Online:Veiled Strike

	Veiled Strike
Line		Assassination
Line Rank		1	Cost	2295 Magicka
Cast Time		Instant	Duration	–
Target		Enemy
Range		7 meters
Morphs
		Surprise Attack Converts to a Stamina ability and deals Physical Damage. Always applies the Sundered status effect and deals guaranteed critical damage when flanking an enemy.
		Concealed Weapon Deals increased damage, which furthers when leaving Sneak or invisibility. While slotted you gain Minor Expedition.
Notes Values are based on Max Magicka/Stamina 12000, Max Health 16000, and Weapon/Spell Damage 1000.

Veiled Strike and its morphs

Veiled Strike: Slash an enemy, dealing [6149 / 6215 / 6283 / 6352] Magic Damage. If you strike an enemy from their flank you set them Off Balance.

Surprise Attack: Cost: 2295 Stamina.
Slash an enemy, dealing [6352 / 6421 / 6491 / 6561] Physical Damage and applying the Sundered status effect. If you strike an enemy from their flank you set them Off Balance. This attack will also be guaranteed to be a Critical Strike, up to once every 3 seconds.

Concealed Weapon: Slash an enemy, dealing 6988 Magic Damage. If you strike an enemy from their flank you set them Off Balance. When you leave Sneak or invisibility while in combat, increase your damage done with this ability by 10% for [12 / 13 / 14 / 15] seconds. While slotted on either bar, you gain Minor Expedition, increasing your Movement Speed by 15%.

Veiled Strike deals Magic Damage to a single opponent, and causes them to become off balanced when attacking the target from their flank. The Surprise Attack morph changes it to a Stamina cost, deals Physical Damage, and will reduce the enemy's armor with Sundered, causing your subsequent attacks to do more damage and will guarantee a Critical Strike every 3 seconds. Alternatively, the Concealed Weapon morph passively increases your movement speed and increases your damage dealt for 12-15 seconds when leaving stealth or invisibility in combat.

Notes

• Concealed Weapon is a good morph for mobility. When combined with Dark Stalker, Shadow Cloak, and Cripple (on a target) it becomes a great escape maneuver.
• Shadow Cloak and its morphs can be particularly useful for helping to reliably gain the damage done bonus from Concealed Weapon.
• Concealed Weapon is a recommended morph for the Nightblade Initiate build, while Surprise Attack is recommended for Umbral Assassin.
• Before Update 43, this skill was a Shadow line skill.

Patch Notes

1.4.4

• Concealed Weapon: Your stealthed movement speed bonus is no longer removed if another player character casts Shadow Cloak while stealthed.

1.5.2

• This ability will no longer stun and off-balance enemies who dodge the attack.
• Concealed Weapon: The stealth speed bonus from this ability now persists if you weapon swap twice.

1.6.5

• Fixed an issue with the impact sounds on the abilities Flurry and Veiled Strike.
• Veiled Strike and its associated morphs will no longer stun enemies or cause them to go off-balance if they dodge the initial attack.
• Surprise Attack: This morph is now a stamina-based ability, now applies the Major Fracture debuff, and will no longer reduce your target's armor if they dodge the initial attack.

2.3.6

• Fixed an issue where this ability was not playing the correct audio during impacts.

2.7.5

• Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order:
  • Veiled Strike
  • Shadow Cloak
  • Path of Darkness
  • Aspect of Terror
  • Summon Shade
    • Developer Comment: The goal of this change was to make sure early skills in the trees are simpler and more damage focused.

3.3.5

• Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs would still stun and set an enemy Off Balance even if they could detect you with detection potions.

5.0.5

• Surprise Attack: This ability no longer applies Major Fracture. Instead, if you use the ability on the flank of an enemy (behind or at their sides), you reduce their Physical Resistance by 5%. This effect cannot stack, but will always prioritize the highest value.
  • Developer Comment: Similar to the other changes, this pass was done to ensure the Nightblade has less moments of redundancy within its own kit. Since Mark Target exists primarily as the class' way to gain access to Major Fracture or Breach, having a morph of your main ability grant the same thing heavily reduced the value of having Mark Target. Note that this effect will not stack per caster, similar to the Crusher enchantment for weapons.

5.1.5

• Concealed Weapon: Fixed an issue where casting this ability from crouch would apply the stun to your target, but not animate the stun.

5.2.5

• Reduced the base cost of this ability and the Concealed Weapon morph to 2295, down from 2700, to ensure they stand out more appropriately as melee spammables such as Lava Whip or its morph, Surprise Attack.

6.0.5

• This ability and its morphs now stun and set targets Off Balance when used from the flank of an enemy, rather than when you are stealthed or invisible. This change was done to offset the loss of the ability to activate this portion of the attack with the recent fixes to Heavy Attacks properly breaking invisibility.

6.3.5

• Surprise Attack (morph): This morph now applies the Sundered Status Effect on hit, rather than reducing the target's Physical Resistance by 5% if you successfully flanked the target.

8.0.5

• Surprise Attack (morph): Fixed an issue where this morph had no upgrades as it ranked up. It will now deal 1.1% more damage per rank.

8.1.5

• Veiled Strike: This ability and its morphs no longer stun targets when used from the flank.
  • Surprise Attack (morph): This morph now also always Critically Strikes, up to once every 4 seconds, when flanking an enemy.
  • Concealed Weapon (morph):
    • This morph now passively grants Minor Expedition while slotted, instead of increasing your movement speed by 25% while in sneak or invisible.
    • This morph now also increases your Damage Done by 7-10% for 5 seconds after leaving sneak or invisibility, or Major Expedition Ends while in combat.
  • Developer Comment: Currently, the Nightblade's melee spammable options are a bit behind other melee spammables in terms of both flavor and impact in PvE areas, so we're adjusting both morphs to give some love. Surprise Attack's morph option reinforces the need for positioning as an assassin and continues to add some minor damage with the Sundered proc, while Concealed Weapon retains its stealthy and agile emphasis with less restrictions and more reward for playing from the shadows.

We're also taking away the ease of access of having crowd control on their primary ability to reduce some of their overbearing nature in PvP situations, ensuring they need to look to other tools and make operational costs for running CC options like other classes. This was originally added since the class lacked a potent crowd control option in their kit, which has been amended in this Update by improving the functionality of Aspect of Terror.

9.0.5

• Concealed Weapon: This morph now grants its damage done bonus for 10 seconds if Major Expedition was active while it was cast, rather than for 5 seconds when Major Expedition ends or was refreshed, to ensure the skill is used actively rather than passively. The damage bonus still operates the same for leaving sneak or invisibility.

9.3.5

• Concealed Weapon (morph): This morph now deals 10% increased damage at all times and deals an additional 10% damage for 15 seconds after leaving Stealth or Invisibility, rather than granting Major Berserk. This morph’s Minor Expedition and conditional requirement now persist through bar swap.
  • Developer Comment: Based on much of the feedback we’ve seen with this morph’s many iterations, we’re moving forward with a bonus that focuses on the ability itself to ensure it offers a stark and effective bonus, rather than a complicated bonus that makes the ability feel more like a management skill. Simultaneously, this will let us re-evaluate other parts of the Nightblade kit in the future, to find healthier spots to bring them up in PvE damage production without further complicating some of their PvP strengths.