Because it used to be accompanied by massive racial to humans, maybe?
It’s now like a 3rd or 4th best option for Bleeding Trickster. Those endless nerfs to my build made me stop wanting to update it.
I still play with 1 Bloodsong, but more for the +1 to Nightblade than the other stats.
Or guillotine had 1400 flat bleed on it.
come to think of it CD bleed BA is not very reliable these days
I mean not only the cunning from anatomy, but also attribute investment. That’s working well even on cold Deathmarked builds, where you have low crit bonus and cunning isn’t boosting your damage like pierce, physical or bleeding.
I don´t want to make this a Bleeding QQ-Thread, but there were a lot of nerfs. Buffs, too…but some nerfs are legendary. 
(I still blame Shoot2033 for it…
)
Well, back on topic:
This time Bleeding Trickster suffered due to the global Racial Damage nerf. It´s still good, but every patch it gets a little bit harder. Therefore my question for a little bit of compensation defense-wise for the Anatomy of Murder-nerf; if the damage was too high, just give a little bit defense. “We” won´t be Warlords after this. 
Perhaps, but look at the larger picture. AoM used to be one of the, so to speak, more complex passives in the game. Some ppl 1-pointed it. I liked to keep it at 6/12. Many chose 9/12 or 11/12, and there was good reasoning behind it all. Bleed and vit maxed it.
And now? 1p for all or max for bleed/vit. In very small steps the game is becoming flatter. And for the sake of what exactly? So that AoM and FoR have identical scaling? Because this is the only reason for this nerf - so that passives are “in line.”
But… what “line”? What is it needed for? Balance? Which builds exactly were op with that racial? Notched Bone and Guthook were nerfed. Acid synergy with oathkeeper was nerfed. Deathmarked was nerfed to the ground. If there are other builds that are too powerful why not nerf the builds? This “line” is an arbitrary concept that serves no real purpose except aesthetic.
What the “line” really does is that it slowly kills the spirit of the game. Massive racial to humans was what one of the things that made nightblade special. One of the reasons to choose it over other masteries. Every mastery has such a special thing. I’m not saying that nightblade is dead. It’s still very good. But it did lose one of the things that made it unique. This one thematic aspect of the mastery, of the diversity between masteries, has been ruined.
Shit, it does sound like a drama queen, doesn’t it? 
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Yes, indeed, it does.
My view is a little bit different:
I think, Zantai/Crate wanted to cut the powercreep in damage. And one solution, for all masteries, was: Nerf Racial Damage. You are right, AoM got nerfed more than any other Racial Damage. The second place could be Mythical Guthook Belt with 50 % nerf (from 25 % to 12 %). I don´t think “passives have to be in line” generally because they aren´t; if you look only at them, Fabric of Reality or Steel Resolve are “better”, if you only look at them. But for some builds, the Cunning-raise is worth more, even more as the flat damage the other skills gain (it´s true for my Trickster e. g.).
I am with Norzan when it comes to unique ability/“spirit” of a mastery. For Nightblade, it´s the DW-line. Anatomy of Murder fits in nice thematically, but it´s not the core of the mastery. If you want another unique thing about Nightblade: No exclusive skill. Why is this something good? Because you can take all things you want without thinking about making a choice between 2 exclusive skills.
I am with you, that it is sometimes frustrating when nerfs cut your damage because for me it´s like “Get enough defense and then…DAMAGE”. You want to see numbers, you want to kill fast. Okay, we got a(nother) slap here, so it would be nice, if we can´t do high damage, we can longer do damage (a little bit more defense, even if it is only some Health).
Btw @Rhylthar you compared belt with passive skill, which required previously substantial investment in order to shine. I get why Zantai is reducing racial bonus, but skill like Anatomy which doesn’t even work fully on major Nightblade builds is strange. I think the minimum should be higher and then scales with 1% increase per level.
Anyway the two months ago Deathmarked chest had more racial then AOM now 
I don´t know; does your Vitality Reaper even use it? You can argue that it now doesn´t work fully but on the other hand…you got a lot of bang for your bucks before. How much did you gain for a 6/12 or 3/12?
If (and that´s a big “IF”) Zantai would change Racial Damage here again he could make it the exactly the other way around: Small Racial Damage if you invest only a few points, more if you go beyond 12/12. Hey, I will be the 1st one who would enjoy it…but I don´t think this would happen.
And comparing skills with items: Well, Nightblade is still the only mastery (I think so…) which gets Racial damage against Humans. Still unique.
I think your joke is very childish. Vitality works only with Demonslayer and reason is the good set and massive racial damage. Vitality is the most resistant type and Nightblade don’t have vitality RR and basically no support outside of this passive skill. So skip it, yes
Nightblades do have cold and acid - RR. And these are the main damage types for DW and you can’t make them without Nightblade support. So the question is what you gain by taking more points in Anatomy now? Answer is, better invest the points in WPS and leave AoM at 1 point, no points more for sure. So this is the change. You still will max it on vitality, bleeding builds. Or you will skip it on your bleeding builds and take Stormcaller for exclusive?
No joke, I don´t know if it is used or not on your Reaper. And btw. Nightblade doesn´t have Bleed RR, either.
And to get it right:
You can invest points with Cold/Acid Nightblade in other skills because they are not maxed? I couldn´t do that (don´t have to) because all other relevant skills (WPS) are maxed (perhaps Execution but not strictly Bleeding).
As for your last question (though I don´t understand the reason for it):
Stormcaller´s Pact was the goto exclusive skill till Primal Bond was buffed. Played a long time with it because DoT + High Crit = Much fun! Therefore it will be Divine Mandate on my Dervish.
Oops sorry, I thought you’re making jokes. AoM is maxed (at 14 with class bonus) at my Reaper. You don’t have options there.
But look at my Deathmarked BM skill distribution. [1.1.4.1] Cold Lol The Nerftaking Blademaster, Gladiator 7+ minutes I should remove the points and siphon them elsewhere.
As for bleeding, I thought that Primal bond is the go to skill, but remember people using Stormcaller for crit before 
I wonder why Bleeding Tricksters are good? Maxing WPS skills, here’s my answer 
Because of…Bleeding. It´s a massive DoT Build, I don´t know any other Damage Type which is comparable. Sure, other Damage Types have DoTs, too, but most builds just take it as nice-to-have and go for the direct damage (long time since I have seen a pure IT-Build…). Yes, WPS helps because you have to stack up the sources. But only Whirling Death is maxed, Belgothians and Execution are for the Weapon Damage and/or the skill modfiers.
As for the posted build (I am no expert in Cold builds): What about Execution, AQC, Blade Spirits (for Damage)?
As for Stormcaller´s Pact:
Before Primal Bonds buff and Massacre Relic I used Stormcaller and Eye of the Storm. Hard times.
Edit:
After looking through several builds adding Health (somewhere between Primal Strike and Spectral Binding, not percentage) would be nice and won´t harm anyone. And if only that I don´t get pearls of sweat when I see this under 10k Health builds.
Now, this is “in line” with all the other arguments defending this nerf.
So there can be only one special thing? You’re making up arguments as you go.
Nightblade always had huge human racial. Now, for most nightblade builds it was nerfed close to zero. And for no good reason. If this happened before all the Deathmarked nerfs, VB nerfs, different oathkeeper nerfs: Ascension nerfs and Guardian nerfs, PB nerfs, Bloodrager nerfs, Guthook nerfs, Notched Bone nerfs, Ultos nerfs, Dying God nerfs, Rumor nerfs, different infiltrator nerfs: RoH nerfs, Steel Resolve nerfs and Censure nerfs, Lethal Assault nerfs, Chillwhisper nerfs, Harra nerfs, pierce Cadence nerfs and many many others - then it might have been understandable. But in the present situation it’s nothing but a nerf for the sake of nerf. It serves no practical purpose balance-wise.
That’s right. Playtester community got in such a momentum then now nerfs happen just for the sake of nerfs. They are running out of things to nerf! So they are looking for what else to nerf. Nerf what has not yet been nerfed!
No, it’s not that. Things like damage, achievements, clear times, record runs - they hardly matter anymore in GD. For example, there’s a new very strong build. But the guy asked me not to share. This is seriously what is happening. Anyway, the build is strong, got lots of damage, but what sense does it even make to make such a statement if this build might not exist after the next patch.
It’s more about a principle. Or lack thereof.
Dude, come on, you can’t be this funny while I’m over here trying to eat dinner!
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I wish the playtester community would stop it with all the nerfs, but they’ve just got too much power!
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Y U NO NURF PLAYTESTERS?
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He should nerf Ceno’s dinner. That’ll learn him good the next time he comes around swinging that Nerf-bat.
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This is how it looks like from the outside. You didn’t give a single concrete reason for this change that’s based on concrete examples. Mostly you just ridicule criticism.
They give you feedback and suggestions, no? Superfluff said he did.