Nightblade Update

shad0w18 · June 2014

tino.antoninieb17_ESO wrote: »

...
Siphoning attacks are reducing our damage for like 10 % and still DK is doing double damage !
...

Sweet 10%? Did we get a ninja buff or something?

Selodaoc · June 2014

Eivar wrote: »

Actually if you use siphoning abilities and have soul harvest slotted you gain ult pretty fast, not to hard to slot soul harvest, and swap weapon bars to use another ult when you have enough.

Depends on how you play i guess. If your sologanking it takes quite a bit longer to build up then running with group.

Sidenote: I think the stealth breaking is when a dot crits, like blood craze

Lyall84 · June 2014

tino.antoninieb17_ESO wrote: »

Lyall84 wrote: »

OkieDokie wrote: »

No need to be mad at me.

Weapons are just what you've chosen to hit people with. If class skills were utility skills only you'd be right.

Not mad, more bewildered. Also, I never said or implied that class skills should be utility skills only. I said that weapon skills should be able to compete. Not to mention, if you look at Night Blade Skill trees:

Assassin: 2 Attack Skills (Assassin's Blade, Teleport Strike), 3 Utility Skills (Blur, Mark Target, Haste)

Shadow: 2 Attack Skills (Veiled Strike, Path of Darkness), 3 Utility Skills (Shadow Cloak, Aspect of Terror, Summon Shade)

Siphoning: 3 Attack Skills (Strife, Cripple, Drain Power), 2 Utility Skills (Agony, Siphoning Strikes)

So for Night Blades at least...most of our class skills (8 of 15) are utility skills.

OkieDokie wrote: »

If you can pull the same damage with weapon skills, it doesn't matter what's your class. It is an intuitive concept, really. If anyone can reach the same damage with a simple weapon choice class is, at best, utility only.

I understand that weapon skill damage is the same regardless of class, but also regardless of class, the weapon skill damage does not even come close to the class skill only build damage. I still do not understand why you are insisting that some how the people that want stamina builds are wanting class to be utility only, I assume I am speaking for most of us, we want to have the choice, not be forced down the path of cloth wearing only.

OkieDokie wrote: »

Come on, try to be logical, you are twisting this 'play how you want'. They've never said all builds would be even, this is not even possible in a game like this. You can actually 'play how you want'. You can solo all content or group with a lot of people that do not care about dps. However, if you want to go to a place that is driven by dps, or you find a group that is not a performance freak or you need a high dps character. They are playing the way they want as well, which means the best dps builds.
I'm sure you can find groups willing to go there just for fun or to give it a try.

Twisting the play how you want? Not really. Let me ask you this, a month ago in PvP when everyone, their brother, mother and even extended relatives were running around in full medium armor for the stamina regen, and sword/board for the (most did not realize at the time bugged) insane bash damage, when if you wanted to be effective in PvP, you did not care about magicka or spells. Every fight was shield assault in for stun, and bash to death. Did you say to people to stop dreaming about casting spells? You are going to just get interrupt bash spammed to death? Or did you know in your mind that was wrong, and that the developers intended to have players actually use their class abilities or spells?

Saying that the builds cannot be even and not even possible in a game like this is true, I agree with that statement. If you keep adding to one side, players find a way to exploit and make the scales tip the other way. So you end up chasing your tail nerfing one the buffing the other and vice versa. The thing is you are missing my point, that the balance should be a hell of a lot closer. It should not be so far lopsided in the favor of magicka over stamina. It should at least be close enough to make the choice linger in your head a little bit.

OkieDokie wrote: »

If that is your opinion after all that, fine. I think I'm just saying this because I'm tired of seeing people asking for something I know it will probably never happen because it is an intuitive concept in this game. You can keep to that opinion and ask for a perfect balance between magicka and stamina, I just don't think this is realistic and what you should be asking for is better stamina passives management.

To me it sounds like in the back of your mind, you also agree that the stamina builds should be closer, just that you have lost all faith that the balance will be restored. I am not looking for a perfect balance, I would at least like to see some effort towards that balance.

Now your suggestion to better stamina management passives...I have an odd feeling that they will introduce something like that with the thieves guild skill line. I am guessing that the actives are going to be something like pick pocketing, maybe some toggle dodge thing, or some sort of stamina restoring ability, and a bunch of passives for stamina cost reductions to dodge, sneak, sprint.

This entire stamina build thread may seem like it is out of place on the Night Blade Update thread, but with the upcoming change to the shadow passive, to give static stamina regeneration when a shadow ability is slotted (lets be real here, aside from Veiled Strike and its morphs, Shadow is a utility tree), it is going to make stamina weapon builds look a lot more viable for Night Blades in particular. Mainly because we will be the only class with a static 30% increase (unless they lower the number) to stamina regeneration. Couple that with Siphoning Attacks, we would have a stamina well that would be very hard to keep empty, especially in medium armor.

I am stamina driven NB - dw , bow - redguard. I dont have problems with stamina . Actually i cant run out of stamina if i use siphoning attacks. Still i do just half of damage my dk ( equally equipped ) can do . Stamina is not an issue. Actually how stamina can be problem when we all say that stamina builds cant do close damage to magica builds. And they fix it by adding more stamina regen ???? Siphoning attacks are reducing our damage for like 10 % and still DK is doing double damage ! Obviously stamina regen is not problem. Problem is that stamina abilities doesn't do enough damage. That is partially connected with light attack canceling which is not nearly effective as with magic spells and with fact that magic builds can shoot over the block ( lot less dps uptime). Those changes are not addressing stamina/magic imbalance at all . They are increasing NB output in non selective way. Besides i havent heard ever that ZOS said - yes guys - we have problem with stamina/magic imbalance. That imbalance is not just NB issue- same thing u have with all other classes.
One more thing - if we talk about NB's then for sure we have to separate PVP and PVE discussion. Namely in PVE NB's are much less powerful then in PVP. Expecting that we can have PVP/PVE balance with same NB efficiency without tweaking class skills is impossible. Regarding my NB i really dont see reason to touch it anymore till ZOS comes out with plan "fixing NB" and say - ok guys main idea regarding NB fixing is this ..... and we will be there within .... 2 months . I really dont see reason why to have high hopes when in 2 month from now maybe NB will be OP class but only if using magic build.

Agree, the stamina build damage is more of the issue than the resource itself
But that 30% stamina regeneration will help us be able to dodge, break CC and still have the stamina to attack.

Also I agree with the thought that they should fix the bugs before trying to balance. otherwise when they do fix the bugs, they may have tweaked the balance too far the wrong way to compensate for the bug.

Lyall84 · June 2014

Selodaoc wrote: »

Baphomet wrote: »

Soul strike can easily crit for 1200 damage. His probably wasn't fully charged. On the other hand, meteor doesn't deal 1500 damage to any one target and soul strike only costs a fraction of meteor to cast. And nightblades can get meteor, too. So what's the problem?

After nerf, no, it cant. Definatly not in PvP.

Meteor almost always hit me for around 1300-1800 http://oi58.tinypic.com/2mgsj14.jpg
Getting ultimate charges up in PvP as a NB is not easy either.

Problem is, like i said, that other classes can do just as much burst, but much better sustained while not beeing in melee.

Agreed with the ultimate generation, DKs can cast any earthen move and get ultimate. So they can, if the wanted to take the time, preload their ultimate prior to every fight. NBs...nothing, so especially in pvp as you run from place to place, any ultimate charged up gets reset.

OkieDokie · June 2014

Tamanous wrote: »

I shrugged off those saying NB can't do damage as internet warriors who do gain most of their knowledge from reading unverified complaint posts. The issues with NB has NEVER been about the lack of single target damage. It is about broken passives, broken abilities along with certain weak ones, lack of synergy in builds (to a lesser extent) and lack of AOE in an AOE grind game that is not friendly to a class largely engineered for single target melee damage.

That is a kill from stealth, burst damage. This is not single target sustainable damage and that is where nb are weaker than dk and sorcs.

I think NBs complains about aoe is incorrect. Sap essence is an amazing skill.

khele23eb17_ESO · June 2014

Tamanous wrote: »

The issues mistakenly discussed by these forum warriors is that stamina builds are weak (this has NOTHING to do with NB) and that the game demands too much AOE grind which the class lacks unless playing a tank and/or staff build which is the cop out for every class anyway.

Sad thing is though that death report is entirely class based abilities ... which means that player is likely the typical resto-staff user for the bonus damage it offers which, again, is the issue caused by Stamina abilities under performing.

Why does noone ever acknowledge the existance of magicka melee builds? Really, its as if theres nothing in between caster staff dot builds and stamina weapon builds...

Worstluck · June 2014

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

The issues mistakenly discussed by these forum warriors is that stamina builds are weak (this has NOTHING to do with NB) and that the game demands too much AOE grind which the class lacks unless playing a tank and/or staff build which is the cop out for every class anyway.

Sad thing is though that death report is entirely class based abilities ... which means that player is likely the typical resto-staff user for the bonus damage it offers which, again, is the issue caused by Stamina abilities under performing.

Why does noone ever acknowledge the existance of magicka melee builds? Really, its as if theres nothing in between caster staff dot builds and stamina weapon builds...

I used and still use when I feel like it a magicka based melee build for questing and delving. It works really well and lets me use Shadowy Disguise/Dark Cloak a bunch and spam Veiled Strike. I can still get good physical crit using some daggers with precise. I've not tried this much in dungeons, though. I don't think the DPS is all that great, but I have no numbers to back that up.

Loco_Mofo · June 2014

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

Tamanous wrote: »

The issues mistakenly discussed by these forum warriors is that stamina builds are weak (this has NOTHING to do with NB) and that the game demands too much AOE grind which the class lacks unless playing a tank and/or staff build which is the cop out for every class anyway.

Sad thing is though that death report is entirely class based abilities ... which means that player is likely the typical resto-staff user for the bonus damage it offers which, again, is the issue caused by Stamina abilities under performing.

Why does noone ever acknowledge the existance of magicka melee builds? Really, its as if theres nothing in between caster staff dot builds and stamina weapon builds...

This is what I use when I can bring myself to actually play the game as I refuse to use a staff even though it's much more effective.

DivZero · June 2014

single target ~600 dps is doable,dual wield dagger + funnel health, without ultimate.I don't have a dungeon dps chart, just tried it out while farming giants.
Not that great, but it's a beginning.And i don't wear a dress + staff. Worth it.
http://i.imgur.com/TS8hjB4.jpg

Selodaoc · June 2014

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

Why does noone ever acknowledge the existance of magicka melee builds? Really, its as if theres nothing in between caster staff dot builds and stamina weapon builds...

Melee Magicka ST builds is just as crap as Melee Stamina ST builds.

People seem to think its only a problem with magicka vs stamina. Its not.

Melee in general is very lackluster, be it stamina or magicka.

VagabondAngel · June 2014

I'm not saying that NB class doesn't have problems, before anyone one-hits me... but after getting a Templar to VR3, I rolled a NB and am finding everything much easier than the first character. I even almost managed to solo the public dungeon in Windhelm at level, which was completely impossible with my Templar.

Maybe if everyone had a run through with a Templar, it might put things in perspective in terms of balance of abilities.

Incidentally, I also rolled a Sorceror and gave up after one day of no challenges. DK I have not tried thus far...

Blinks · June 2014

So erm... any idea when this update is...?

This threads been going for quite some time now, and still no word from Zenimax!

Targanwolf · June 2014

The skill MARK TARGET is still broken.It does NOT reduce targets armor protection.

khele23eb17_ESO · June 2014

Selodaoc wrote: »

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

Why does noone ever acknowledge the existance of magicka melee builds? Really, its as if theres nothing in between caster staff dot builds and stamina weapon builds...

Melee Magicka ST builds is just as crap as Melee Stamina ST builds.

People seem to think its only a problem with magicka vs stamina. Its not.

Melee in general is very lackluster, be it stamina or magicka.

Well, that was what I meant. I wanted to point out that people somehow tend to forget about class-skill based melee NB builds and these need some help from the devs just as stamina ones when it comes to dmg output.

Worstluck · June 2014

Surely this has been mentioned in this thread, but does it bother anyone that our synergies just flat out suck? The only synergies we get are through two of ultimates, and they are both useless to be honest. All 3 other classes get somewhat to very useful synergies, even in their class skills. None of our class skills have any synergies.

I think it would help to provide us some useful synergy and give us a little more group utility. The only real group utility we have at endgame is Veil of Blades, but the synergy is useless.

Ysne58 · June 2014

The lack of synergy and the lack of decent distance aoe have both been mentioned.

Aziz006 · June 2014

captain_awesome wrote: »

Aziz006 wrote: »

For those who insist on using melee build:
Max your magicka and spell damage before you max your stamina and slot flawless dawnbreaker. Ideally DW on both bars is good option. You will have better execute DPS than NB casters but not you will run out of magicka faster.

Finally it is not high damage that makes caster have more DPS. It is all about animation cancelling and DoTs. Melee attack animation cancelling is kind of lame. Melee build also are not good at resource management.

Or just quit

So youre saying magic based dps is based on animation canceling (CHEATING).
And.
Phyical dps cant really animation cancel so we should change to magic based dps... Or quit.

Did you really just say that?

Veiled strike hits harder than strife but why the hell no one uses it on trials or somewhere else you need high DPS?

OkieDokie · June 2014

Aziz006 wrote: »

Veiled strike hits harder than strife but why the hell no one uses it on trials or somewhere else you need high DPS?

Range, you might build a lot of ultimate with funnel and it uses the same critical rate of the rest of your rotation.

For normal kills or those 'mini bosses' in dungeons, it is a different story.

ps: animation cancel is not cheating.

khele23eb17_ESO · June 2014

OkieDokie wrote: »

ps: animation cancel is not cheating.

Its DEV laziness

Aziz006 · June 2014

OkieDokie wrote: »

Aziz006 wrote: »

Veiled strike hits harder than strife but why the hell no one uses it on trials or somewhere else you need high DPS?

Range, you might build a lot of ultimate with funnel and it uses the same critical rate of the rest of your rotation.

For normal kills or those 'mini bosses' in dungeons, it is a different story.

ps: animation cancel is not cheating.

Exactly. This man knows how class works.
Never tried melee in trials. But I get my ultimate up like every phase in boss fights(before every AoE of Valariel the wispmother for instance)

shad0w18 · June 2014

Lyall84 wrote: »

Agree, the stamina build damage is more of the issue than the resource itself
But that 30% stamina regeneration will help us be able to dodge, break CC and still have the stamina to attack.

Also I agree with the thought that they should fix the bugs before trying to balance. otherwise when they do fix the bugs, they may have tweaked the balance too far the wrong way to compensate for the bug.

Agreed. But hopefully with that 30% stam regen constantly active, the increased magikca passive functioning correctly and Master Assassin buff mayby our DPS will actually get buffed. Preferably, I rather take all of our broken passive/abilities fixed before balance and/or buffs but it's better then nothing.

Thoughts?

Jarnhand · June 2014

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

OkieDokie wrote: »

ps: animation cancel is not cheating.

Its DEV laziness

It is exploiting a badly implemented game mechanics. It should not be able to cut the animations. This is also the reason for some nerfs we are seeing; people being able to stack skills, and do much higher DPS then intended.

Its about time this gets fixed!

Blinks · June 2014

If NightBlades don't get a decent fix in this next patch I'll be extremely disappointed ZOS, you've had long enough to do something besides nerf and fix quests people can get through the game even if the odd one is buggy. Start fixing class abilities, passives and armour and I think you'll find a lot more people come back to the game if not playing more often because they're happy with their class.

*Fix my NightBlade already!!*

Kajoh_Americano · June 2014

NB is still viable ofc, everyone knows that. We aren't completely inept, although it is becoming a bit of a joke that nearly 3 months on Zenimax still seems to be struggling with fixing broken skills/passives and balancing 4 classes.

I thought this was the very reason why they picked this class/skill system in the first place, so this type of issues can be remedied a lot more effectively. Maybe Zenimax is discovering that no system is fail proof and are still in shock about this step-back.

I'm a v12 NB, and I run 4 main specs. 1 is the typical assassin build type, 1 is the bloodmage caster, the 3rd is the alpha LA+resto/destro staves combo and the fourth is a variation of the 3rd but full heal/support instead. With wykkyd's outfitter addon I can easily switch between specs with just a click so I have learnt to embrace the flexibility that ESO offers us, and it does work greatly to a certain extent.

However there is no denying certain builds are superior to others, be it due to better theorycrafting or current skill/classes balancing issues...but it is clear there can be a HUGE disparity inbetween the effectiveness of achievable builds.

Ofc there should be room of variation in performance, but the gap shouldn't be that wide. My bloodmage can easily take on 1v1, 1v2s if the initial burst from players doesnt take me down. True it's the kind of build that relies on making the fight longer and slowly draining my enemies of their resources til the KO. And my LA/Staves/Bomb Squad build works wonders in organized group play.

However my assassin build does performs averagely , with the rare moment of genius/luck/whatever you want to call it. Don't get me wrong, it can perform great against all classes as long as I play it essentially as a gankblade. Which means burning their HP to 0 within 3 seconds so they don't get a chance to react properly. However most classes can do that do with a similar effect if they are running the ideal build for it. And it relies heavily on the game not lagging, otherwise the inital burst will simply not be enough and I am sure gank/assassin builds of all classes encounter similar problems with the lack of responsiveness from the game itself.

I am fully aware that assassin builds have the potential to become OP so they have to be handled carefully. Not much point in going extremely slow in fixing a class for months, then suddenly activating godmode only to have to nerf everything to the ground the next day. I am hopeful that the PTS notes are still subject to change, and that the lag gets fixed in pvp so that certain builds can remain viable when employed in the right situation. I am a little bummed about leeching strike has been essentially "nerfed". Nothing has technically changed, but it was supposed to offer a better return for the dps sacrifice. I could make leeching strike work in pvp when fighting tanky players, but was still really looking forward to the 1.3 patch to get the full 4% return to make it genuinely viable. Now it's been confirmed as "meh". So it's once again another potential build biting the dust. 20% dps redux for 2.4% resource regain is a very weak trade-off.

Anyway I'm rambling on now, the chips are always going to fall where they may so I am still going to play my nightblade. We can make it work for sure, there's no mystery here...however the extra work that we have to do just to be on par as the other classes/builds does not feel as rewarding as it should. Zenimax wanted to make NB a harder class ? That's fine. Then at least make it up to us by offering better group synergies and utilities so that hard work still gets us noticed by other players and make us valuable group members.

So yeah, please fix our passives/skills first and carry on working on the game responsiveness. I am sure I can speak for every players out-there when I say that the weapon swapping in its current state is unacceptable.
It limits our build creativity when we have to make sure that 1 skill bar has to cover most of our needs since the second bar can be extremely unreliable to access (and vice-versa). Fix the game Zenimax, we frigging love you but you are starting to get on our nerves.

Gisgo · June 2014

Targanwolf wrote: »

The skill MARK TARGET is still broken.It does NOT reduce targets armor protection.

Its not supposed to reduce armor, it does ignore armor.
How can you say its not working?

Blinks · June 2014

The skill shouldn't nerf us at the same time, its to easy to turn the tables as it is. Its should just reduce the targets armour but I reacon people would cry about that.

Aoifesan · June 2014

Gisgo wrote: »

Targanwolf wrote: »

The skill MARK TARGET is still broken.It does NOT reduce targets armor protection.

Its not supposed to reduce armor, it does ignore armor.
How can you say its not working?

Because there is no change to your damage before and after using it?

There is however a marked increase in the damage mobs do to you when you use it so the debuff on you works.

As such the only proper use of this ability is mob hits 25% apply. Then Killer's blade/Impale to death.

Blinks · June 2014

Iv marked targets before and I don't really see a difference tbh except I die a lot quicker lol

Gisgo · June 2014

Aoifesan wrote: »

Gisgo wrote: »

Targanwolf wrote: »

The skill MARK TARGET is still broken.It does NOT reduce targets armor protection.

Its not supposed to reduce armor, it does ignore armor.
How can you say its not working?

Because there is no change to your damage before and after using it?

There is however a marked increase in the damage mobs do to you when you use it so the debuff on you works.

As such the only proper use of this ability is mob hits 25% apply. Then Killer's blade/Impale to death.

Did you test it in PVE? Monster's armor rate is fixed and you wont see a big difference, if any.

Squarcle · June 2014

im sad to say but after seeing how gimped my entire stamina and leather/duel wield + bow builds are, I went and threw on some light robes and a destroy staff just for grinding.. its pathetic to see that everyone in PvP spams 1 magicka ability until your dead from full hp, is shield bash really the only viable stamina dumping attack? venom arrow does like 100-200 damage from my experience and that's when I was in full kynes set with 49 stamina and I just get dropped instantly, but when I go light robes and half hp/magicka I can run over people 1v1 and in groups just spamming magicka abilitys for 300+ and self heal 10x more and just use my useless stamina bar for CC break and blocking.. why even have weapon abilitys lol?