nerfs with the battle spirit condition making them inconsequential in PVP.

Nb was already widely considered in a bad state and they go and make it even worse to play while not touching DK hardly at all. NB, the class nobody plays rn, got more changes than Dk and it was 95% nerfs

And don't even get me started on Rally stealth changes!

I feel like a man with 1 pet sheep that I love like daughter who is having it taken away and stolen so the guy with 50k sheep can feed it to his guest without having to take from his own

It feels so bad I'm going to quit because the game was already heavily imbalanced and not in an acceptable state. The only thing is I had hope for this patch and to see good changes. My hope is gone and Zos is going the opposite direction. I'm not paying any more money. I was thinking about buying a year of ESO plus for the first time too. Glad I waited

Yeah, the lack of NB class mastery updates for PvP is baffling. I understand why they were cautious, but their options are honestly so bad. And they seem to want NBs to play brawler builds but they aren't giving the class the actual tools it need to compete with already existing brawler builds. How is a non-stealthy Nightblade going to fight a current Werewolf or DK, or even Sorcerer right now? Baffling.

At least Nightblade deals awesome damage in PvE, but if PvE is not your cup of tea and you only play one main, what are you going to do if your main is a NB?

Luneca wrote: »

I actually disagree. Cloak is powerful as long as you cannot be revealed and has needed reigning in a long time ago. The only problem is that NB wasn't compensated elsewhere when it's already a bad class in the current patch. If people don't want to be detected, then there should be an option to build into that instead of giving it away for free.

Then no one can complain once it becomes a build decision instead of an add-on. But at the same time, the class needs buffing and not in the damage department.

@Luneca But that's the thing. You can be revealed quite easily. In fact, if you have damage numbers on display and put Elemental Susceptibility on the cloaking Nightblade, even if they cloak away, the moment they get out of cloak, the next time your Ele Sus deals damage to them, you will get the numbers displayed at the Nightblade's new current location. And how many people are using Ele Sus nowaday again?
Werewolves now have a built in sniffing mechanic. Good thing werewolves aren't popular at all!
People are still carrying detection potions and Camouflaged Hunter and Flare both have reasons to slot them for purposes other than what they are actually meant for - revealing stealthed targets.
You can also, still, chase a cloaked Nightblade with DK Fire Breath, Templar jabs, or Solar Barrage which works as a stealth detection skill because it doesn't fire unless there is a target within range - and guess what happens to invisible targets within range. So a NB, even one that's just trying to sneak past you to capture your relic, will be caught by it!

I also don't get what your point even is. Did you actually read my post? How exactly was Cloak "reigned in"? Most of the stuff they changed doesn't address "the power of Cloak" at all and actually affects Sneaking more than it affects Cloak. This is (supposedly) a consistency pass, targetting things like Overload from stealth, perhaps subclassed setups. Pure Nightblades don't use Bone Armor, Earthspike Mantle or Blazing Shield. When was the last time you saw anyone use Annulment considering it forces you to wear 5 pieces of light armor? And let's not forget that Nightblades can switch to Forward Momentum or wait for Rally to run out naturally for the heal.

This is about stealth in general and not just Nightblade.

Luneca wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

I actually disagree. Cloak is powerful as long as you cannot be revealed and has needed reigning in a long time ago. The only problem is that NB wasn't compensated elsewhere when it's already a bad class in the current patch. If people don't want to be detected, then there should be an option to build into that instead of giving it away for free.

Then no one can complain once it becomes a build decision instead of an add-on. But at the same time, the class needs buffing and not in the damage department.

@Luneca But that's the thing. You can be revealed quite easily. In fact, if you have damage numbers on display and put Elemental Susceptibility on the cloaking Nightblade, even if they cloak away, the moment they get out of cloak, the next time your Ele Sus deals damage to them, you will get the numbers displayed at the Nightblade's new current location. And how many people are using Ele Sus nowaday again?
Werewolves now have a built in sniffing mechanic. Good thing werewolves aren't popular at all!
People are still carrying detection potions and Camouflaged Hunter and Flare both have reasons to slot them for purposes other than what they are actually meant for - revealing stealthed targets.
You can also, still, chase a cloaked Nightblade with DK Fire Breath, Templar jabs, or Solar Barrage which works as a stealth detection skill because it doesn't fire unless there is a target within range - and guess what happens to invisible targets within range. So a NB, even one that's just trying to sneak past you to capture your relic, will be caught by it!

I also don't get what your point even is. Did you actually read my post? How exactly was Cloak "reigned in"? Most of the stuff they changed doesn't address "the power of Cloak" at all and actually affects Sneaking more than it affects Cloak. This is (supposedly) a consistency pass, targetting things like Overload from stealth, perhaps subclassed setups. Pure Nightblades don't use Bone Armor, Earthspike Mantle or Blazing Shield. When was the last time you saw anyone use Annulment considering it forces you to wear 5 pieces of light armor? And let's not forget that Nightblades can switch to Forward Momentum or wait for Rally to run out naturally for the heal.

This is about stealth in general and not just Nightblade.

Cloak and stealth both needed reigning in. And "damage numbers being shown" doesn't help you target them. Just so you know, I play an NB and I use cloak and invis pots all the time along with crouching in combat. I do a jumping roll and crouch in actual combat btw.

Despite all of the detection you've stated , it makes no statistical difference to me in actual PvP. Maybe because the effects of it are overstated.

Also I use 5 LA and I don't use Annulment because it's a waste of bar space in the context of NB, not because I'm not wearing LA.

You seem to think you're the only nightblade here. You're not. But you are the one desperately trying to protect a mechanic that was overdue for addressing.

It's just unfortunate they haven't bothered to buff the class elsewhere to compensate for it, since the changes they've done pushed it into the direction of using the mechanic as a crutch in the first place. Ah well, I still have my siege.

Luneica, I have done nothing but main my NB in eso pvp up to CP 2000 and I completely disagree with everything you said about nightblade and cloak and your arguements strike me as coming from someone who just doesn't want to engage with detecting stealth at all which is like being upset about blocking, roll dodging or sprinting or some other core mechanic of the game and complaining that they need nerfed because they annoy you. Stealth and invis have been repeatedly nerfed and "reigned in" as you say over and over again not to mention that detect pots just turn it off for like 13 seconds with a 30 second cool down

Ratzkifal is completely right, there is already a extremely strong counterplay available to everyone, whether they want to run stealth detect abilities/pots or not. to make detection any stronger by giving expert hunter 43.5m of range just invalidates the core mechanic. Just because you may find this core mechanic personally annoying does not mean we should just remove it. How absurd would it be if I got mad about a DK blocking in pvp and I said we should remove blocking from the game and change DK's block passives? That'd be absurd. So please realize you might be being prejudiced here. Maybe you've run NB before, but if you have mained the class and played on a more advanced level against other classes I think you would agree more with us. But regardless I have to side with Ratzkifal on this one.

As for buffs for nb, they just need to remove the Battle spirit nerfs to all the class masteries on NB and make cuttthroats focus last 20 seconds on the debuff and the dodge be 0.5 seconds instead of 0.3. I still don't understand why NB is the only class to get these unusual pvp restrictions while nobody else got them. the class masteries on nb as they stand amount to ~a 200 on average wpn dmg buff, or a 5% crit dmg buff, or a 5 second 5% dmg taken debuff tied to a 0.3 sec timed block cast of specific abilities that you can only proc if you parry the enemy in that 0.3 second window. Very underwhelming. I mean even warden gets 1000 wpn dmg just for casting ele sus. Nb shouldn't have all these restrictions and hoops to jump through while classes like sorc are far mor oppressive than nb not to even mention DK or WW

XVestigeXx wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

I actually disagree. Cloak is powerful as long as you cannot be revealed and has needed reigning in a long time ago. The only problem is that NB wasn't compensated elsewhere when it's already a bad class in the current patch. If people don't want to be detected, then there should be an option to build into that instead of giving it away for free.

Then no one can complain once it becomes a build decision instead of an add-on. But at the same time, the class needs buffing and not in the damage department.

@Luneca But that's the thing. You can be revealed quite easily. In fact, if you have damage numbers on display and put Elemental Susceptibility on the cloaking Nightblade, even if they cloak away, the moment they get out of cloak, the next time your Ele Sus deals damage to them, you will get the numbers displayed at the Nightblade's new current location. And how many people are using Ele Sus nowaday again?
Werewolves now have a built in sniffing mechanic. Good thing werewolves aren't popular at all!
People are still carrying detection potions and Camouflaged Hunter and Flare both have reasons to slot them for purposes other than what they are actually meant for - revealing stealthed targets.
You can also, still, chase a cloaked Nightblade with DK Fire Breath, Templar jabs, or Solar Barrage which works as a stealth detection skill because it doesn't fire unless there is a target within range - and guess what happens to invisible targets within range. So a NB, even one that's just trying to sneak past you to capture your relic, will be caught by it!

I also don't get what your point even is. Did you actually read my post? How exactly was Cloak "reigned in"? Most of the stuff they changed doesn't address "the power of Cloak" at all and actually affects Sneaking more than it affects Cloak. This is (supposedly) a consistency pass, targetting things like Overload from stealth, perhaps subclassed setups. Pure Nightblades don't use Bone Armor, Earthspike Mantle or Blazing Shield. When was the last time you saw anyone use Annulment considering it forces you to wear 5 pieces of light armor? And let's not forget that Nightblades can switch to Forward Momentum or wait for Rally to run out naturally for the heal.

This is about stealth in general and not just Nightblade.

Cloak and stealth both needed reigning in. And "damage numbers being shown" doesn't help you target them. Just so you know, I play an NB and I use cloak and invis pots all the time along with crouching in combat. I do a jumping roll and crouch in actual combat btw.

Despite all of the detection you've stated , it makes no statistical difference to me in actual PvP. Maybe because the effects of it are overstated.

Also I use 5 LA and I don't use Annulment because it's a waste of bar space in the context of NB, not because I'm not wearing LA.

You seem to think you're the only nightblade here. You're not. But you are the one desperately trying to protect a mechanic that was overdue for addressing.

It's just unfortunate they haven't bothered to buff the class elsewhere to compensate for it, since the changes they've done pushed it into the direction of using the mechanic as a crutch in the first place. Ah well, I still have my siege.

Luneica, I have done nothing but main my NB in eso pvp up to CP 2000 and I completely disagree with everything you said about nightblade and cloak and your arguements strike me as coming from someone who just doesn't want to engage with detecting stealth at all which is like being upset about blocking, roll dodging or sprinting or some other core mechanic of the game and complaining that they need nerfed because they annoy you. Stealth and invis have been repeatedly nerfed and "reigned in" as you say over and over again not to mention that detect pots just turn it off for like 13 seconds with a 30 second cool down

Ratzkifal is completely right, there is already a extremely strong counterplay available to everyone, whether they want to run stealth detect abilities/pots or not. to make detection any stronger by giving expert hunter 43.5m of range just invalidates the core mechanic. Just because you may find this core mechanic personally annoying does not mean we should just remove it. How absurd would it be if I got mad about a DK blocking in pvp and I said we should remove blocking from the game and change DK's block passives? That'd be absurd. So please realize you might be being prejudiced here. Maybe you've run NB before, but if you have mained the class and played on a more advanced level against other classes I think you would agree more with us. But regardless I have to side with Ratzkifal on this one.

As for buffs for nb, they just need to remove the Battle spirit nerfs to all the class masteries on NB and make cuttthroats focus last 20 seconds on the debuff and the dodge be 0.5 seconds instead of 0.3. I still don't understand why NB is the only class to get these unusual pvp restrictions while nobody else got them. the class masteries on nb as they stand amount to ~a 200 on average wpn dmg buff, or a 5% crit dmg buff, or a 5 second 5% dmg taken debuff tied to a 0.3 sec timed block cast of specific abilities that you can only proc if you parry the enemy in that 0.3 second window. Very underwhelming. I mean even warden gets 1000 wpn dmg just for casting ele sus. Nb shouldn't have all these restrictions and hoops to jump through while classes like sorc are far mor oppressive than nb not to even mention DK or WW

Funny how you cheered others getting nerfed, but draw the line at Stealth/Cloak/Invis -- one of the poorest mechanics implemented in the game. Also, he's so right that he is wrong about Elemental Susceptibility. It doesn't show damage numbers and it misses in a case of invisibility: when you use an invisibility pot.

Sorry, but I can't take someone seriously when they don't even know that basic fact in the game. Anyone can log into live right now and test it out. I use it all the time. And I use stealth all the time too in PvP, including forcing misses point blank.

But go ahead and lecture me about how I don't want to use the "tools to engage" stealth when I am using it.

Also, does a DK holding block stop you from targeting them? It doesn't. As for nonsense like the "advanced" term you decided to toss around, what exactly makes an advanced NB? Completely crutching on a singlular mechanic or running a gank/bomb build?

The class masteries aren't any good even if they weren't restricted, and that's because a pure class NB simply suffers from the same exact issue a templar does: lack of actual skills worth slotting.

The defensive mechanic in the class is summarized by cloak, which is either OP or trash depending on the context, and the roll button.

The offensive rotation is completely countered by the roll button or simply stacking direct damage mitigation of any kind -- which is the META because all DoT builds got turned to garbage to placate terrible NBs that complained about dying from DoTs while stealthed, along with tower runners, and sorcs that couldn't streak the DoTs off before they died.

It's funny how balance changes that some of you guys asked for and begged for ultimately ruined the class more. And now it's a problem that ZOS is looking to add parity to stealth and detect playstyles because ganking is the only thing left on the class thanks to other NBs that didn't understand what they were requesting when they protected cloak over asking for buffs elsewhere so they can keep their gank and bomb builds and pretend it's balanced.

And you want to continue that trend. Well, not me. This was always going to happen because it's a poor design decision when a mechanic can stop damage 100% of the time, even if conditionally. But you don't see it that way becuase it's you that holds the bias.

This feels like a massive overraction to pulse gankers. Crystal wep and tome bearer not stacking and preventing stealth were already plenty nerfs, and the stealth changes don't bring actual consistency either.
Evil hunter now has the same radius as detect pots except it can be up permanently, and ofc wws get it for basically free. Potion dete t has short duration and long cooldown.

Funny how you cheered others getting nerfed, but draw the line at Stealth/Cloak/Invis -- one of the poorest mechanics implemented in the game. Also, he's so right that he is wrong about Elemental Susceptibility. It doesn't show damage numbers and it misses in a case of invisibility: when you use an invisibility pot.

Sorry, but I can't take someone seriously when they don't even know that basic fact in the game. Anyone can log into live right now and test it out. I use it all the time. And I use stealth all the time too in PvP, including forcing misses point blank.

But go ahead and lecture me about how I don't want to use the "tools to engage" stealth when I am using it.

Also, does a DK holding block stop you from targeting them? It doesn't. As for nonsense like the "advanced" term you decided to toss around, what exactly makes an advanced NB? Completely crutching on a singlular mechanic or running a gank/bomb build?

The class masteries aren't any good even if they weren't restricted, and that's because a pure class NB simply suffers from the same exact issue a templar does: lack of actual skills worth slotting.

The defensive mechanic in the class is summarized by cloak, which is either OP or trash depending on the context, and the roll button.

The offensive rotation is completely countered by the roll button or simply stacking direct damage mitigation of any kind -- which is the META because all DoT builds got turned to garbage to placate terrible NBs that complained about dying from DoTs while stealthed, along with tower runners, and sorcs that couldn't streak the DoTs off before they died.

It's funny how balance changes that some of you guys asked for and begged for ultimately ruined the class more. And now it's a problem that ZOS is looking to add parity to stealth and detect playstyles because ganking is the only thing left on the class thanks to other NBs that didn't understand what they were requesting when they protected cloak over asking for buffs elsewhere so they can keep their gank and bomb builds and pretend it's balanced.

And you want to continue that trend. Well, not me. This was always going to happen because it's a poor design decision when a mechanic can stop damage 100% of the time, even if conditionally. But you don't see it that way becuase it's you that holds the bias.[/quote]

Once again, I think you need to take a step back, take a breath, and look at it objectively instead of allowing your personal bias towards the mechanic rule your thoughts over facts informing your conclusions. Sure, you can still target a dk thats blocking, but be honest, dmg to a blocking dk might as well be no dmg. The whole "you can still target them" is just disingenuous and further drives my point home that its a prejudice people have toward engaging with stealth detect tools. They're already so easy and so strong especially the potions - Which I am fine with because I can have someone turn my cloak off and be just fine because I'm a really good NB and know I can use other tools like shade, LOS, Roll Dodge, blocking, etc and I can tell when someone is detecting me through invis really easily. I am sure a lot of sorcs would be just fine if someone turned off streak as well. But the point is putting a 43.5m range stealth detect potion effect on a great ability that can be spammed with no cooldown other than resources is such a terrible move that it would be the same as turning off the other class defining abilities like cleanse on templar, or streak on sorc, or just being able to turn off roll dodges. Its really bad design. I am in favor of keeping stealth detect pots of course, just not slapping this on an ability.

Also, I cheered WW getting nerfed because it needed it and has invalidated everyone who is not also a ww or a dk. Thats just a fact.
Your ele sus point is so twiggy and not important you just used it to try to undermine my overall argument and is another example of being disingenuous and because of personal bias and pejudice towards the mechanic.

Also, to say the defensive mechanic is "summarized in cloak" is indicative of a lack of understanding of the class and the tools available to it. Any NB worth their salt will tell you the survival on a NB is either through high hp/tankyness on a dw ice staff set up with a block weapon and maybe cloak sprinkled in but not essential, or they will tell you cloak is not enough and you have to pair it with shade and general evasion tactics on 5 medium armor set ups like I run. There's a big misconception among people who fight NBs and use stealth detect against them too when they disappear anyway. They think that cloak is just OP and broken and detect isn't working when in reality its working better than intended, its just shade. On top of this, you will not find many NBs who go the shade/cloak route. in my experience the majority of NBs are mediocre easy kills because they only use cloak and rely 100% on it like its the only tool they have. This is why saying cloak is the summary of NB defense tells me you haven't spent enough time with the class or understand why the rally change and the expert hunter change are terrible decisions that mostly hurt the vast majority who are mediocre and just serves to annoy experienced NBs like me.

The truth is, Stealth is the most counterable core combat mechanic in the game easier to counter than block or dodge or Dmg shields, or whatever else you can think of. I am ok with it in its present state on live but not the PTS. The PTS is full of arbitrary, toxic, twiggy changes for no reason I can think of other than that the changes were spawned out of a prejudice from all the people who dislike rogue concepts. It is totally unfair to make these changes while ignoring elephants in the room like dk.

These stealth changes are like robbing a man of one of his two pet sheep that he loves like daughters, just so it can be butchered for the guy with thousands of sheep to eat who doesn't want to take one of his own animals

Luneca wrote: »

XVestigeXx wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

I actually disagree. Cloak is powerful as long as you cannot be revealed and has needed reigning in a long time ago. The only problem is that NB wasn't compensated elsewhere when it's already a bad class in the current patch. If people don't want to be detected, then there should be an option to build into that instead of giving it away for free.

Then no one can complain once it becomes a build decision instead of an add-on. But at the same time, the class needs buffing and not in the damage department.

@Luneca But that's the thing. You can be revealed quite easily. In fact, if you have damage numbers on display and put Elemental Susceptibility on the cloaking Nightblade, even if they cloak away, the moment they get out of cloak, the next time your Ele Sus deals damage to them, you will get the numbers displayed at the Nightblade's new current location. And how many people are using Ele Sus nowaday again?
Werewolves now have a built in sniffing mechanic. Good thing werewolves aren't popular at all!
People are still carrying detection potions and Camouflaged Hunter and Flare both have reasons to slot them for purposes other than what they are actually meant for - revealing stealthed targets.
You can also, still, chase a cloaked Nightblade with DK Fire Breath, Templar jabs, or Solar Barrage which works as a stealth detection skill because it doesn't fire unless there is a target within range - and guess what happens to invisible targets within range. So a NB, even one that's just trying to sneak past you to capture your relic, will be caught by it!

I also don't get what your point even is. Did you actually read my post? How exactly was Cloak "reigned in"? Most of the stuff they changed doesn't address "the power of Cloak" at all and actually affects Sneaking more than it affects Cloak. This is (supposedly) a consistency pass, targetting things like Overload from stealth, perhaps subclassed setups. Pure Nightblades don't use Bone Armor, Earthspike Mantle or Blazing Shield. When was the last time you saw anyone use Annulment considering it forces you to wear 5 pieces of light armor? And let's not forget that Nightblades can switch to Forward Momentum or wait for Rally to run out naturally for the heal.

This is about stealth in general and not just Nightblade.

Cloak and stealth both needed reigning in. And "damage numbers being shown" doesn't help you target them. Just so you know, I play an NB and I use cloak and invis pots all the time along with crouching in combat. I do a jumping roll and crouch in actual combat btw.

Despite all of the detection you've stated , it makes no statistical difference to me in actual PvP. Maybe because the effects of it are overstated.

Also I use 5 LA and I don't use Annulment because it's a waste of bar space in the context of NB, not because I'm not wearing LA.

You seem to think you're the only nightblade here. You're not. But you are the one desperately trying to protect a mechanic that was overdue for addressing.

It's just unfortunate they haven't bothered to buff the class elsewhere to compensate for it, since the changes they've done pushed it into the direction of using the mechanic as a crutch in the first place. Ah well, I still have my siege.

Luneica, I have done nothing but main my NB in eso pvp up to CP 2000 and I completely disagree with everything you said about nightblade and cloak and your arguements strike me as coming from someone who just doesn't want to engage with detecting stealth at all which is like being upset about blocking, roll dodging or sprinting or some other core mechanic of the game and complaining that they need nerfed because they annoy you. Stealth and invis have been repeatedly nerfed and "reigned in" as you say over and over again not to mention that detect pots just turn it off for like 13 seconds with a 30 second cool down

Ratzkifal is completely right, there is already a extremely strong counterplay available to everyone, whether they want to run stealth detect abilities/pots or not. to make detection any stronger by giving expert hunter 43.5m of range just invalidates the core mechanic. Just because you may find this core mechanic personally annoying does not mean we should just remove it. How absurd would it be if I got mad about a DK blocking in pvp and I said we should remove blocking from the game and change DK's block passives? That'd be absurd. So please realize you might be being prejudiced here. Maybe you've run NB before, but if you have mained the class and played on a more advanced level against other classes I think you would agree more with us. But regardless I have to side with Ratzkifal on this one.

As for buffs for nb, they just need to remove the Battle spirit nerfs to all the class masteries on NB and make cuttthroats focus last 20 seconds on the debuff and the dodge be 0.5 seconds instead of 0.3. I still don't understand why NB is the only class to get these unusual pvp restrictions while nobody else got them. the class masteries on nb as they stand amount to ~a 200 on average wpn dmg buff, or a 5% crit dmg buff, or a 5 second 5% dmg taken debuff tied to a 0.3 sec timed block cast of specific abilities that you can only proc if you parry the enemy in that 0.3 second window. Very underwhelming. I mean even warden gets 1000 wpn dmg just for casting ele sus. Nb shouldn't have all these restrictions and hoops to jump through while classes like sorc are far mor oppressive than nb not to even mention DK or WW

But go ahead and lecture me about how I don't want to use the "tools to engage" stealth when I am using it.

The class masteries aren't any good even if they weren't restricted, and that's because a pure class NB simply suffers from the same exact issue a templar does: lack of actual skills worth slotting.

Just wanted to address this bit here too, I will

NB has fantastic skills in Spec bow, surprise attack, incap, soul tether, siphoning strikes, shade, ambush, and others and their morphs. Nb just needs some QoL adjustments and better class masteries and it would be on the level of sorc. Except without a good unblockable stun. Every NB knows this to one degree or another

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Luneca wrote: »

I actually disagree. Cloak is powerful as long as you cannot be revealed and has needed reigning in a long time ago. The only problem is that NB wasn't compensated elsewhere when it's already a bad class in the current patch. If people don't want to be detected, then there should be an option to build into that instead of giving it away for free.

Then no one can complain once it becomes a build decision instead of an add-on. But at the same time, the class needs buffing and not in the damage department.

@Luneca But that's the thing. You can be revealed quite easily. In fact, if you have damage numbers on display and put Elemental Susceptibility on the cloaking Nightblade, even if they cloak away, the moment they get out of cloak, the next time your Ele Sus deals damage to them, you will get the numbers displayed at the Nightblade's new current location. And how many people are using Ele Sus nowaday again?
Werewolves now have a built in sniffing mechanic. Good thing werewolves aren't popular at all!
People are still carrying detection potions and Camouflaged Hunter and Flare both have reasons to slot them for purposes other than what they are actually meant for - revealing stealthed targets.
You can also, still, chase a cloaked Nightblade with DK Fire Breath, Templar jabs, or Solar Barrage which works as a stealth detection skill because it doesn't fire unless there is a target within range - and guess what happens to invisible targets within range. So a NB, even one that's just trying to sneak past you to capture your relic, will be caught by it!

I also don't get what your point even is. Did you actually read my post? How exactly was Cloak "reigned in"? Most of the stuff they changed doesn't address "the power of Cloak" at all and actually affects Sneaking more than it affects Cloak. This is (supposedly) a consistency pass, targetting things like Overload from stealth, perhaps subclassed setups. Pure Nightblades don't use Bone Armor, Earthspike Mantle or Blazing Shield. When was the last time you saw anyone use Annulment considering it forces you to wear 5 pieces of light armor? And let's not forget that Nightblades can switch to Forward Momentum or wait for Rally to run out naturally for the heal.

This is about stealth in general and not just Nightblade.

Cloak and stealth both needed reigning in. And "damage numbers being shown" doesn't help you target them. Just so you know, I play an NB and I use cloak and invis pots all the time along with crouching in combat. I do a jumping roll and crouch in actual combat btw.

Despite all of the detection you've stated , it makes no statistical difference to me in actual PvP. Maybe because the effects of it are overstated.

Also I use 5 LA and I don't use Annulment because it's a waste of bar space in the context of NB, not because I'm not wearing LA.

You seem to think you're the only nightblade here. You're not. But you are the one desperately trying to protect a mechanic that was overdue for addressing.

It's just unfortunate they haven't bothered to buff the class elsewhere to compensate for it, since the changes they've done pushed it into the direction of using the mechanic as a crutch in the first place. Ah well, I still have my siege.

I'm not a Nightblade player myself. Not in PvP anyway, I just got a tank and DD. I know, arguing for something that's not in your own personal interest, in this economy, is unheard of. I just have principles and I'm seeing that Nightblades are struggling and that most of these changes don't make any sense at all.
Why nerf the weakest class (in PvP)?
As a sidenote, Nightblade tanks could definitely use some love too - they'd be the best tank class right now on paper if staying alive and keeping their sustain was a little bit easier. You could easily address both of these issues by buffing Dark Cloak (the heal) if you think invisibility is too strong.
Does stealth need consistency adjustments? Yeah, sure! But this ain't it! Most of these changes make no sense for any class. Expert Hunter doesn't need to get a 40m range! Successfully revealing a NB with Camouflaged Hunter should just reveal them for longer, one or two extra seconds would already be more than enough. They could get a three meter range increase maybe. Not thirty! At least detection potions have a long cooldown to justify their insane range but giving that range to Magelight and Expert Hunter makes no sense.

Actually, I think it does make sense in that both cloaking and revealing take one action for a benefit and a loss of said benefit. Similar to the idea that you take an action to heal, then someone takes an action to damage you.

In the same vein, both are balanced because they take a moment of time and resources to accomplish. But notice something? Neither case specify what happens after both actions in opposing form take place.

For example, you take an action to heal and I take an action to damage you -- it doesn't mean that the damage I do will overcome your healing, it just means that I have the potential to do so based on how my build matches yours, but you also have the potential to outheal me [.b].

Cloak and reveal are the same way with the changes, being revealed gives someone the potential to damage you but it doesnt' mean they always can or will. And it doesn't mean they will always kill the NB or stealthed player. If it does, that means the player made build decisions that let that happen (for example using a gank build)

On live right now Expert Hunter and Magelight simply do not do what they are supposed to do, and require spamming more than once to actually work.

Consider the above about potential in combat. Right now, if it takes more than one cast of a skill to remove the defensive power of stealth / cloak / invis then no here can say that it's balanced because it means that stealth/cloak/invis give greater power than the counters do.

And pointing to potions that have a cooldown and cannot be spammed versus a spammable skill actually demonstrates this. The loss of potential from using a potion at the right time actually gives you a massive disadvantage in combat, and yet it's the only reliable way to actually reveal someone beyond AoE spam requiring guess work and subject to desync (which using stealth does not), and also requires you to be running a ranged AoE.

Werewolf here doesn't count because if someone becomes a werewolf, they have their own disadvantages; plus ZOS just nerfed them, and we are going to say an ultimate should be required to counter a spammable or on demand mechanic?

As for the range of the skill, how far is the range of ranged attacks that come from stealth? Reveal needs to at least match it because if not, then there's the case where you can use a reveal skill and never ever reveal the enemy despite paying the cost in resources and opportunity -- and again, that's not balanced.

Right now on live the system favors stealth / invis / cloak because it requires an investment to counter it in the form of potions and bar space -- okay. But then the counter in some cases (reveal skills) require a cast. But then it requires more than one cast and greater resources than the skill or method to enter stealth / invis in nearly all cases. And that means that the defensive power of stealth and invis isn't balanced and that's before we get into things like forced misses

"Just use an AoE" isn't a proper solution either when all damage can be cancelled by properly using an invis pot at the right time (essentially an i-frame which is why I opposed that other guy in another topic essentially asking for an i-frame for NBs and a buff to that mastery that essentially adds one). And realistally the cost of revealing a stealthed opponent, esp. one with cloak always exceeds the cost of going back into stealth. That's a literal fact, especially when you take a systemic view of it.

Not everyone has access to ranged ground AoEs either, and most certainly aren't usuable in the same instant of time as methods that grant invisibility / stealth, especially when you consider you need to target them before using them , which again, always puts the user of said counter behind the person using stealth/invis/cloak.

Again, this is not something that a user of stealth / invis / cloak even has to build for -- it's simply free power and advantage that's currently baked into the system at live, which is exactly why it allows builds that do a lot of damage to be made with no reprecussions. There's not any build decisions to be made that would put a cap on it, and no real counter or theat in actual combat for a majority of the time to make building in such a way detrimental. But if these changes go through, suddenly there is a counter and a consequence to building that way IF players even slot the detect skills.

Lastly consider the case and why people say that Streak/BoL is OP. They say it because it prevents you from targeting the opponent after a few casts and allows the enemy using it to completely control the fight on their terms. There isn't any real counter to it either, except in the form of specific skills that can target at a range, and most of those skills: [a] require more than one cast to essentially accomplish nothing, in actual combat aren't usuable and require expending more resources and build options to make them usuable vs. a single spammable skill, [c] wouldn't really be slotted otherwise.

Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it sounds just like cloak / stealth / invisibility. What a coincidence. The same thing with a different coat of paint.

And as for why I bring up NB, it's because I don't believe the class should be tied to a "ride or die" mechanic that isn't balanced and will be subject to nerfs now or later down the line anyway precisely because it isn't balanced, though I am sure "pro" players that utilize stealth and invis mechanics will have a different opinion. It's always strange to see players that are supposed "skillful" and "pro" at the game needing the game to be bent in a direction that accommodates them and gives their enemies a complete disadvantage, but that's why I don't take this game seriously and just fire siege.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why casting Bone Armor should pull people out of Sneak.
You wrote a whole anti-Nightblade mannifesto and still didn't address the actual issues here.
No, you cannot just enter Sneak again once you've been revealed because you just lost the element of surprise, and because it was Sneak and not Invisibility people are just going to run to where you are. Running is always faster than sneaking.

Addressing your last point, because that one seems to reveal a bit more about your philosophy on the matter, am I understanding it correctly that your main issue with stealth is that it allows for "do or die" builds, otherwise known as glass canon builds?
It sounds to me, that, to you, the ideal Nightblade plays a brawler build, with Stealth being more or less a completely pointless feature because of a lack the one-shot potential and people being easily able to pull you out of invisibility, therefore requiring Nightblades to build defense like anybody else. That is the scenario you are describing here.
That sounds super boring, not gonna lie. And that you compare it to Sorcerer's streak shows that you don't seem to be much of a fan of class identity in general - at least not of the kind that's actually enjoyable, which is meaningful gameplay differences.
I'd much rather have a spectrum of Nightblade builds ranging from insanely burst-oriented stealth builds that die the moment you sneeze in their general direction, all the way to traditional brawler builds that are able to stand their ground even against DKs and Werewolves.

Just like people need to learn which skills to dodge and which to block, people need to learn how to deal with stealth. The game currently already offers the tools for that. And yes, these tools are open to everyone! Every class can deal with Nightblades. That's why the reveal abilities are in guild skill lines and offer value beyond just the ability to reveal invisibility. Should the reveal on Magelight and Expert Hunter be buffed? Absolutely. You are correct that using them feels clunky and that it's due to a lack of range. Should it be 40meters? Absolutely not. The range is currently 9 and 12 meters depending on your morph, if I remember correctly. 12 and 15 meters would be enough. 40meters is crazy.

And your point about Expert Hunter not preventing Nightblades from turning invisibile anymore (that's how the description reads anyway, I couldn't actually test it yet) also sounds quite bad. You were arguing how powerful Stealth inherently is, and that's exactly why Reveal abilities - when they land - should flip that dynamic on its head. Revealing a Nightblade should put the Nightblade on the backfoot, so stopping them from turning invisible again tips the scales in favor of the player doing the revealing. Successfully revealing an enemy with such an ability could also increase their damage taken, if we absolutely had to nerf NB somehow even if it's only to justify a buff somewhere else. The limited range of the reveal abilities (or the cooldown in the case of potions) gives Nightblades a fighting chance. That is fair!
Messing with this for the sake of a "balanced" GCD economy is foolish. A NB spamming Cloak while someone chases them and is spamming Expert Hunter without anybody being able to do anything, matching each other's GCDs without actually dealing any damage because all GCDs are burned on Invis/Reveal sounds tedious and boring!
That's why I am opposed to this change.

All of this and still no compelling reason why detect from a skill, that must be slotted, and cast more than once even with the changes in some instances, shouldn't be the new range they've made it.

Going on a non sequitur about what you think I envision NB to be isn't going to work. Stick to providing an argument in favor of the reduction of the radius. I already know you cannot.

And to say that NBs built around burst die when you sneeze in their direction is false. Again, that's if they are built that way. And stealth isn't required to one shot either -- it just gives the most advantage with least investment to do so.

But do continue. Please let me know how a "pro" that needs the game tilted in their direction thinks. Already finding inconsistencies in your logic, I am sure the more you type the easier it will be to refute completely.

Also, I've seen you in game and you do in fact have a gank NB. So you don't have to keep pretending you don't.

Luneca wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why casting Bone Armor should pull people out of Sneak.
You wrote a whole anti-Nightblade mannifesto and still didn't address the actual issues here.
No, you cannot just enter Sneak again once you've been revealed because you just lost the element of surprise, and because it was Sneak and not Invisibility people are just going to run to where you are. Running is always faster than sneaking.

Addressing your last point, because that one seems to reveal a bit more about your philosophy on the matter, am I understanding it correctly that your main issue with stealth is that it allows for "do or die" builds, otherwise known as glass canon builds?
It sounds to me, that, to you, the ideal Nightblade plays a brawler build, with Stealth being more or less a completely pointless feature because of a lack the one-shot potential and people being easily able to pull you out of invisibility, therefore requiring Nightblades to build defense like anybody else. That is the scenario you are describing here.
That sounds super boring, not gonna lie. And that you compare it to Sorcerer's streak shows that you don't seem to be much of a fan of class identity in general - at least not of the kind that's actually enjoyable, which is meaningful gameplay differences.
I'd much rather have a spectrum of Nightblade builds ranging from insanely burst-oriented stealth builds that die the moment you sneeze in their general direction, all the way to traditional brawler builds that are able to stand their ground even against DKs and Werewolves.

Just like people need to learn which skills to dodge and which to block, people need to learn how to deal with stealth. The game currently already offers the tools for that. And yes, these tools are open to everyone! Every class can deal with Nightblades. That's why the reveal abilities are in guild skill lines and offer value beyond just the ability to reveal invisibility. Should the reveal on Magelight and Expert Hunter be buffed? Absolutely. You are correct that using them feels clunky and that it's due to a lack of range. Should it be 40meters? Absolutely not. The range is currently 9 and 12 meters depending on your morph, if I remember correctly. 12 and 15 meters would be enough. 40meters is crazy.

And your point about Expert Hunter not preventing Nightblades from turning invisibile anymore (that's how the description reads anyway, I couldn't actually test it yet) also sounds quite bad. You were arguing how powerful Stealth inherently is, and that's exactly why Reveal abilities - when they land - should flip that dynamic on its head. Revealing a Nightblade should put the Nightblade on the backfoot, so stopping them from turning invisible again tips the scales in favor of the player doing the revealing. Successfully revealing an enemy with such an ability could also increase their damage taken, if we absolutely had to nerf NB somehow even if it's only to justify a buff somewhere else. The limited range of the reveal abilities (or the cooldown in the case of potions) gives Nightblades a fighting chance. That is fair!
Messing with this for the sake of a "balanced" GCD economy is foolish. A NB spamming Cloak while someone chases them and is spamming Expert Hunter without anybody being able to do anything, matching each other's GCDs without actually dealing any damage because all GCDs are burned on Invis/Reveal sounds tedious and boring!
That's why I am opposed to this change.

All of this and still no compelling reason why detect from a skill, that must be slotted, and cast more than once even with the changes in some instances, shouldn't be the new range they've made it.

Going on a non sequitur about what you think I envision NB to be isn't going to work. Stick to providing an argument in favor of the reduction of the radius. I already know you cannot.

I gave you plenty of reasons. Because it doesn't just counter invisibility, it's going to invalidate it.

Luneca wrote: »

And to say that NBs built around burst die when you sneeze in their direction is false. Again, that's if they are built that way. And stealth isn't required to one shot either -- it just gives the most advantage with least investment to do so.

Not all NBs build that squishy, yes, but the ones who don't also don't have the same one-shot potential. Are one-shots possible without stealth? Of course. Every good PvP build has a combo that (ideally) one-shots, but if you don't employ stealth, your enemy will have a much easier time to defend and it'll hardly be a "one shot" at that point, and more of a back and forth struggle until one player accumulates enough mistakes that they can no longer avoid death. As I said, the builds are on a spectrum and I think all playstyles on there are valid. We can talk about whether some parts of that spectrum should be more effective than others, but 40m of detection are invalidating a large part of it.

Luneca wrote: »

But do continue. Please let me know how a "pro" that needs the game tilted in their direction thinks. Already finding inconsistencies in your logic, I am sure the more you type the easier it will be to refute completely.

Also, I've seen you in game and you do in fact have a gank NB. So you don't have to keep pretending you don't.

Now you're just lying, lol. Must have run out of arguments...
Out of curiousity, which platform, server and alliance is my supposed gank Nightblade on then and when was the last time you saw me? Should be an easy answer for you. Unless you are talking about my Necro with Assassination, which is not a stealth build at all and is actually a quite tanky status effect focused build, but go ahead and tell me which alliance that one is too.

Edit: Actually, tell me my alliance war rank too please! If you are within two ranks of the correct answer, I'll still count it as correct!