Anatomy of Murder - in line with other passives?

Actually, nightblade’s builds don’t have that good defence. Only infiltrator is very consistent in this question.
That’s why I’m trying to promote the idea to make Blade Barrier decent defensive cooldawn

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And then you use Ring of Steel once and you apply the debuff to all enemies in an aoe around you due to its %WD.

It’d just be there as a very small compensation and also pierce builds aren’t the strongest anyways. But tbh I don’t think AoM will need much of a compensation if any at all.

I don’t see much difference after AoM change. The only thing - sometimes I can’t kill Alex untill his boyfriends heal him at fool HP
On another hand, defensive buff prob is the only thing that NB needs now

What a drama, wow, and you guys didn’t even call me!

Harsh nerfs, can’t add anything here. I think if Anatomy of Murder should be “in line” with other bonuses it could get something in return. Maybe flat Cunning or something like flat HP. I think flat Vitality is absolutely useless for Nightblades, flat Bleeding will call for another round of Bleeding Trickster nerfs (which has been nerfed into the ground already). Flat HP makes sense, imo, flat Cunning might be too much for already op Pierce Nightblades, but flat HP is smth that a quite a bit of Nightblades could use.

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Why not a moderate % of physical damage? Physical blademaster is one of the more middling physical builds right now, and a minor offensive boost wouldn’t suddenly push it to do crucible in 5 minutes.

Aren’t Chthonians the main focus of vanilla, Aetherials of AoM, and humans just a filler with two lesser factions, mostly trashmobs not even a dedicated roguelike? Of course there are strong bosses but… bringing them up is actually an argument against the nerf. Alex (acid), Fabius and Brother/Sister Kymon (cold) are all mostly problematic for the damage types nerfed by this.

All due respect, but it seems to me you’re based mostly on softcap/hardcap values. In fact (sorry if I sound like I’m trying to teach a hen how to lay eggs, that’s not what I mean…) it’s all about scaling and how affordable certain values are at certain ranks in terms of 1) the investment required and 2) what else is gotten from those nodes for those points. As far as I read this thread, no preat except Fluff seemed to take into consideration that AoM is nowhere near FoR or Steel Resolve for the simple reason that 1) it scales extremely badly now and 2) it has close to nothing for acid and cold except that 1% racial per point.

So, while 15% to humans at softcap doesn’t sound so terrible, having to spend 6 more skillpoints to have 10% racial less than I had at 6/12… If this was 15% at 6/12 then I would still probably be bitching about it but I would have no choice to call it reasonable.

Now it’s not reasonable to push AoM further than 3/12 with, what was it, 7% racial. Which is the one good thing about it. Cold and acid can forget about meaningful human racial like it never existed but got 2-8 skillpoints to move around.

I would make it like this: rank 1 - 5%, ranks 2-6 scaling 2% per point til 15% at rank 6, then scaling 1% per point till softcap with one upgrade missing (20%) and then 0.5% per point (till 25% at hardcap - where nobody gets anyway - so with a possible boost in the top two ranks making it 30%). This way all nightblades would retain some reasonable amount of human racial, and bleed and vit would still be kept in check by the nerfs to the gear. Or if 20% at softcap still feels like too much I’d keep scaling to 15% at 6/12 and then 1% per 2-3 points till the end.

EDIT: Apologies to repeat the same argument over and over again. But no-one on the opposing side seems to acknowledge it.

Try with this: [1.1.0.1] << C.H.I.L.L. >> ABB/OFF Cold/F-burn Spellbreaker (Crucible 7:18). Cold spellbreakers practically went extinct with this nerf (always was a problem but now Fabius + Kuba = alt + f4). Or Dunefiend or DEE witchhunter. Even this: [1.1.4.1] Silvie the Squish - RoH/Melee Hybrid Infiltrator (c+) (sr) - though I admit is kinda gimmicky for its squishiness but otherwise quite strong - has serious problems with Fabio (whose total da shred lost about 100-150 - don’t remember - but is still deadly at 510 if you don’t kill him before his Blade Spirits start rolling)

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Since when? :laughing:

I wonder why…

Oh there is why.

Greens are lumped in with the tooth fairy and honest politicians so clearly Spellbreakers don’t exist :upside_down_face:

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Spellbreaker is one of the coolest classes in the game, but is more or less tough relationship :slight_smile:

But tell me how you will not liked Shadow strike +Amatok breath build. Also Arcanist buffs kinda compensate for Nightblade nerfs. Still if you talk about Crucible, Kuba is almost impassable with bad mutators since you have low RR and Fabius is major problem.

Fabius certainly feels bulkier after the change but he’s not as serious a threat as other nems. There’s the DA debuff and a bit of a slow but nothing as serious as Reaper stacking RR through adds or Grava’s fumble interfering with sustain. He’s also slow to the point that a few lucky crits kill the first nem before Fabius even reaches you. Having enough DA to soak his debuff renders him a wimpy melee oaf that struggles to punch through dodge and fumble with his low attack speed.

I don’t use amatok’s breath as the travel time is slow, extra proccer isn’t needed. I wouldn’t call 125% RR low, but it’s a ways off of the comfort infil has in dealing with kuba. I see a lot of variance on kuba depending on where the blood pools land. Crit + RR + not in puddle = he dies quickly, but that’s all layers of rng. Fortunately kuba himself doesn’t do spectacular damage so it is possible to kill other nems first before turning to him if the initial gamble doesn’t pay out.

Few crits killing a nemesis, enough da to soak 500 da shred, 125% rr feels ways off… what kind of build is that?

Chillstrife wielding shadow strike spellbreaker with korvaak devo for the extra OA shred among other things. 500k crits per hand are middling for shadow strike on a target that has most of the RR rolling and isn’t overly resistant. Belgo relic plays into the burst - again with luck - not so infrequently yielding double tap SS. Low armor low health and lacking inquis seal makes dots/puddles a royal pain. Green free variations lose RR and significant % damage compared to proper chillstrifes, not to mention the resistance issues you brush up against.

Middling roll green setup performance was 6ish in 1.1.3.x, green free 7~. I’ve been looking at alternate gearing setups for testing in the latest rendition of crucible but I suspect green free might have slipped off the damage check treadmill

I think the racial damage nerf is fine, but the skill itself could use some slight buff to be more appealing to non-cunning builds… How about a 10-12% extra crit damage at softcap for example? Hardly going to break anything imo.

Just to make it clear (for me):

Cold/Acid Nightblades might suffer most from the nerf because they don´t have the skillpoints/don´t want to invest heavily in AoM to get to a decent amount.

Radical solution (won´t happen…):
Move Racial Damage to a different skill which is more useful to these builds (Merciless Repertoire?). Would be hard for Bleeding/Vitality (are there many Nightblade Vitality Builds? I just remember Vitality Reaper right now…) but could be compensated (for example with flat damage or something similar).

Just some thoughts after two beers…:wink:

Do they really desperately need it? Cold and acid nightblade aren’t exactly struggling

Don´t know, just quoting ya1. I am just the guy with the Bleeding Builds. :joy:

Edit:
We will see. I hope for a small compensation, be it Flat Damage, Crit (as proposed above), Health or anything else.

Both Arcanist and Nightblade shine in other setups, when Spellbreakers don’t have good synergy except cold support in both masteries
Even if you don’t have that racial bonus now, you can invest points in smth else.
Just tried my dervish. Even vs. Alex with his 94% poison res it’s fine

I still insist on making some good defensive cooldown for NB :roll_eyes:

Nightblade don’t really need anything. A well made saboteur can still kill Cronley (full facetank) or speedfarm Gollus. Just don’t push the former too far (because Fabius…). :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Also, I suggest changing the skill description from:

Knowledge prized by royal assassins, the extensive study of anatomy familiarizes you with all the vulnerable and damaging locations in which to slide a blade.

To:

Corruption within the Erulan elite left the nightblade schools without funding for anatomy classes. Royal assassins became clueless how to apply their craft against humans. Some of them chose a life of seclusion, as hunters, because a single Direwolf Crest gave them more racial to beasts than they could affordably gain from Anatomy of Murder.

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Well…I must have made something wrong. My Nightblade has still more Racial Damage against Humans than against Beasts from Direwolf Crest. :roll_eyes:

Heard this one?

Says Venomblade to Deathmarked, “Piss off or I’ll stab you in the heart!”

“In the… what?”

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