One-Shot-Willy Nightblade Build

Deltia

Hey ESO Community. I posted this on my site and YouTube and submitted for the Battle Masters Corner. I wanted your feedback and ideas. I used this for leveling my Nightblade to VR 5 and think it's a blast. The build is below and link on my site here:
http://deltiasgaming.com/2014/08/28/one-shot-willy/

Build Objective

The objective with OSW is more of a solo or leveling focused build with quick burst damage. Your main objective is to nuke or one-shot an enemy and repeat. You’ll be able to keep self-sustaining heals with some of the NB’s abilities thus removing the need for constant healing.

The character I’m using is King Foltest, the Black Cat. I went Khajiit and Vampire for the strong stealth and added melee damage. By default, the build isn’t perfect for every situation, but if you change a couple of abilities around OSW can be effective at nearly anything. Let’s talk about strengths and weakness of the specific build.

+ Huge burst – Massive sneak damage bonus and passive critical chance increase for powerful hits.
+ Steathly – Passives from Vampire and NB class, you’ll be very hard to detect.
+ Self-healing – Two active abilities and a ultimate combine for high self-healing.
– Limited AoE – You’ll be using steel tornado often and may run out of stamina leaving very little AoE.
– No group stun – keeping a target stunned will be no problem, a group however is a different matter.
Skills
OSW

My current setup that made leveling a breeze

For all the class specific NB abilities please see part two of my guide HERE. Nearly every build should have four elements; crowd control, a gap closer, a finisher or execute, and a way to heal. OSW centers around that idea being a self-sustaining high DPS nightmare for NPCs or players. Here’s how it’s done.

Bar 1 | Dual Wield

Dark Cloak – Sneaking into combat is usually how I start off combat. Dark Cloak morph works for my build because it acts as a negative effects purge Since I went Vampire for the passives and active abilities, I’m always burning with fire damage. It’s also a great escape tool if things get rough.
Surprise Attack – This is Dark Cloaks best buddy and the go-to combo for OSW. Cloak, Surprise Attack, bang dead. This abilities also stuns targets so you’ll be able to close the gap, stun, and nuke with these first two abilities. I tested Surprise Attack morph vs. the Concealed Weapon morph and found that the extra armor reduction paired with Reaper’s Mark seems more beneficial than speed.
Steel Tornado – Our monster area damage abilities that becomes more effective as health drops. It’s even powerful on single target and has great range. Consider this your AoE stamina dump.
Flying Blade – I take this because it’s low stamina cost, range, and a snare. It’ll hit hard once you’ve reached the soft cap for weapon damage plus it helps you reach targets if you’re out of magicka.
Killer’s Blade – This is both our execute and self-heal ability and a must have for melee. Since I have zero DoTs on my bar, I can pull off executes as needed for continual health return. And Killer’s Blade has a low cost so constantly take out enemies with this. Impale is awesome and would recommend taking it if you play more of a range character.
Flawless Dawnbreaker (Ultimate) – I like this morph for the passive weapon damage increase which gets me to near the soft cap. I almost never use the ultimate but just have it on my bar for the extra damage. Get use to swapping to bar two, dropping an ultimate, than back to bar one.

Bar 2 | Bow

Funnel Health – This slot is open though I like Funnel Health for the range, ultimate generation, and a magicka dump. The damage comes instantly so you can spam it for high single target DPS. You could put Sap Essence here for more AoE or something else, though Funnel works for me.
Venom Arrow – This is our standard spammable Bow skill that puts casters on lock down. I usually start out combat with a Focused Aim distance shot and two or three Venom Arrows to put most mobs down. I just love the sound of this and the green animation.
Draining Shot – A great knockback with an extra slow. If the enemy can be stunned, I’ll keep casting this over and over.
Focused Aim – The Snipe morph I go with due to the added damage and range for marked targets. I’ll mark the target with Repear’s Mark then bang Focused Aim, if they’re still alive a couple of Venom Arrows and they’re dead.
Repear’s Mark – This ability is amazing period. It has a high cast but nearly strips enemies of armor, provides huge heals upon a kill and buffs your weapon damage for 30 second after. Constantly keep a mark up on a target and if in a group, call it out.
Devouring Swarm (Ultimate) – The amazing Swarm from Vampire tree acts as a last resort when i need heals. I would go with Veil of Blades if you have a pocket healer for maximum damage. Though soloing around, you can’t beat bats.

We will go over rotation or priorities at the end, but lets look at my gear setup to get a clear picture of how or why these abilities work.
Gear

Stats SheetStamina to soft cap 2200 > weapon power to soft cap > health 2200 > rest Magicka
OSW Gear

My general layout though the glyphs change depending on PvP bonuses
Gear Pic

Example at VR 5

Armor Weight – 5 medium 2 light. The strange thing about the NB class is class abilities use magicka though most are based off your weapon power and weapon critical. Therefore it’s a good idea to have a balance between the two. If you wanted ultra burst, you could go with 7 medium though I ran out of magicka frequently and had to use potions. I prefer to have some sustainability so this setup helps with that.
Attributes – Since 1.3, the standard 49 points into health doesn’t seem all that effective. Really you can mix and match attribute points as long as you’re hitting your numbers, e.g. 2200 health, 2200 stamina, etc. What’s been working for me is 10 health, 39 in stamina though I’ll probably change this at VR 12 (or VR 14).
Glyphs- These just augment your stats and really should be used to help hit those critical numbers. Once I reach end-game, I’ll use white glyph that you can buy from the Mage’s Guild vendor. I’ll slot them in to see what my numbers look like then craft a full set of purple or gold depending on resources.
Mundus Stone – NB excel at hitting hard and the Mundus Stone I select further increases their effectiveness, the Shadow (plus it sounds cool).
Traits – I do my usual setup here, on large slots (head, chest, and legs) go with infused to get maximum benefit. On all my small traits I go with Divines to further augment my damage.
Jewelry – Since I’m a Vampire, you gotta have one piece of flame resistance with a Kuta or legendary glyph. The other two I go with weapon damage to reach near soft cap.
Set Bonuses- I chose the Night Silence for the speed which makes me faster than my horse. Like I said, this is mainly for soloing and leveling so if I were to do high-end content, I’d probably go with a 5 piece Hundings Rage. My second set is Night Mothers Gaze since I get tons of critical with daggers.

Now that we’ve outlined the gear, consumables are the last piece to truly optimize your character.
Consumables
NB consumables

These items will really put your character’s performance over the top

Food – Consummate Honey Brittle is my favorite since it last long and gives tons of stats to all attributes. I tried blue food to gain more stats in stamina and magicka but I can’t see using it over this.
Panacea of Health – My primary resource potion that restores everything. I don’t use this often since Alchemy isn’t my number one crafting skill, but you have to keep some of these handy for long fights.
Panacea of Unstoppable -Let’s say I’m out of magicka so I can’t cloak, nothing dying so I’m not getting health back, and I just can’t stay alive. That’s when I pop Unstoppable potion and regroup. You’ll basically get three seconds to regenerate some health, magicka, or stamina and live to fight another day.
Panacea of Weapon Power – How does 98% critical sound? Check out the picture below, with this potion you’ll be near hard cap on damage and critical.

CriticalDPS Priorities

Since Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) isn’t your standard MMO, I focus on DPS priorities rather than a stagnate rotation.

Opener
Melee – Stealth > Surprise Attack > Killers Blade (dead)
Range – Stealth > Focused Aim > Poison Arrow x2 (dead)
Boss – Stealth > Repear’s Mark > Focused Aim > Poison Arrow x1 > Dark Cloak as they approach > Surprise Attack

Burst –
Melee – Opener plus Repear’s Mark > Flying Blade until 50% > Steel Tornado until 30% > Killer’s Blade until dead
Stun Lock- Dark Cloak > Surprise Attack
Range – Opener plus Repear’s Mark > Poison Arrow > Funnel Health > Funnel Health > Poison Arrow
Sustained –
Melee – Opener > Flying Blade > Weapon Attack > Flying Blade > Weapon Attack > Surprise Attack
Range – Opener > Funnel Health > Draining Shot (if close) > Poison Arrow > Funnel Health > Draining Shot

Summary

I love OSW. It’s fast, hard hitting, and rarely die. But the build isn’t perfect for everything, like Trials or high-end DPS in Veteran Dungeons. If you’re looking for a fun easy to-do solo build, try this out and let me know what you think!

sarttsarttsarttub17_ESO

k so nightblade need a nerf, k

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO

sarttsarttsarttub17_ESO wrote: »

k so nightblade need a nerf, k

What tha..are you on Skooma or something..

DDuke

Since you are going stamina heavy, you might as well dump Killer's Blade and get something else in its stead. With soft capped weapon dmg & stamina your Killer's Blade/Steel Tornado deals more dmg to low health targets (you get +20% from Slaughter DW passive).