The Nightblade as a whole is probably the clunkiest class in ESO right now.
But why is that?
With this post I hope to showcase why the class "feels" so clunky.
I also made a post focusing more on Magicka Nightblades, and why its so frustrating to play one.:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/519870/playing-a-magblade-is-nothing-but-frustrating/p1Part 1: Stamina/Melee RangeFirst lets talk about Stamina Nightblades and melee range inconsistency. ![w3YHSgq.png]()
The whole inconsistency means that if your medium or heavy 2H attacks hits, your spammable (Surpirse Attack) wont, which makes the combat feel clunky and you end up with the "cursed" TARGET OUT OF RANGE message.
We can clearly see that NBs melee skills dont follow the regular "skill guidelines". (AoE-8m, Spammable-7m+, Execute-5m,)
Most of the other melee spammables seem to be 7m or up.
Flurry - 7m
Uppercut - 7m
Puncturing Strikes - 8m
That puts the Stamina Nightblade in an disadvantage, it might happen that you get hit from a 7m range but your Surprise Attack (SA) wont hit the enemy. Another issue with SA is that if the enemy is faster than you, be it via the Swift jewelry-trait, a skill, or set; the chances of you hitting the enemy becomes lower especially with how laggy PvP is. Same issue arise when snared.
For example: you get snared by Jabs which is a 8m range spammable, that means the enemy can just back up while spamming Jabs and you wont be able to hit him due to the range disparity.The only other spammable with a 5m range that comes to mind is Lava Whip used by Magicka Dragonknights(Apparently DKs have a passive which ads 2m to this skill making it 7m), however that only works because Mag DKs usually stun-lock the enemy and ensure that the enemy is immobilized and cant move around. Stamina NBs dont have that.
To fix this issue the dev team could:
a) improve the range of SA (at least 7m)
b) give NBs a good Snare skill/passive
c) give NB a good Minor/Major Expedition skill/passive
Same goes for Mass Hysteria, why is it 6m when almost every other AoE is 8m? Especially if we look at how "bare" the skill is.
As well as the Relentless Focus projectile, why is it 30m? Its a melee/stamina morph. Reduce the range and remove/reduce the travel time.
Too many Nightblade melee skills have different ranges which ends up being inconsistent and doesnt synergize well with other abilities/Medium/Heavy-attacks which in return makes the class feel clunky.
Same can be said about Magicka Nightblades.
Part 2: Magicka/Single TargetSingle Target, Roll Dodge and Lag.
All of the offensive damage abilities are single target, except for 3:
Drain Power, Twisting Path and Soul Tether.
This means you can hard counter (100% mitigate) almost all of the damage abilties the class has to offer by simply roll dodging. Something literally every class has access to.
This is an issue for both, Stamina and Magicka Nightblades. However Magicka Nightblades are hit harder by this due to travel time of projectiles and general lag.
Generally speaking
nothing hits. Its frustating when an enemy is literally standing still on your screen but somehow "dodge" appears above their head.
![bcaEgTi.png]()
You can clearly see that the guy Im fighting is standing still, so why am I getting "dodged"?
Thats because of the travel-time projectiles have, combined with PvP lag. Its especially worse on a magblade because every attack (except sap essence) can be hard countered/100% mitigated by just roll dodging. Thats not fun, its
frustrating watching a guy with 5% HP just spam roll dodge and self heals and get back up to 100% HP.
Projectile speed
Now lets have a look at "Swallow Soul" - the main spammable of a magblade and compare it to "Concealed Weapon"- a melee spammable which also costs magicka and therefore used my some melee magblades.
Swallow Soul![RightQuerulousBlueshark-size_restricted.gif]()
Concealed Weapon![ThoroughSpecificAldabratortoise-size_restricted.gif]()
If we look at both we can clearly see that "Swallow Soul" (compared to "Concealed Weapon") hits with a delay, add PvP lag into the calculation and the chances of "Swallow Soul" hitting someone becomes very small. Which again is nothing else but
frustrating.
First fix should be to increase the speed of projectiles and remove cast times/long travel times. However the class would still be in dire need of a way to put pressure besides single target abilities. Theres nothing you can do once someone starts roll dodge spamming or blocking and healing.
A cool way to counter constant roll dodging, blocking and running would be to put a new Minor/Major Debuff on Mark Target and its morphs. This new debuff would increase the cost and duration of Roll Dodge/Block/Break Free and Sprinting, you would "Mark" the enemy with "Exhaustion" so to speak.
Part 3: Cloak/DefenseShadow Cloak.
Cloak as a defense tool is decent at best, and that only WHEN it works. However this is a huge "when", right now (Harrowstorm) Cloak is bugged/messed up and you can be hit in cloak with single target abilities without the enemy having to use Detection Pots.
![UnhappyUnawareGar-size_restricted.gif]()
Even without it being bugged, Cloak/Shadowy Disguise feels underwhelming.
Im going to list every skill from NBs and Dragonknights class trees which breaks cloak, the only defense skill the NB has.
- Piercing Mark
- Veil of Blades
- Twisting Path
- Mass hysteria
- Manifestation of Terror
- Soul Tether
- Drain Power
- Dragonknight Standard
- Shifting Standard
- Standard of Might
- Fiery Breath
- Noxious Breath
- Engulfing Flames
- Voltaile Armor
- Dark talon
- Burning Talons
- Choking Talons
- Inhale
- Deep Breath
- Draw Essence
- Petrify
- Fossilize
- Shattering Rocks
Thats 23 skills that break cloak. And I only did list the skills from 2 class trees. + there are other skill trees as well. Initally I wanted to list all skills that break cloak but I got bored after only doing NBs and DKs. And it doesnt stop there. We also have Detection Pots which lets the user see you if youre within a 20m radius. But thats still not all, there are also Sets like Overwhelming Surge which also pull you out of cloak.
I dont think there is a defensive skill in ESO that has the same amount of counters as Shadowy Disguise/Shadow Cloak. Its insane.
The other morph "Dark Cloak" is not much better. It heals 6% of max health every second for 8seconds. Thats bad. Even on a PvE NB tank. If we assume a DPS Nightblade has 25k HP in Cyrodiil thats 750 HP every second, not enough to warrant to be used in PvP or PvE.
In my opinion letting it crit every HoT/DoT again while cloaked would help the class gain a "burst heal" and pressure with DoTs which its in dire need of. Another option would be to let it ignore any incoming damage for a second and not break out of cloak to make an escape possible against AoE spammers like Jabs or Whirl Wind.
Hopes for the future.
I hope this helps the dev team to understand why NBs are so clunky (aside from balance changes). Its probably the least fun and worst class to play with in PvP due to being too clunky and underperfoming defense and offense wise.
Im going to put a TL:DR here for the lazy people:Stamina Nightblade:![6O9UKph.png]()
Magicka Nightblade:![vyDEBqp.png]()
Nightblade in general:![pSRVLD5.png]()
