(B17) Nightblade Changes...

Beronath’s Fury or something. Probably lvl 35.

A LMB would be cool, but I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. If you do add one, maybe a stacking buff. Some attack speed, cold damage and piercing damage for every hit. That would differentiate it from Beronath’s Fury. The modifier could add a chance with each attack to add additional bleeding/piercing/cold damage. For ranged toons, it would be cool if the proc throws out a knife instead of just buffing your normal attack. This wouldn’t be necessary or anything, I just think it’d be cool stacking attack speed and letting them knives loose. :cool:

As for another active skill… Some sort of dash would pronounce the idea that this class is all about agility. One of my favourite skills from PoE is Whirling Blades: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnH2bmUZsDw

Not only would an attack like that make perfect sense in the Nightblade mastery (blades, quick movement), it would add something new. Lots of possible strategic uses, while adding some much needed AoE damage at early levels. As a bonus, it’d be all up to you how to balance it. You could leave it with no cooldown, but with a substantial energy cost, or give it 3-5 seconds cooldown with higher damage. It could deal a mix of piercing and cold damage, with an added slow and bleeding damage for the modifier. I imagine most, if not all, Nightblades would find such a skill very useful. Even one point in it would be worth it just for the dash, which would be invaluable if you get surrounded. I think the best solution would be for it to have a few seconds of cooldown. A melee Nightblade needs to spend his time leftclicking monsters in order to fully utilize the DW skills, and an aoe attack with no cooldown would interfere with that. Plus, with a cooldown in place, it would allow you to beef up its damage more, which makes for a cooler skill.

Possible problems: I could understand why you wouldn’t want to just copy and paste a skill from PoE. Maybe this would require some new tech, though I imagine it wouldn’t be very hard to do.

Would be amazing to see this skill in Grim Dawn!

EDIT: It looks as you’d only be shuffling skills around, but I guess it would be wise to respecc any skills points invested in these particular skills in order to be certain I won’t lose them?

  1. and 2) Blade trap / Blade Swarm - never tried them, so I can’t comment. But I should. I stick to what I like with my builds…

  2. Add a new weapon attack. Part of me agrees with this, but the way I play now I just use default attack with weapon and shield and fill out mastery until char level 10ish (mastery level 25ish) when I start to unlock DW. It’s about that time you get decent weapons to use DW. So, a new base attack would be nice to start with, but will I want it at level 25? 40? If not, I probably wont pick it early on and stick with my strategy since default works well enough early on. I know I can respect out, but why even bother? I’d have to see the attack (see below).

  3. Turn Dual Blades into a passive skill. I’m good with this. In fact, I think I like it.

I agree, I don’t like a LMB skill either. See my point at #3 above.

If it’s active and scales well later in the game I might take it. If not, I wouldn’t.

NB is my favorite character and I think this is a good direction. It probably wouldn’t change much for my play, but I will see.

What I think is missing and what I would rather have is rogue-like mobility. A teleport (not like SS). Something that teleports me in the direction of the mouse 1-5 meters (not sure of the scale, maybe 5-10 meters?) and increases run speed (and maybe attack speed?) for 5-10 seconds or something. But doesn’t necessarily do damage on it’s own. In addition, an ability to set a destination point to return to (an escape point). Single use with a CD, useful for bosses to quickly GTFO. For example, lay down a marker on the floor which I’ll be teleported to when I use the skill, but can only be used once on CD of some sort.

It’s a high level (you probably guessed that from the stats already!) component called “Shard of Beronath”, and while it does not drop in Alpha, I believe Gem’s point still stands that we already have an Onslaught-equivalent skill in GD, even if it is not tried to any specific mastery. :wink:

Ive played a number of variants on this class, its a really great tree and I can see it being very powerful in later levels, but it did have some issues imo.

I felt like there was no AOE I could spec into early on, and even by lvl20-25 either youve gone so far down the mastery line that youre comparatively point starved or you still have a situation where you get mobbed by monsters and youre essentially having to attack them 1 by 1 with an unreliable chance to proc something semi AOE, where a soldier just have forcewave really early on that demolishes packs, same with blackwater cocktail for demo. It felt to me like you would always be better speccing into soldier or demo first because up to level 10 cadence + forcewave or firestrike + bwc were stronger and able to tackle packs effectively, even if you completely dropped fw/bwc somewhere after lvl10 10 and respecced into dual wield or whatever. Given that FS or Cadance will always boost your dual wield, or even Witchfire, it seems like most of the time youll be picking one of these up eventually anyway.

The guy above mentioned Whirling Blades, thats actually something I had in mind. The main thing I was finding was getting surrounded, sometimes with mobs coming from the ground around you its impossible not to be walled in by monsters. Theres the shadow strike thing to get from A to B but that can still be blocked by a wall of zombies in tight spaces.

Something that would let you do damage along a path while moving through mobs without clipping them would give you that battlefield mobility back that would stop you needing to AOE so much. On open ground the class can have this perpetual style thats very satisfying, you dont need the AOE with a combo of Pblades and the Sstrike along with the main weapon attack you keep moving and single targeting at range. Something like a D2 style Whirlwind or PoEs Whirling Blades would help bring that style into more confined areas, you dont tank with large aoe hits but rather you control the battlefield and have this mobility that allows you to always be in the optimal position.

Maybe you disappear at point A and a cloud of spinning blades moves like a projectile through the mobs and then you reappear at point B the other side of them. Im thinking it would be a cooldown type skill, Im not picturing it like D3s Whirlwind where you just spam it or even the way Whirling Blades becomes a way of just moving faster like a sprint, perhaps getting from A to B would even take just slightly longer than it would to simply walk the distance. Im picturing it more like a get out of jail card you would play now and then, so mechanically like WW or WB but functionally different.

The other thought was an aoe attack but with blade arc and ring of steel and the dual wield procs its hard to really think of anything not covered melee wise. If you were to go down the lmb attack route I think something that does splash/shape damage right away and then gets more intense single target deeps later on would work more with phant blades as thats very single target. Where as cadence and firestrike you get single target early then later it adds an aoe aspect, which fits with forcewave and bwc being aoe on just the first node.

There is no Shadow mastery in TQ, must have been a mod :wink:

I don’t think it should be yet another LMB attack, definitely not if it interferes with the DW skills (i.e. you get one or the other as some say Cadence does - not sure if it actually does…).

I like the idea of increasing +pierce and +%pierce with it. Whether as LMB (in addition to DW) or as a passive. Maybe with a chance to slow / freeze.

I realize this is very close to what med said, but I simply agree with it I guess :wink:

I would not give it a cooldown though, then it becomes an inferior shadow strike to me.

I played in localized version, default rogue mastery was named “Shadow”.

I like the idea that dual blades would no longer be a chance-to-occur. It would make the lineup more reliable early on and place a greater emphasis on the later skills when they occur. I think it would also help eliminate the, I-don’t-know-what-is-happening-but-I-suppose-it-is-good-if-it-causes-damage (/whatever) feeling that many players could have when first trying the class and they start to see the animations and hear the sound effects.

What about starting with a higher cunning or lower chance to miss, or have an innate higher chance for criticals.

I kind of like this. However, instead of it being a melee attack, how about a short AOE, maybe two meters tops in front of the character, 180-200 degrees? Since there isn’t much “illusion” in the class, how about the Nightblade throw a crystal powder in front of him/her that deals cold damage with a chance to freeze.

Higher levels deal more damage (default being really low) and increase chance to freeze. Edit: and possibly increase -%overall speed for x time?

Synergy, as you said, adds frostburn. Either with that synergy (or even the base skill) or in another synergy, add -%pierce resist and possibly -%elemental resists. The former making follow up melee/gun attacks stronger, the latter making the other cold attacks (or other class skills) do more damage.

I think this could be great, as not only would it be useful to the Nightblade throughout the rest of the game, but it also synergizes well with most other builds you could think of, including ranged characters.

Yeah having a new low cool down active skill isn’t going to be valuable for any medium to high level nightblade. You have very quick active skills to begin with and at high levels of dual wielding you have a huge number of procs going of on basic attacks. You have pb, ss, and ros on less than 3 sec cool downs, and a bunch of second masteries add actives in the under 5 timeframe, such as curse, blitz, or stun jacks.

I think any low cool down skill with a low commensurate benefit would probably be overlooked.

Actually why don’t you try an active aura cold/slowing/freezing attack that is in the 8 sec cool down timeframe if you’re really against adding a lmb or aura ideas. This would really help out the low level night blade against the one thing they have a ton of problems against (packs), have a high enough cool down that it becomes you’re get out of dodge skill, while not overshadowing other skills in the mastery, or spam able.

Dejnov

The problem with adding an LMB skill is dual wield already pretty much acts like its own LMB skill, especially if it procs every time now. I’d think adding an LMB skill on top of that would just make the Nightblade’s basic attack a bit too overpowered for just one class, especially factoring in that you can get a proc that happens 1/5th the time maxed out that deals well over 500% damage.

edit: And the NB already has one aura, and Pneumatic Burst is basically a second one. Adding yet another aura on top of that is a bit silly.

But that’s a problem with pneumatic burst. It does way too much at once. It should either be a heal skill OR an aura. Actually that might be a good idea also for the night blade. Split the pneumatic burst into two and make the healing portion you 8 sec or so active low level skill and give it a chance to also freeze enemies within 1.5 m. Make the rest of pneumatic burst the aura it’s always meant to be.

You described it a lot better than I did. The only thing I disagree with is the bolded part. I believe a skill such as this should be quick, as is fitting to the class. Given a cooldown, I doubt it would be considered merely as a speed boost.

I agree that a skill such as this befits the class greatly. The NB doesn’t rely on pure AoE damage, his strengths are utilizing mobility, positioning and lethal single target damage. A GD version of Whirling Blades would grant the NB a mobility skill which it currently lacks, bar Shadow Strike (which is a great skill, but doesn’t give you much freedom in where you want to move).

Cadence in theory, can only override proc’d skills because it has its own animation and is triggered every X attacks. The suggestion we were giving with a stacking buff would not have an animation or trigger every X attacks, but always be present and ramp up as you continue to fight.

Keep in mind, people who say it overrides the procs aren’t even sure of themselves. There hasn’t been an official “yes it overrides” or not yet, pretty sure in fact that I read somewhere that the opposite was true.

Why not? Having a different LMB skill in each tree gives you options for different builds. You could skip cadence for a shield fighter and opt for something else instead.

Eye of Dreeg isn’t exactly what I’d consider a LMB skill either, that’s like saying the storm caster from Titan Quest has a LMB skill with ice shards, just because its a hyper low cooldown doesn’t mean its a great LMB skill. It can work as one sure, but is it comparable to the others? Not quite.

Eye will drain you of your mana reserves quite fast. Firestrike? Cadence? Not so much. Not to mention if I’m going a tanky character - there’s no way I’d ever take Eye of Dreeg as a LMB skill. Nor would I ever take that skill if I was anything except some sort of caster. Nothing wrong with it but like I said earlier, its an option, that’s what having a different LMB skill in each mastery would do for you.

Except if you don’t take dual wield and are playing a shield fighter… now what?

The nightblade excels in single target damage, it makes perfect sense for the nightblade to have a skill that amps his single target damage further. The class is designed to deal damage. Not to tank, not to disrupt enemies, not to deal tons of AoE. Sure, it can do ok with ring of steel, but its at a point blank range, unlike the ranged demo nukes, or the ranged Sigils of Occultist.

I mean what would you rather have? Another knife throw? The only suggestion I’ve seen here that seems remotely cool is the scorpion pull, but I’m not sure that would even be useful considering how many enemies can be on screen at once. Unless… you could pull yourself to safety to escape enemies. But then how many times could you use that before it gets boring?

Also, need to set things straight. Auras are area of effect buffs that can enhance your parties skills as well as your own. If it only enhances your own skills, it is not an aura but a self buff.

So… you want to split the skill in two and then give the nightblade the option to have a strong crowd control skill? That could potentially break the class even more, or make the skill useless. If the % to freeze is high enough, its a requirement to take on all builds. If its too low, its worthless.

I’m with Draug on having a similar skill to Solael’s Witchfire that does cold/frost damage rather than another LMB skill. Or make it cold/poison damage to carry through on the other cold/poison abilities the Nightblade already has. Toxic Winter’s Touch dealing % and flat cold/poison damage in the same way that Witchfire does.

Drop Blade Trap, awful skill, and keep Blade Swarm. I haven’t tried that one yet - not managed to get any of my toons to reach it yet, but I’m working on it - but I hated Trap.

As for Whirling Death, well we’ve got that in the dual wield tree anyway. You could use the equivalent of TQ’s War Wind tree with another name, but I think that would take away from the Nightblade’s single target excellence and make it more of a tank type. Would be great for getting out of the middle of all those mobs though. :smiley:

I actually would not mind having an active damage buff similar to TQ’s poison skill with the added debuffs for its 2 follow ups, fits the rouge like feel without making it a left click only skill and it would add some survival/ damage options for the class via fumble / slows that are applied every attack if speced for it.

Or a skill that hits 2 times, 4 if you have dual blades, the perks could be reduced armor and has a bleed/ aoe to X targets.

Blade Swarm is even worst than Blade Trap… at least the trap has its uses and fits the class. Swarm does not.

How can Swarm not fit? If Ring of Steel fits, then Swarm must too as I see it. And what about Blade Spirit? Surely that doesn’t fit either going by its description. So two cool skills are likely to be lost. :frowning:

ahem…