Who Actually Wanted To Be a NB Caster Pre-Release?

Draehl

7/7 Light Armor, Resto/Destro Staves Nightblades. They're all over the place, but based on a lot of commentary many players are simply using this setup as it is the most valid option. Are you playing this build as its your best option, or were you going for the Shadowpriest with stealth playstyle from the beginning?

Personally, I was gearing for something very similar, 5 light/2 heavy with Resto + Sword'n'board- more of a Shadowcleric. Turned out that the lack of range (for proccing siphoning/leeching strikes) and losing out on the Mana regen from Resto Staff simply made dual-resto the most valid option and far superior to the defenses you gained from the shield. That and avoiding damage (relatively easy with Cloak/Cripple/Fear) turned out to be far more suitable than soaking it.

How did your original plans differ from what you ended up playing?

Armann

I was mage from day 1, but then I see the Nightblade as a mage/thief hybrid due to playing single player TES alot. I want to migrate to full heavy armor and 1h+shield later though to mimic my Dark Templar from AoC, I see some similarities so I kinda wonder if the person designing the class played that class or drew inspiration from it.

Jice

Maybe not as a Caster, but I knew the only tank that made sense to me was the Nightblade. Veil of Blades, Self Heals, Dark Shades, Leeching strikes..just all made very good tanking abilities to me.

TheBull

I wanted to be able to do the warlock/Spriest/Disc priest thing, but NB Dots are joke for the most part.

I never wanted to main that way, but I love options. That's just not a viable one atm.

Jaxom

Not I. I leveled as Bow/DW up until I hit around VR4 and hit a brick wall (pre nerf). Succumbed to the pressure and respeced. Been running the 7/7 LA resto spec for a good 2 months now. Come Monday, I'm respecing back to Stamina out of spite. I'm going to make it work dammit.

Tamanous

I was a NB caster (resto staff only) through 4 beta weekends and the first month or 2 after release. I never once had an interest in playing a melee NB.

I in fact play a melee/hybrid sorc now.

Slaunyeh

I was a caster nightblade from day 1. Of course, I have two nightblades because the sneaky assassin gameplay is also great fun.

But I really like the siphon/leech play style. Reminds me of my old Kinetics Defender in City of Heroes (RIP).

Code2501

I personally hate staves, I don't use them, I want all my magic to come from me not some stick.

I wanted to be an illusion based sniper, I picked NB because its the only class that had illusion spells, but illusion magic is severely gimped compared to classical ES games. I hope spell crafting fixes this.
I also hope they add poisons to ESO, they were an integral part to my ES plays.
They also need to fix invisibility so it does not drop off on when your dots tick on an enemy, you should be able to load up an enemy with dots and then vanish from sight while they slowly suffer the pain of your spells/poisons.

Anjelicus

its funny, I wanted to be a Heavy Armor Sorc (battlemage) pre release... but i settled for a Breton Templar lol

Yagudo

I originally planned on playing a Werewolf. I even went so far as to level up to 30 and go unlock the skilline and even skill it up to 10. Shortly thereafter I discovered that ZOS only really added Werewolf as a joke and decided to go make another character. Now I'm playing a light armor/destro staff NB. Is it what I wanted? No. Is the best? By a long shot, sadly.

Braddass

I planned on being a NB healer / off-healer from the start. I always like being able to heal while doing damage.

Sedrethi

I suppose I fit into the category of wanting to be a caster variant pre-release.

Nightblades from previous Elder Scrolls games were always a mix of magic and stealth, so I was used to the playstyle and it is my preferred way to play. Just wish there were more Alteration, Illusion, and Mysticism spells for me to use.

That said, I'm not a full light armor user, but rather five pieces light and two medium for a bit more hybrid variety (and for aesthetics). Not the biggest fan of staves, but they're the closest I can get to wielding spears (à la Morrowind), currently, and I'd rather have a conjured bow than a mundane one.

khele23eb17_ESO

Not me, I got fooled into thinking this was the class for me by its description on the character creation screen. 'Relying on stealth, blades and speed' my ass.

Moonscythe

My first choice is always a stealthy mage with a bow or a stealthy archer with magic but I lean more to mage with bow. I suck at swinging a blade so if I can't do ranged I'm toast.

jelliedsoup

Been a DW/ bow NB since day one. Much easier now, hard to tell if its my higher level or buffs to NB, nerfs to others.

Azzuria

Slaunyeh wrote: »

I was a caster nightblade from day 1. Of course, I have two nightblades because the sneaky assassin gameplay is also great fun.

But I really like the siphon/leech play style. Reminds me of my old Kinetics Defender in City of Heroes (RIP).

I have two Nightblades as well. A Bow / DW sniper / assassin and am leveling a Dunmer NB to be a Vampire Healer because it reminds me of the old Vanguard Blood Mage which I loved so much ( when I could stand to play Vanguard ).

Tavore1138

I had the 'classic' two knives and a bow build in mind. A stealthy assassin, not averse to some magic use but mainly in support of helping me get in and hit hard.

To a degree that is what I have played throughout, swapped the daggers for axes for the extra bleeds, dropped the bow in favour of supporting crafts and went with medium armour with a couple of bits of heavy.

It got me all the way through all 3 regions pre-nerf, not without some epic level rage moments though.

Pancake-Tragedy

I've always like both the "rogue/assassin" archetype and also the "warlock" archetype. Nightblade has elements from both and I was hooked on the class from the start. I can't even manage to play or level another character, since the NB has everything I need/want in a class.

AlexTheSlayer

Hi all, new to the forum and the game. I have one NOOB question regarding to the NB class. I'll make it short.

I think it's contradicting when the NB class skills use Magicka and deal magical damage. So that's why a lot of people are wearing Light armor and use Staves.

With that said, it doesn't make sense to maxing out Dual tree except for Red Guards as they choose to play as either DK or Templar.

In short, it feels like NB was forced into the Mage/Bow instead of getting personal type of play style?

What do you think?

martinhpb16_ESO

Just had to totally respec caster / resto staff for trials from bow/dw.

Respecced to magica a month ago as stamina just doesnt work as well.

I expect to have to rebuild for raid content / pve / pvp, that is a good thing.

but to have to respec to a caster / staff to become viable in trials is sad.

I still use bow / dw in pvp, it works well and is fun.

But tbh having this amount of flexibility is pretty awesome.

Code2501

AlexTheSlayer wrote: »

Hi all, new to the forum and the game. I have one NOOB question regarding to the NB class. I'll make it short.

I think it's contradicting when the NB class skills use Magicka and deal magical damage. So that's why a lot of people are wearing Light armor and use Staves.

With that said, it doesn't make sense to maxing out Dual tree except for Red Guards as they choose to play as either DK or Templar.

In short, it feels like NB was forced into the Mage/Bow instead of getting personal type of play style?

What do you think?

While all NB class skills use magicka and deal magical damage (NB's are mages in TESO lore, mage assassins) you don't need to play ranged at all, its perfectly viable to play a melee NB with NB skills alone.

My first skill bar with DW swords is Ambush, Shadowy Disguise, Concealed Weapon, Killers Blade + one spare that I swap around depending on the situation. Mass Hysteria or Sap Essence for large groups, Mirage or Leeching strikes for solo bosses that prove troublesome. Veil as Ult.

This is pure Magicka, pure NB (active skill wise), but its also pure melee "getting personal type of play style" as you put it. And it is perfectly viable solo at VR5 atm, probably a different story with trials as it relies on kill cycling to regen health and magicka, and melee is frankly sub-optimal vs trial bosses.
Thats with 5/2 light/heavy just cause I like the look, its not by any means min-maxed. I should be gearing for more weapon crit than spell crit, but whateva.

One thing to note, the DW passives still work well with this build, Slaughter, DW Expert, Ruffian and Twin B&B all add to this build via light/heavy attacks while targets are stunned. If a world boss is stunnable, its usually kill-able solo with this, just wear it down with SD-Concealed rotations till killers blade opens, pace it with light attacks and wait full invis duration for magicka regen.

timothynrwb17_ESO

I tried to build a "warlock" spec in Beta and live and tried with both a Nightblade and a DK and got both to vet levels. The NB worked much better. Never tried dual wielding or bow on an NB. Medium armor is still at rank 1.

Spectrasoul

It's cliche but I was all for the Bow / Dual Wield / Medium Armour build up until VR1 - It was amazing. Having said that I watched a video on youtube (I believe the poster was Polish?) of a Nightblade tank and I fell in love so from VR1-7 I played the 1h+shield + Heavy armor, I was practically invincible against large groups and could solo content very easily. Trouble was that apart from the Undaunted 3rd skill there was no taunt so it wasn't especially viable in dungeons and 1v1 was very slow and boring.

I tried out the dual staves 7/7 Light Armor, Destro was the most boring crap spec I've played, although my damage was higher and stuff died quicker I felt like I might as well roll my face across my keyboard. Restoration tree was a very pleasant surprise, I love the synergy with other NB skills and it works very well for a general regeneration tree and a back up for really nasty elites.

I've now gone back to Dual Wield / Resto staff. 5 med 2 light, it might not be the best spec min max but it's the most fun and I've nearly got enough skill points to be able to have all 3 armors maxxed and 2 other weapon trees so there's room for change.

Just to add: I know we get a lot of whine about being an underpowered bad class, but seriously there is no way I could ever play anything else than Nightblade. Despite all the bad press we get the class is extremely fun to play, suits most situations and is more versatile and interchangeable with regards skills than the other 3.

Cody

I made a pure bow only, all medium armor NB archer about 2-3 months back. I ALMOST succumbed to the pressure to take the easy way out and go for destro/resto/LA build, but I decided not to do that, and I stuck thru it, thru all the vet content. I am glad I did. I do well enough in PvP(or when I was using her in PvP, iv been playing alts for the past month) to where I don't regret sticking with it. I have been using DW lately,, and its fun.

PBpsy

I played caster Dunmer Destruction Nightbalde and tanking from level 1 to Vr2. Had a magicka based stealth and tanking period and from V2 to V7 and changed to a more complete magicka ranged dps after. Nightblades were always meant to be mages in TES.

The magicka based NB is only a pve thing though for most part and it is a pve thing only since they introduced trials. In pvp though 60% of NB are lame archers,20% dual wiled,15% 2H and the rest destro/resto or 2xresto.

Guppet

PBpsy wrote: »

I played caster Dunmer Destruction Nightbalde and tanking from level 1 to Vr2. Had a magicka based stealth and tanking period and from V2 to V7 and changed to a more complete magicka ranged dps after. Nightblades were always meant to be mages in TES.

The magicka based NB is only a pve thing though for most part and it is a pve thing only since they introduced trials. In pvp though 60% of NB are lame archers,20% dual wiled,15% 2H and the rest destro/resto or 2xresto.

Nightblades were meant to be what ever you wanted them to be, not just mages.

If they were meant to be mages, which class was meant to be the rogue? Since there are 4 primary arch types and 4 classes. Which class the priest and which the warrior. If any was meant to be Mage, I suspect that was sorcerer. But all can be any.

Code2501

Guppet wrote: »

PBpsy wrote: »

I played caster Dunmer Destruction Nightbalde and tanking from level 1 to Vr2. Had a magicka based stealth and tanking period and from V2 to V7 and changed to a more complete magicka ranged dps after. Nightblades were always meant to be mages in TES.

The magicka based NB is only a pve thing though for most part and it is a pve thing only since they introduced trials. In pvp though 60% of NB are lame archers,20% dual wiled,15% 2H and the rest destro/resto or 2xresto.

Nightblades were meant to be what ever you wanted them to be, not just mages.

If they were meant to be mages, which class was meant to be the rogue? Since there are 4 primary arch types and 4 classes. Which class the priest and which the warrior. If any was meant to be Mage, I suspect that was sorcerer. But all can be any.

To answer your question no class was ment to be a rogue. Classes are a collection of spells, passives an ultimates.
More precisely, any class is intended to be able to be a rogue, but the relevant guilds to fulfill this are yet to be launched.
Remember all classes can use stealth. And all classes can use any weapon or armour. And once thieves guild and dark brotherhood are releases all classes will be able to join them.

People need to stop equating ESO classes with the limiting classes in most mmos.

BloodStorm

I probably will be going a sorcerer still in the future but I hope when Dark brotherhood is released the rewards and skill tree will be almost entirely for stamina based builds. Spellcrafting should also make things interesting.

Artis

Created a NB because according to class description, this class was the only one where something else except for magic was mentioned. I wanted just a pure physical damage dealer...

Aevric

I'm hoping that the spellcrafting system will allow for necromancy, then a caster NB would be quite fitting.

Kego

I'm playing my NB as Assassin/Backup Healer.
With 7/7 Light Armor and DW Swords for the Assassin style and Resto Staff for backup healing and as well Siege PBAOE Support with Veil of Blades and SAP Essence.

Bar1 DW Swords:
1. Ambush
2. Surprise Attack
3. Funnel Health
4. Dark Cloak
5. Siphoning Strikes
6. Soul Tether

Bar2 Resto Staff:
1. Sap Essence
2. Rapid Regen
3. Healing Ward
4. Mass Hysteria
5. Siphoning Strikes
6. Veil of Blades