Nightblade Skill Tree

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

Hello there,

I just wanted to make some suggestions on the Nightblade skill tree. In my opinion, the Nightblade in general is a pretty underwhelming class, especially in hardcore mode. Sure the class can breeze through normal and some of elite, but it definitely gets melted in ultimate.

Now from what I’ve experienced, Soldier or Shaman is basically needed as a primary class in order to survive. And I wanted to make a Blademaster focusing mainly on vitality damage and dual wielding, but as I am planning the build in Grim Tools, I feel like the Nightblade’s skills are just not that awesome.

So I have some suggestions:

  • Phantasmal Blades and Blade Trap are “throwing abilities” as in the animation of these abilities are thrown for them to be able to activate. This is a huge problem when it comes to uneven terrain. (This is the same problem with the default attacks of guns and crossbows)

I suggest having Phantasmal Blades work like a “Nova” if anybody here has played League of Legends before, I’m suggesting something like Talon’s ultimate where blades would emerge in a 360 angle from the player and then after a short delay, the blades go back inwards toward the player, damaging everything in his/her path.

For Blade Trap, as I said, it is also a throwing ability in regards to animation. The character throws something at a group of enemies and they get trapped in cages made of blades. It is an amazing skill really, and I really want to love it, except for the fact that the character has to throw something, I know it might be in line with the ninja image that is being portrayed but it is annoying to stop your melee attacks.

I suggest, having the animation go something like this: you assign Blade Trap to a button say “1” or “Q,” and when you press the said button, instead of the throwing animation, having the monsters in a 7-10 meter radius be automatically trapped in the blades, this allows for some survivability and breathing room in tight situations.

  • Ring of Steel is a pretty badass skill, except for the fact that the transmuter is “Ring of Frost,” and cold damage is just not that good in ultimate.

I suggest changing the transmuter to “100% Piercing damage converted to Vitality Damage”
And add a mark or a dot that will give something like 50% - 70% Attack Damage converted to Health. Again, for survivability.

Those are my thoughts, I have more, but I am sure this post is long enough as it is, so well done if you’ve made it this far.

Thanks for your consideration.

-lancelibra

2

I don’t recall an uneven terrain problem with Phantasmal Blades, never had issues with it. Your suggestion, from what i gather, it seems you wouldn’t be able to spam it given the “short delay” thing. This would probably kill this skill and it’s currently one of the best skills in the game.

The Ring of Steel suggestion is a pretty bad suggestion in my opinion. Ring of Frost is actually better than the main skill because freezing is better than stun, thus leading to better CC. And cold isn’t good in Ultimate? It’s easily one of the best damage types in the game. Cold Spellbreaker for example destroys Ultimate and i can name another cold builds that are very strong.

3

Imagine how broken Korba’s would be if RoS had 50-70% ADctH :rolleyes:

Nightblade isn’t supposed to be a tanky class. It’s supposed to use stealth/trickiness and traps to survive. The design goal of the class doesn’t align with hardcore, which is what you’re critiquing from, so that’s something to consider.

My personal gripe for Nightblade is that it doesn’t have cold/acid support. It has acid, or cold, but not both combined. Maybe it would be too broken, I dunno. But I just wish there was a cold/acid set.

4

I guess you’re right, that is the stance I am coming from. As I said in hardcore, you have to pair Soldier or Shaman into your build to be survive.

I just thought if you have a dual wielding class, you would want to be able to keep up your melee attacks, and having the lifesteal to be able to withstand blows.

5

I would personally be against changing Phantasmal Blades into a nova.

Changing Ring of Frost to Vitality kills half of the Korba set unless you give it a mod for Pierce->Cold conversion. We already have a weapon to support Vitality Ring of Steel at end game so I think the transmuter is fine where it is now.

6

Yes, and nobody are uses this weapon.
This tells a lot about vitality ring of steel, in generally, and necessity of this conversion, in particular.

7

Then the weapon should get buffed or more item support. The initial proposed idea was to change Ring of Steel’s transmuter for no discernible reason - I don’t think it is necessary as this does not provide anything new like a unique build concept.

8

Given that infiltrators can take on Ravager on even terms, I’d contend against the need for Shaman or Soldier as a secondary class. In fact, infiltrator is probably the most synergistic class combo right now.

You’re neglecting that Nightblade has nearly every secondary defensive stat in the game in relatively easy reach. It’s the only class that gives dodge and deflect in sizeable amounts on what is probably the game’s best healing skill. It has fumble, access to flat armor and physical resist, and an excellent OA debuff. In fact, I’d say that Nightblade as a defensive mastery is on par with Shaman and only loses out to Inquisitor or Soldier.

Also, cold has an incredibly easy time stacking crazy amounts of RR from Censure, Night’s Chill, and whatever devos you scrape together.

9

You what would be awesome, if some of these transmuters could be toggled to different damage types, so you could choose cold/vitality or anything the developers would like to see, i know its not possible in the game but it would fix a few things in my mind like totally unnecessary items, reducing an already huge item pool would be a good thing imo. Its only going to get worse with yet another class coming in the expansion!

10

Neat, another weapon whose Mythical version is worse than the nonMythical one. :rolleyes:

11

NB is in a good place right now defensively, only thing that could use some changes is the Phantasmal Armor passive.

12

Yeah, just move phyz resist from dual blade skill to phantasmal armor and NB is now a supertank.
Same can be done to Shaman armor aura that no one use.

13

Hi,

To be honest, I kind of disagree with you from the first sentence. Nightblade is not weak or unbalanced. On the opposite, it is quite well made. Good offensive power, good defensive skills as well (Pneumatic burst gives you a lot, heal, DA, dodge; Physical res from dual blades; Veil of shadow). For sure it might look less tanky than say soldier, but what is the point to make another soldier mastery? It is what it is, namely a dual wield melee class. Hit first, hit hard. That’s how I feel about it.

To me it sounds like you really wanted a Vitality DW nightblade, but you picked the wrong mastery. The fact you can’t make it as a Blademaster doesn’t mean the mastery needs to be changed. You are getting a bit extrem here I fear :smiley: Maybe any combination of Shaman/Occu/Necro/Soldier would have been a better bet. And you can still do it DW with some items (e.g. Direwolf crest).

Maybe adding some mods on particular items could be good in order to answer to your will of vitality build. But IMHO, the nightblade tree is quite good as it is.

14

You can roll Blademaster with any damage type, more or less. The only one I’ve had issues using is Lightning, which is more to do with a dearth of 1H Lightning Attack-Speed gear that isn’t Crystallum/Stormheart (neither of which really fit for different reasons).

15

Kain has pretty much said everything I was going to say; NB is my favorite mastery right now, and I have to say that it is versatile and quite powerful, regardless of the mastery with which it is combined.

I saw someone say move the phys res off of Dual Blades and put it on Phantasmal Armor: I would like to second this. PA is a great skill already, but put the PR on it, and it becomes even better.

16

As someone who has played a lot of nightblades in the past year I have to say nightblade is in an almost perfect spot since the buff to dual blades. Demo and arcanist are much more in need of a change/buff imo. And also soldier’s veterancy passive.

17

This buff was specifically made to make DW tankier, adding it into an universal passive would make every nightblade mastery build tankier. It’s also ridiculous for an universal, restriction free passive.

18

Just for the sake of debate, right now, there’s a discussion going on in another thread where a cold damage Trickster is in the top three for DW damage dealers:

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78891

19

  1. Nightblade is the second (or maybe third) defensively strongest mastery after soldier (and maybe inquisitor).

  2. Nightblade combos got top gear.

  3. Cold and (arguably) pierce are best dmg types.

Really, can’t complain. If one needs to vent, demolitionist rants are in. Also, recommend inquisitor op rants. :D:D:D

Sides, don’t fix what ain’t broken. Moving phys res to pa wouldn’t make nothing tankier. You’d have to pull points from somewhere most likely pb/veil of shadow.

20

Sides, don’t fix what ain’t broken. Moving phys res to pa wouldn’t make nothing tankier.

Well, it would make 2H NB tankier, like Night reach WH or Winters king trickster. :stuck_out_tongue: