SnikerPKK wrote: »

Hello everybody,
this thread aims to list and explain all of Stamina Nightblade issues in PvP many which also affect Magicka Nightblade more or equally as much.
Due to the newly introduced "ability standardization" I will also compare skills/passives and explain the disadvantages of being a Nightblade compared to almost every other class in the game.
To hopefully make the combat devs see it and understand the issue with the class/meta more.
If you know of any more issues that have not been listed here then go on and comment them down below, we can discuss anything here.

Feel free to cry your souls out about how badly Nightblades have been massacred as this post serves as a safespace for all hurt cloakblades.
We dont judge here, just insult understand eachother.

A NOTE FOR ALL YOU FORUM WARRIORS: I AND MANY OTHERS WILL DISCREDIT/IGNORE EVERY COMMENT OF USERS WHO CLEARLY DID NOT READ THE ENTIRE POST.




Lack of damaging buffs/debuffs on skills
Compared to other stamina specs, stamina nightblades are in a huge disadvantage when it comes to having their damage amplified.
Stamina Wardens have Major Fracture built on top of their offGCD burst ability that is also AoE, Stamina Necromancers have Major Defile built on top of their burst ability that is also offGCD, given Major Defile is a pressure debuff but debuffing healing results in doing more damage in the longer run and preventing your enemy from recovering is very important especially this patch where healing is extremely overtuned.
Mark surely exists but for how empty the skill is it's not worth wasting your barspace for it if you could put a much more impactful skill there such as: Shadow Image, Shuffle, Leeching, Executioner or Camohunter basically provides about the same amount of damage but also gives you Major Savagery, 3% more weapon damage and doesn't have to be reapplied constantly. Also applying the skill leaves a huge mark on your opponent making you even more predictible with your next move.
The Major Berserk part from Reapers mark also does not work with how Nightblade plays as you will never be able to take advantage of the buff. Cause as soon as a Stamblade kills a player it needs to escape and reset which takes much longer than 5seconds.

When you compare Nightblade and Warden further you're going to notice an even bigger gap between how much damage the classes can put out.
For example Warden receives Minor Berserk on Bird of Prey and Minor Vulnerability on a Dot which is arguably one of the strongest damage debuffs in CP PvP because of how damage formulas work in this game.
Now before you say that Nightblades also have Minor Vulnerability on a skill, I have to stop you there because ambush in comparison to Growing Swarm is a super buggy, telegraphed, clunky and impactless skill that no build usually has barspace for. It slows down your gameplay and opens a huge burst window for your enemy to punish.
Here is an example of that:

Keep in mind that ranged classes can punish you even harder for using this skill, which can turn this skill into a deathtrap.
The worst thing about this skill is the charge up animation before you jump on your opponent.

About Death Strokes 20% damage buff, I will mention it later and explain how terrible it currently is.




Class being very turn based with no good stun available
In comparison to any other class who also tries to kill with Burst, Nightblades burst ability is very lackluster.

The biggest advantage of Wardens/Necromancers/Sorcerers burst is that their burst abilities are offGCD which means a player can put out much more damage within 1 GCD bringing him much closer to executing their target after a combo.
Other classes who do not posses an offGCD ability have been previously brought in line with a stun on their Ultimates such as Leap or Incapacitating Strike which allowed for a further follow up before executing.
While Dragonknights still posses such an ability, it was ripped off from Nightblades kit making their burst easily avoidable and in majority of situations just not enough.

With the class' nature being bursty and having no pressure outside of it's burst abilities, it's important that the Nightblade lands some or all of it's burst skills, otherwise he/she wont be able to kill their target. Yet that is simply impossible when after each GCD your enemy has another GCD to react to the burst thrown at him.
To land your Death Stroke, Grim Focus and to execute you need at least 3 to 4 GCDs. After your ultimate has been thrown out to take advantage of the damaging buff your enemy has whole 3 to 4 seconds reaction window in which he can simply just start holding block negating all of your damage, rolling once or twice or activating any of his recovering skills.
This whole issue only gets much bigger considering Death Stroke is delayed by 400ms and Grim Focus by 270ms(due to it being a slower projectile).
3 seconds in a fight feels like minutes, months sometimes years.
No other burst class has to deal with it as they can simply line up their burst ability with their Ultimate resulting in sometimes gigantic damage output.

The delay on both your burst skills is also the reason why Mass Hysteria/Turn Evil(Both AoE Fear abilities) are so bad on Nightblades currently. Breaking Free takes 40-75ms which after you can instantly start holding block or start rolling making the follow up after a Fear impossible on a player who knows what he is doing.
Offbalance gained from Tactician is the only stun that Stamblades crutch on currently and with next patch changes to offbalance, the future looks even worse for Stamblades as their success currently relies on how strong Offbalance is. A mechanic that isn't even included in their kit.

Nightblade currently feels much like playing Pokemon with your enemy, you do one skill, he does one skill, you do one skill, he does one skill, you do one skill, he does one skill, etc.
All the issues mentioned above is also the reason why the 20% damage buff from Death Stroke is currently so impactless, as you either use it to execute your enemy after an offbalance heavy attack into Incap or don't use it at all. All of this is extremely unhealthy and is not how the class is supposed to be played.




Skill/Passives Comparisons and how impactless Nightblades kit is
Let's take a look at the Assassination Tree and compare it with the Two-Hander Weapon Tree, Zenimax said Class skills should always be better than Weapon skills right?

Incapacitating Strike vs Onslaught
Onslaught's tooltip is bigger by roughly 8%, the debuff effect applies on the initial hit and the skill allows you to not invest anything into penetration gaining absurd amounts of more damage over Incapacitating Strike.

Incapacitating Strikes damage debuff does not apply on the initial hit, the skill animation becomes seemingly slower at 120 Ultimate and the skill Silences which prevents you from fearing your enemy making the skills which provides no stun simply better.
The Reave passive also only equals to roughly 10 to 30 regen in a 5 minute or longer fight.


Killer's Blade vs Executioner
Executioner has a higher base tooltip, higher damage build up, has a smoother animation and is much easier to execute with considering how strong healing which makes it so easy to escape the 25% HP mark.
Killer's Blade's healing is extremely pathetic and underwhelrming too, making this skill pointless to equip over Executioner.
And before you write that it can be equipped on a Dual-Wield frontbar build I want to ask you one thing: Who in their right mind plays Dual-Wield frontbar this patch? Off-Meta builds are completely irrelevant to me as they do not represent the strength of a class.


Executioner vs Battle Rush
Considering that Killer's Blade is a much worse execute ability than Executioner(The 2h Execute) putting this passive already in a disadvantage over Battle Rush.
Battle Rush procs off of any kill and 30% more recovery for 10 seconds is much more sustain Fthan some pathetic 2k stamina.


Now this trend continues on the Magicka side too for example when we compare Elemental Drain to Mark you can see how empty Mark is, while Elemental Drain also provides a huge sustain buff, Mark is simply empty. And, how will you even manage to take advantage of the Mark healing if your class doesn't have enough damage to kill anything over 30k HP which seems to be the vast majority of the playerbase nowadays.

Overall the Assasination Tree's passives are underwhelming, take for example Master Assassin which it's only redeeming value is having a atmospheric sounding name, the 10% weapon damage out of stealth is completely irrelevant with how little damage it provides to your combos.
And while other classes receive passives such as Advanced Species, Rapid Rot or Amplitude, Nightblade gets Pressuring Points... Which it's purpose is to...? Be completely meaningless to Nightblades?
Even Major Savagery on skills such as FOO from DK which gives more crit chance than this passive with the entirety of Assassination tree slotted.
This leaves us with only one decent passive in this Tree for both the Magicka and Stamina spec, which is hemorrhage which the Templars and now Wardens also own now
With the damage buff of this passive not even being any good due to the existance of Transmutation or Impreg which is widely considered the best defensive set currently with whole 30% critical damage mitgation. Nowadays you have builds running around who completely mitgate the entirety of your critical damage and this passive does not help.
At least change it to be critical healing too like the Wardens will have next patch....

Now when you look at the Damage buff/debuff issue above you can also safely say that Nightblade is the only class without a single impactful damage amplification method that wouldn't starve the user of barspace and potentially ruin the functionality of the build.




Offensive windows and delayed damage
Stamblade works much differently with it's offensive windows than any other class, while other classes have their offensive windows judged by how much damage they can take on face to face, Stamblades offensive window depends on how much pressure it has on the enemy.
No defile on Incapacitating Strike and the current tank meta where people can simply go above 27k HP and not care about a Stamblades burst makes it is close to none which makes the delays put on Incapacitating Strike and Grim Focus much worse. Stamblades need to hit their burst and establish dominance over their enemy quicker than ever before and need much more damage to do so as well. And that is in the current patch close to impossible. Holding up the pressure without Defile or a decent stun makes holding that pressure impossible as well. 1 roll, 1 good block or 1 vigor completely negates the entirety of a Nightblades kit.

It can go 2 ways: after a landed Incapacitating Strike or Onslaught that's when your offensive window ends as you fail to put out enough damage to put your enemy on defense OR your Offbalance Heavy Attack into Ult near oneshots your enemy. Is this any healthy ?


For now I will leave it at that and probably update it with more issues in the future. DISCUSS!