Build for imperial city - a hybrid PvE/PvP?

SmellyUnlimited

How do you build your characters for IC? Do you build them purely for PvP, assuming you’ll have to fight another human fairly quickly, or PvE, as that’s the majority of the content, or a mixture?

I’m trying to find a build I can use for a stamina nightblade, likely a hybrid-esque build, but I’m interested in what kinds of strategies and equipment methodologies have worked for you all. Nothing I hate more than farming for tel var in the sewers, ESPECIALLY when fighting a boss, and have someone come with a quick gank and essentially steal half my time taking my stones. I feel like I basically need to be sneaking and hiding at all times, paranoid peeking around every corner, which naturally would effect my getting tel var in the first place. Sleepless in Imperial City!

DrNukenstein

Go full PVE.

You won't get to fight any players if you're getting stuck on mobs.

gariondavey

Any well made pvp build can solo a boss in a few minutes. If you aren't in a good pvp set up you will die to other players.

SmellyUnlimited

Two very conflicting responses lol.

OBJnoob

Go in with a PvP set-up. The bosses aren't that hard... They do take a little time, but you're on a NB after all, if someone comes through you have a decent chance of escaping.

Imperial City is pretty fun, but ultimately you just gotta accept that you will die sometimes. Just bank your Tel Var frequently and it's not a big deal.

gariondavey

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Two very conflicting responses lol.

I play a ton of ic and this is what I do. Usually small scale (3 to 6) in it every night until nobody is left to fight us

CameraBeardThePirate

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Two very conflicting responses lol.

The first response was from a prolific ganker. Not saying there might be ulterior motives for them wanting squishy players but.......

IZZEFlameLash

Full PvP is always recommended. Mobs in IC are generally normal dungeon level difficult. Bosses, some hit hard, some don't but generally, the ones that hit hard are also the ones with mechanics to be aware of. So, bring somewhat tanky setup.

Oblivion_Protocol

Every time I’ve gone into IC with a PvE setup, I got absolutely annihilated by some player. I expected it to happen and was usually just there to kill time and make some extra Tel Var while waiting for a queue to pop, but it happened every single time.

In contrast, having a decent PvP build gave me a better chance of survival with more than enough damage to kill any monster that came at me.

Brakkish

@SmellyUnlimited

Full on tank setup, with dot sets leeching and crimson = built in heals + damage.
CP Slot slippery for gankers, with flare.
Win.


It's how I used to do it when I thought IC was still worth trolling. EZ mode.

SmellyUnlimited

Sounds like the general consensus is tankier setup, which will be new for me as a NB. Crimson Twilight and Leeching sound interesting, might be worth a try. It’s sorta sad because I remember back in the day running with huge groups through the sewers doing tel var, then big fights around the Molag Bal area. Hell, even fighting Molag Bal was a really fun encounter, especially knowing you could get countered at any moment (and the dye from it looks great). Now it feels like most content in IC is solo.

Thanks for the responses, I’ll look at rolling a heavy armor build, or maybe a heavy armor-esque/medium hybrid setup. Taking on the flag bosses is tough as a NB in medium armor, so maybe running heavy will make them more manageable.

El_Borracho

I went full PVP DK or Oakensorc. The hybrid PVE/PVP builds are simultaneously squishy and soft-hitting.

Turtle_Bot

The only time to go "full PvE" is if you are on an oakensoul heavy attack sorc standing on top of the spawn points killing mobs from there and never setting foot into areas that enemies can reach (very boring and slow).

Otherwise you want to go with a full PvP build so that you have a chance to survive gankers.

Anyone telling you otherwise is a ganker with ulterior motives looking for more easy kills.

fred4

I used to live in IC. It is probably still my favorite place, even though I also do lots of other stuff nowadays.

The difference between killing an upstairs boss solo with a full on PvE DD and doing it on a PvP build is about 90 seconds versus 5 minutes. There is some merit to squirreling a boss away in a building and doing it really fast on a PvE build, then disappearing, versus doing it more slowly on a PvP build. However for the record, I always run a PvP build. That's what you IMO need in IC, first and foremost. The only concession to PvE is that I'm a magblade with a fondness for Siphoning skills that automatically heal you from damage, e.g. Swallow Soul and Sap Essence. Even more so now that we have a set from Endless Archive that plays into that. That is the only compromise I make. For example Crushing Shock deals more damage to players, especially if you wear Draugrkin, and is golden for interrupting dark dealing sorcs. However the build I run is still a 90% PvP build. Whatever build you use, I would lean heavily in that direction.

If you want to bring your Tel Var home, I don't think anything beats a cloaking magblade. The people who recommend tanks have a point. You could build that way. However at the end of the day you are a nightblade. If you're half decent at PvP, you can do better than a tanky build. I think a cloaking magblade with good magicka sustain is better than a stamblade for this purpose. (A) It's nice to play due to the self-healing attack skills against mobs and bosses. (B) Cloak sustain allows you to fully disengage from mobs and players. If you get outnumbered while you have mob aggro in IC, and you want to cloak away, you need a good few casts and you need to generate substantial distance in cloak before you shed aggro from mobs. Crouching is not good enough. As long as you have aggro, mobs will stand still and shoot at you immediately when you uncloak. You don't want that when you also have players after you. That's why you want good cloak sustain, meaning you're either a magblade (atro mundus, light armor, mag sustain drink), or you're perhaps a stam or hybridblade vampire with a Darloc Brae backbar to sustain cloak. You can make it work in other ways, I suppose, but you'd have to be more circumspect. Your positioning would become more important. Cloak sustain is freeing in that you can be under an NPCs nose, or the one of an inexperienced player that doesn't hear you or doesn't understand what the sound means, and still be completely hidden.

The Esoteric Greaves are extremely effective to protect against other nightblades. Nightblades typically gank with high damage burst skills, e.g. Incap and Merciless. The Greaves cut that damage in half, albeit they are only viable on a magicka build or very high sustain stamina build. I also recommend Slippery CP and, if you want to be even safer, Zoal. Your most dangerous enemy, at least against my kind of build, is and has always been a well-played sorc, because (A) they may attack with Crushing Shock or Bound Armaments, skills that eat your stamina alive with the Greaves, and (B) the combination of Streak and a detection potion remains the most potent counter to a nightblade that wants to cloak away (and save their Tel Var), even a fast one. You do need to be fast, by the way. If you don't play around Shadow Image and you are on a light armor sustain / squish build, like me, then all Swift jewelry, Celerity CP and Race Against Time is mandatory. However this approach has served me well over the years. A tank can get bogged down and killed. A fast, cloaking, sustainy nightblade offers you the most overall safety and control in my opinion. That said, I think this is most effective for mixed environments with open spaces and buildings, e.g. upstairs. In the sewers, where there are narrow passages, cloaking can become too predictable, although judicious use of Shadow Image should still work.

SmellyUnlimited

fred4 wrote: »

I used to live in IC. It is probably still my favorite place, even though I also do lots of other stuff nowadays.

The difference between killing an upstairs boss solo with a full on PvE DD and doing it on a PvP build is about 90 seconds versus 5 minutes. There is some merit to squirreling a boss away in a building and doing it really fast on a PvE build, then disappearing, versus doing it more slowly on a PvP build. However for the record, I always run a PvP build. That's what you IMO need in IC, first and foremost. The only concession to PvE is that I'm a magblade with a fondness for Siphoning skills that automatically heal you from damage, e.g. Swallow Soul and Sap Essence. Even more so now that we have a set from Endless Archive that plays into that. That is the only compromise I make. For example Crushing Shock deals more damage to players, especially if you wear Draugrkin, and is golden for interrupting dark dealing sorcs. However the build I run is still a 90% PvP build. Whatever build you use, I would lean heavily in that direction.

If you want to bring your Tel Var home, I don't think anything beats a cloaking magblade. The people who recommend tanks have a point. You could build that way. However at the end of the day you are a nightblade. If you're half decent at PvP, you can do better than a tanky build. I think a cloaking magblade with good magicka sustain is better than a stamblade for this purpose. (A) It's nice to play due to the self-healing attack skills against mobs and bosses. (B) Cloak sustain allows you to fully disengage from mobs and players. If you get outnumbered while you have mob aggro in IC, and you want to cloak away, you need a good few casts and you need to generate substantial distance in cloak before you shed aggro from mobs. Crouching is not good enough. As long as you have aggro, mobs will stand still and shoot at you immediately when you uncloak. You don't want that when you also have players after you. That's why you want good cloak sustain, meaning you're either a magblade (atro mundus, light armor, mag sustain drink), or you're perhaps a stam or hybridblade vampire with a Darloc Brae backbar to sustain cloak. You can make it work in other ways, I suppose, but you'd have to be more circumspect. Your positioning would become more important. Cloak sustain is freeing in that you can be under an NPCs nose, or the one of an inexperienced player that doesn't hear you or doesn't understand what the sound means, and still be completely hidden.

The Esoteric Greaves are extremely effective to protect against other nightblades. Nightblades typically gank with high damage burst skills, e.g. Incap and Merciless. The Greaves cut that damage in half, albeit they are only viable on a magicka build or very high sustain stamina build. I also recommend Slippery CP and, if you want to be even safer, Zoal. Your most dangerous enemy, at least against my kind of build, is and has always been a well-played sorc, because (A) they may attack with Crushing Shock or Bound Armaments, skills that eat your stamina alive with the Greaves, and (B) the combination of Streak and a detection potion remains the most potent counter to a nightblade that wants to cloak away (and save their Tel Var), even a fast one. You do need to be fast, by the way. If you don't play around Shadow Image and you are on a light armor sustain / squish build, like me, then all Swift jewelry, Celerity CP and Race Against Time is mandatory. However this approach has served me well over the years. A tank can get bogged down and killed. A fast, cloaking, sustainy nightblade offers you the most overall safety and control in my opinion. That said, I think this is most effective for mixed environments with open spaces and buildings, e.g. upstairs. In the sewers, where there are narrow passages, cloaking can become too predictable, although judicious use of Shadow Image should still work.

What build specifically do you run with this on a magicka nightblade? I’m trying to find recommendations on sets and skills that’ll serve me well in IC. I know I’ll still likely get ganked from time to time, so practice makes perfect, but if you could share a build you’ve had success with (and mundus) that’d be a big help!

fred4

I'll give you two builds, which only differ slightly in the gear:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=587058
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=586206

This is my most proven and most personal build. May not suit everyone, though I have given it to a friend who despaired in IC at the time. An earlier version of the build revived his interest in PvP and he also used it in BGs. Since it is very fine-tuned, there is a lot to say. Here goes:

First and foremost, this is a cloak sustain build. At it's heart that makes it a squishy build. You can't have everything. Passive tankiness is the victim here. It is a Breton in light armor. On the other hand it is balanced and tries to address the most glaring issues you have when you want to combine ganking, brawling, and IC PvE. For ganking we have Balorgh, though if you want to play only defense I can recommend Zoal in it's place, or the second link without a monster set. For brawling and gank protection we have the Esoteric Greaves and - mandatory with or without the Greaves, but especially with them - decent stamina sustain. To deal with the meta Master dual-wield / Vateshran ice staff users, we have Curse Eater on the back bar in the second link. For PvE, for damage, and for outsize healing, we have Soulcleaver. The main benefit of that set is not so much the damage, which can also be achieved with other sets, but the cost reduction and healing increase.

Be it boss heavy attacks or PvPers, the Esoteric Greaves will protect you some. You might also decide to disengage with speed, dodge rolls, and into cloak. In some cases that is not possible. This is why we have 1H+S (or an ice staff) on the back bar. Block-casting / spamming Healthy Offering makes you temporarily very tanky. It will save you, even while you are a sitting duck and you need to have an eye on what your next move is, e.g. how you can line-of-sight, cloak away, or counter-attack. All the same, I find this approach more powerful than a resto staff.

Going over the skills, I find a clear division between offense and defense for the two bars plays best. Players move a lot. This build hits as hard, if not harder, with Swallow Soul as it does with Concealed Weapon. Hitting players with that, after Incap, tends to be the more reliable choice, or use a single Concealed for the Off Balance chance. The main reason Concealed is on the front bar, though, is for the passive Major Berserk proc. Which brings us around to me double-barring Concealed. The reason is simple. Speed is life on a cloaking nightblade. Speed also allows you to keep up and run after potential targets in cloak. This is a flex spot, but I find it hard to get away from the Concealed passive speed buff.

This build has enough sustain that you can cloak continuously and cast Siphoning Attacks and Race Against Time in cloak. The latter is essential while you need the former for sustain and I wouldn't ignore the healing from it. Reviving Barrier rounds out the back bar to passively boost magicka recovery by 10% for, you guessed it, cloak sustain. It's a really crap ultimate to actually use, except maybe in a group. No matter. You should be using Incap 99% of the time anyway. You might also try Soul Tether on the front bar, since we're using Soulcleaver.

The potion that goes with this build is Spell Power / Detection / Magicka. This is primarily for ganking, but also to counter-attack nightblades that ganked you first. The drink is Hissmir Fisheye Rye. Do not accept substitutes. The game engine is weird about how magicka recovery is calculated. It differs, based on whether you are inside or outside of combat. This is not something you can visibly see on your stat sheet, by the way. The Atronach mundus stone and the food you use are the biggest contributors to your cloak sustain, due to the idiosyncracies of the game engine. The stamina sustain is ultimately also better than any other form of defense, e.g. for dodge rolls, but especially due to the Esoteric Greaves. Bear Haunch would be a food downgrade on this build!

The downside is that your health is low, but you have to bear in mind that many of the hardest hitting one shots, the Incaps, the Merciless Resolves, the DK Leaps, the Dawnbreakers, the Dizzying Swings, are cut in half by the Greaves, if you play the build right. You need to abort, when your stamina gets too low. You are able to abort, because you are a cloaking nightblade. That's why the Greaves work on this build, but maybe not on many others. The only real downside to the low health, combined with the fact that you're a nightblade, is that when you show yourself in a brawl and the opposition is organised, you are immediately the primary target. You will be focused and you will be focused hard. This is when you may have to lock down and block-spam Healthy Offering. You're also a preferred ganking target for other nightblades that see you PvEing. If you want to somewhat avoid that, I would recommend you up your health via attributes and use the version of the build that has the monster set and 1x Trainee in it. You'd be surprised how much the appearance of tankiness - by having high health - is a turn off for other players ganking you, even though you're actually quite gank-proof on the low health already.

Finally, do not take the destro tri-focus passive, in case you ever use an ice staff on the back bar, and do not take the Psijic Spell Orb passive. You do not want to cut off your magicka regen while block-spamming Healthy Offering, while the Psijic spell orbs could accidentally go off in cloak and give you away. You don't want that.

SmellyUnlimited

Wow, thanks for the comprehensive post! Thats a very interesting build. I switched my nightblade to mag today and decided on an NMG/wretched vitality build, although I think I’ll take your recommendation on the grieves. Seems like they work incredibly well with siphoning and cloak. I appreciate you giving such a thoughtful rundown, that’s exactly what I was needing to fix my skills and round out my build.

SmellyUnlimited

Btw, how do you handle the stamina loss from the greaves? Do you just hope to kill them before it gets to be too much a problem? Or can you usually heal to full w/ healthy offering and siphon soul and do a ping pong back and forth? I imagine it would still be sorta tough to contend with, since your potions don’t replenish stamina. What’s the strategy?

fred4

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Wow, thanks for the comprehensive post! Thats a very interesting build. I switched my nightblade to mag today and decided on an NMG/wretched vitality build, although I think I’ll take your recommendation on the grieves. Seems like they work incredibly well with siphoning and cloak. I appreciate you giving such a thoughtful rundown, that’s exactly what I was needing to fix my skills and round out my build.

Wretched Vitality is the best (PvP) sustain set in the game, but I do not recommend it for a magblade with perma-cloaking ambitions, such as mine. I suppose it can't hurt having it on the back bar, but it won't carry your sustain like it can on other builds. More on that below.

If you don't have Soulcleaver, then I recommend an attack set front bar (NMG should be fine), Curse Eater back bar, 1x mythic, 1x Trainee, 2x monster. Aside from being vulnerable to good old burst, the main defensive problem in PvP these days are DOTs and status effects. Cloak used to purge or ignore those in the past. Nowadays they are nasty. They are nasty because they last so long, status effects can be easily applied, and Master dual-wield is meta-level strong. Not that the latter is the only thing.

Some of that stuff can knock you out of cloak. For example Structured Entropy, although rarely used, will knock you out of cloak on every tick. For a build that uses cloak as it's main defense, a purge is the next biggest thing after speed. You could back bar Efficient Purge. I've tried it, but (a) it has additional opportunity cost - time you don't have when forced into Healthy Offering spam, (b) it uncloaks you, (c) it's really expensive, and (d) it replaces something else, such as the valuable passive speed from Concealed.

Now we come to why Wretched Vitality does not really work. Because you cloak, the game will constantly shuffle you between being in combat and out of combat status, unless you get the "stuck in combat" bug. If any other class engages in a fight, they will be "in combat" for the duration of the fight. If you were to go into the menu, you would see the edge of the screen pulsing red throughout. This is not the case when you cloak a lot. You will fluctuate between being "in combat" and "out of combat" as soon as you cloak about 3 or 4 times in a row, even in the middle of a fight. This is how a magblade with perma-cloak sustain differs substantially from even a stamblade.

Next you need to know that the mag (and stam) recovery you see listed on your stat sheet is only your "in combat" recovery. Your "out of combat" recovery is not shown anywhere, except by an old addon that may or may not still work (Harven's Extended Stats, I think). Your "out of combat" recovery is typically higher than your "in combat" recovery by means of scaling it by some factor. On the other hand your "out of combat" recovery is only based on certain factors, mainly your mundus and your food, and generally not the magicka / stamina recovery bonuses from armor sets. This is a double-strike against Wretched Vitality for my build, a perma-cloaking magblade. (A) As per the set's tooltip, it is only active in combat and (B) even if that wasn't the case, it's bonus would still only work in combat, because that's just how the game engine works in general. The 2/3 item recovery bonuses of Wretched Vitality also only work in combat, as is the case with every other sustain set. This amounts to Wretched Vitality only partially working on this build. You will end up having to add sustain from elsewhere. Since you'll end up doing that when you actually play the build and notice how it sustains, the question then becomes why wear Vitality. Thus I recommend something else, e.g. a utility set like Curse Eater, for the back bar. This is also why the build includes 1x magicka cost reduction enchant, by the way, and not magicka recovery. You've asked me for advice on how to play and build. This is how you leverage magicka sustain and the idiosyncracies surrounding it. This is how you can remain permanently in cloak if you need / want to. Only if you ultimately don't value that much will Wretched Vitality be good. For my playstyle it's "meh" at best.

Things are entirely different for a stamblade that occasionally cloaks. In that case Wretched Vitality is a good set to cover your mag recovery, while your main resource is stamina and you possibly invest in the Serpent mundus and more stam recovery on top.

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Btw, how do you handle the stamina loss from the greaves? Do you just hope to kill them before it gets to be too much a problem? Or can you usually heal to full w/ healthy offering and siphon soul and do a ping pong back and forth? I imagine it would still be sorta tough to contend with, since your potions don’t replenish stamina. What’s the strategy?

The short answer is "don't get hit". The greaves are gank protection and "I can stay on the attack against players a little longer outside of cloak" protection. No more. They are finnicky to use, but they suit a magicka build that doesn't want to give up the light armor sustain (cost reduction for cloak - see above), and is otherwise squishy. You are still a nightblade. You major on damage avoidance. You have to be careful not to dodge roll too much and burn your stamina, but then again that's the magicka playstyle anyway. Once you fall below 50% you should be either line of sighting, cloaking, blocking, dodge rolling, or about to kill a target.

Can I usually heal to full with Healthy Offering, possibly by block-casting it once or twice? In CP and with Soulcleaver, yes, pretty much. I wasn't kidding when I talked about outsize healing being the main benefit of that set. Shadowy Disguise also gives you +12% crit on both bars these days.

I am very used to using either no potion, or the above potion before a gank and calling a day. I don't like to fiddle with the potion wheel. However with Sap Essence in the build to cover the Major Sorcery, and with the greaves, you could very well use a tri-pot. That would be better for brawling. On the other hand, because Shadowy Disguise now provides Major Prophecy / Savagery, we no longer have Inner Light / Camou Hunter in the build. If another nightblade randomly shows up, the only way you're going to kill it is by holding the detection potion in reserve. Failing that, you're reduced to spamming Sap Essence. That arguably is the way to kill dodge rollers anyway, but the only way you can go after other nightblades aggressively before the execute phase is with the potion.

The build has about 1.35K unbuffed stamina regen. That is quite a lot, considering I don't use stamina for anything but core combat and the greaves. That said, yes, you wouldn't want it to be any lower. The difference between that regen and having only base regen is huge, but you can make any stamina regen work, to be honest. The default mode of the build is to perma-cloak and keep a certain distance while not actively fighting. The real problem is how much low stamina regen forces you out of combat and into line-of-sighting or cloak, e.g. when you have enough foresight and experience to judge that right. It's frustrating more than it is dangerous. You can always choose not to engage at all on this build, or to disengage, unless you come up against your nemesis, e.g. players or groups that heavily use detection, potions, the Sentry set, Arrow Spray / Bombard spam, or that one sorc who streaks you when you've just gone into cloak and created enough distance to otherwise be safe. Sorcs are your bane. If you see a sorc in a group, you have to keep greater distance, track whether they might suddenly streak your way, and weigh whether to uncloak and attack. The build isn't perfect, but what can you do. You are subject to counterplay. The game is more balanced than what people often give it credit for.

fred4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuTHJyFGo9Q

SmellyUnlimited

Wow, great write up again! Video was impressive as well. I CANNOT move like that. I don’t know if it’s just lack of skill yet in PvP, or the fact that I play on PlayStation, but there is a fundamental gap that I desperately need to close to become good at PvP if that’s any indication.

I looked at curse-eater, that’s a pretty solid set. I admit, 8 seconds seems lengthy, especially with how easily DOTs are applied (e.g., DK applying searing strike immediately after cleansing), but it’s better than probably anything else out there. And especially given that you’ll have already stealthed in that 8 seconds and counter-attacked.

I hate to keep peppering you with questions, but you seem an endless repository on all things Magblade. Does your build extend to Cyrodil at large, or is it mostly limited to IC? Seems like Cyro is just a playground for Sorcs and DKs now, with the occasional bomber coming in for a cheese vicious death proximity det. I’ve found it hard to contend as a NB in massive zergs when their style of play seems more suited for solo, outer-reaches edge of combat encounters. Then again, I guess that’s exactly NBs role in zergs - to catch outliers off-guard, take out stragglers, quick gank squishies?

I’m trying to figure out what my role is in PvP. It’s much easier when I play my healer, but that gets boring to me fairly quickly. I only have 4 characters, and the NB was my first and most built up of all of them, and the one I’m most interested in “getting gud” with in PvP.

fred4

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Wow, great write up again! Video was impressive as well.

Thank you!

I CANNOT move like that.

Then you may well have identified your problem.

ESO was billed as a PvP game when it came out. PvP was the endgame. Even Craglorn came later, then came Imperial City.

It's been my ... not so much firm knowledge, but my observation that people, who have duelled extensively at the highest level, move in ways where they are able to stay on target, but are hard to hit from my perspective as the target. I am not one of those people (which is why you see me spamming Sap Essence a fair bit in the clip), but I had a friend who became a very good dueller on PC EU. Mouse accuracy is important and may be the major reason why PC and console players have different servers. Console players encountering competitive PC players on the same server would be slaughtered, due to PC players having more accurate input devices. Have you ever played WIndows' Minesweeper with a laptop input device, rather than a desktop mouse? It's impossible to put up a good time. A desktop (gaming) mouse is far quicker and more accurate.

That said, I use a mechanical keyboard with a pointing stick. It is not an IBM / Lenovo device. It's a small production device that mimics a Thinkpad Travel Keyboard, but has mechanical Cherry switches and n-key rollover. This puts it half way between a business keyboard and a gaming keyboard:

https://tex.com.tw/cdn/shop/products/49718966438_3992a52ec6_k_1200x800.jpg

The red nub in the middle of the keyboard, and the keys below the space bar, are my mouse.

That said, part two: You're on a platform where you are on an even footing with everyone using a controller or whatever else is available for the PS5.

I don’t know if it’s just lack of skill yet in PvP, or the fact that I play on PlayStation, but there is a fundamental gap that I desperately need to close to become good at PvP if that’s any indication.

Magblade has been my most successful (IC) solo play character by some margin, not solely due to ganking, but due to the combination of PvP, including ganking, and the ability to PvE, solo bosses, disengage and bring Tel Var home. I am not as competitive a player as the friend I mentioned. For me survival and a good kill / death ratio also feels like success, even if the number of kills is small. In that sense I stand by my recommendation for playing this class. On the other hand, it does require quick reflexes. The Esoteric Greaves, Zoal, Slippery CP all mitigate the squishiness of the build, but at the end of the day that doesn't make you as consistently tanky as an actual tanky build. You may be better off looking at someone else's build, if you suspect your reaction times are slow. You may even choose to play one of the tank classes, e.g. DK / warden, albeit I would still contend you can be cornered and killed just the same and would be better off playing with a partner or in a small group in that case. That might amount to steady Tel Var at the loss of big scores from soloing bosses.

I looked at curse-eater, that’s a pretty solid set. I admit, 8 seconds seems lengthy, especially with how easily DOTs are applied (e.g., DK applying searing strike immediately after cleansing), but it’s better than probably anything else out there.

It's very "meh", but there just aren't any good options after the Mara's Balm nerf and that would suit the backbar on my particular build. It's not really a solution for brawling. It can be part of a solution for duelling someone, but mainly it cleanses things as you cloak away for 8 seconds and heal. It removes sorc curses. It removes Structured Entropy. I'm not 100% on Elemental Susceptibility, but I think it removes that too, if you time it right. Ele Sus reapplies status effects every 7.5 seconds, and every time that happens you get knocked out of cloak. It is extremely annoying. Curse Eater helps curtail these things a bit. It also automatically cleanses at least some stuff when you find yourself block-spamming Healthy Offering. You're right that a dedicated purge has an opportunity cost problem. It doesn't feel good at all to run Efficient Purge on a solo character, because it's one second during which your opponent can apply Ele Sus for free, whereas you just wasted 4k to 5K magicka. A set that auto-cleanses from time to time, on the other hand, is a bonus. Depending on the situation the size of that bonus ranges from "good / helpful" to "almost useless, but at least a little something".

I hate to keep peppering you with questions, but you seem an endless repository on all things Magblade. Does your build extend to Cyrodil at large, or is it mostly limited to IC?

You can play it in Cyro. Nightblades are like vultures. You zerg, you pick a target that is already under pressure, you get there quickly with all the speed you have, or you just hit them with Impale from range and finish them off. You can play it like that, however for pure PvP I change the front bar to Draugrkin (make sure to use a Charged staff), Swallow Soul to Crushing Shock, and Impale to Resolving Vigor. Draugrkin / Crushing Shock / status effect spam is just officially nasty. Crushing Shock spam with Draugrkin + Winterborn and a bow back bar, opening with Snipe, makes for a nasty range ganking build that I've seen people use. My character is too sustainy and too universal. I think it would take more to turn her into an outright ganker, but I don't play that, thus couldn't advise.

I’ve found it hard to contend as a NB in massive zergs when their style of play seems more suited for solo, outer-reaches edge of combat encounters.

I always attack from the rear on my character, because I'm fast and I can cloak forever to position just right. Rule #1: You don't want any enemy behind you when you uncloak. I can run freely through the enemy to get behind them instead. Remember that players are not solid. Unless they're organised or they spam AOE / detection, you're completely free to go anywhere, including the middle of an enemy zerg. I wouldn't go into the middle of a ballgroup, because AOE spamming and ulting is their business, but otherwise you can always find an angle where you can have a go at a player, for example a sieger and especially other nightblades or bow players that are squishy and are, themselves, trying to stay at the edge of the battle. Since you're hard to spot when you uncloak within a siege weapon, you can also make it your business to burn those before anyone reacts. Then you just cloak / speed away again.

Then again, I guess that’s exactly NBs role in zergs - to catch outliers off-guard, take out stragglers, quick gank squishies?

With my build? Yes, exactly.

I’m trying to figure out what my role is in PvP.

Well, if you're in a big group, there's also scouting. You're not safe in a big group, though. In my early days the group leader would admonish people to stay together and trust the healers to do their thing. Not at all a good idea on a fast, cloaking, but squishy nightblade. You're much better off playing your own game. That means distance until you surgically go in to do something. This includes setting forward camps. Killing or interrupting enemies that want to destroy those camps. Finding enemy camps and destroying them. Uncloaking at the outer keep door and repairing it while the enemy is busy with the inner one (thus preventing killed enemies from coming back in). Destroying siege under the nose of people using it. Killing siegers outright. Staying in lost or never conquered keeps past the end of the battle and ganking people. Rezzing other players. Interrupting the enemy from rezzing, uncloaking only briefly. Having free roam inside an enemy keep with perma-cloak sustain, because NPC guards cannot see you. Attempting to take an inner keep, by sieging the inner door from the inside after a lost battle (only possible with more people tbh). And so on.

fred4

This is an old video and an old meta, but it shows how my nightblade plays under ideal conditions in Cyrodiil against mostly bad, unorganized and somewhat spread out players. This level of success wasn't the norm, but it's a good illustration of the kind of "loose" battlefield where my NB shines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INHvd2YsOC8

fred4

Here's an example of farming an IC boss and being unsuccessfully ganked towards the end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBdLIeihspY

SmellyUnlimited

Impressive stuff. I remember only ever taking down those bosses back in the day, when IC first dropped, with quite a few people. It was fun when IC used to have big roving bands of players farming for key fragments to get the agility or endurance sets, or saving up for a treasure room in WGT. Working your way through the sewers, watching out for the roving flag bosses who could easily drop a few of you (and your tel var) on your way to summon Molag Bal. Ah, the good ol’ days.

My only thought as to why people go back there now is to farm for tel var for Powerful Assault, since somebody arbitrarily decided that was the new “it” set. It’s been around for years and no one seemed to particularly care about it, but now after being away for 6 years I come back and vigor is something EVERYONE uses! I’m glad they’re making previously unremarkable sets relevant now. I’m hoping for the 10 year anniversary they give the same treatment for the plethora of sets out there that seem to have no discernible value to anyone, for anything. They’ll come out with something like Pillar of Nirn, which far and away blows everything else out of the water DPS-wise, then come out with a dozen other sets which do next to nothing. Boggles the mind.

fred4

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Impressive stuff. I remember only ever taking down those bosses back in the day, when IC first dropped, with quite a few people. It was fun when IC used to have big roving bands of players farming for key fragments to get the agility or endurance sets, or saving up for a treasure room in WGT. Working your way through the sewers, watching out for the roving flag bosses who could easily drop a few of you (and your tel var) on your way to summon Molag Bal. Ah, the good ol’ days.

I agree it's sad IC became less diversified. We lost something when the individual key fragments were abolished. Some people still do Molag, but otherwise there is no incentive to go into the sewers. Few people do.

My only thought as to why people go back there now is to farm for tel var for Powerful Assault, since somebody arbitrarily decided that was the new “it” set. It’s been around for years and no one seemed to particularly care about it, but now after being away for 6 years I come back and vigor is something EVERYONE uses!

I wasn't up on the trial meta back then, but I don't think those decisions are arbitrary and I think they are made by players. I'm cynical sometimes, for example when it came to pre-nerf Oakensoul, but it must be genuinely hard for ZOS to design a well-balanced. set. They put Minor Resolve on Resolving Vigor. This was something no one understood, but at any rate it made PA popular with off tanks, if it wasn't already.

I don't think PA dictates the value of Tel Var, though, or at least not solely. Hakeijo contributes for sure, while the apothecary parcels beat what you get for Hakeijos by a noticeable margin on average. They contain an oversize fraction of Columbine. The hybrid meta and easy availabiliy of the major damage and crit buffs has made tri-pots the most desirable ones at the expense of spell power potions. If anything, I think that is what has lifted the value of Tel Var. Well that, the stickerbook as a whole and, I suppose you're right, PA specifically.

I’m glad they’re making previously unremarkable sets relevant now. I’m hoping for the 10 year anniversary they give the same treatment for the plethora of sets out there that seem to have no discernible value to anyone, for anything. They’ll come out with something like Pillar of Nirn, which far and away blows everything else out of the water DPS-wise, then come out with a dozen other sets which do next to nothing. Boggles the mind.

It's spreadsheet-driven design. Pillar of Nirn plays well and fits into many builds. This is something ZOS seem to find hard to quantify. I think they may be too data-driven and not listening enough to experienced players, probably including within their own ranks. I think that coming up with novella-length tooltips for armor sets doesn't help either. My eyes glaze over and I don't use some of the new sets, because of that, but that could just be me. Finally I think they've flip-flopped so much and they've abandoned the class-rep system, few people care anymore. Few invest time in the PTS, not least because the roller coaster changes prior to U35 became overwhelming. A reason for the lacklustre sets from Endless Archive could be ZOS being more careful after U35. I'm not sure the DK set is even worth having over Drake's Rush. The NB set is possibly the only good one and then only for something like my build, which specialises in PvPvE. The damage against players is like "ehhh", but the cost reduction and healing pushes it into the "good" territory.

fred4

Just expanding on that a little. I'm a theory-crafter. That is the part of the game I enjoy the most. Many players are not. They look for guidance to cut through the overwhelming choices. That's how the meta comes about. It's by necessity, especially when you have to coordinate 12 players for a trial group or when you need to fit in with a random one, if not as a DD, then as a tank or healer. It's arguably also how you, yourself, chose Wretched Vitality without realising how lacklustre that set is for, if not my build, then at least the playstyle that my build was made for. Did you notice the amount of cloaking that I do, how "bringing Tel Var home" literally means running around in cloak until you reach a protected platform? You best achieve that with the way I build, not with the meta Wretched Vitality set. Reality is not so cut and dry.

Objectively speaking, when I look at my combat log in PvP, I think there actually is a lot of variety, certainly among nightblades. People use Scavenging Demise, Draugrkin, Winterborn, Asylum / Master / Blackose bows, Surprise Attack, Concealed Weapon, Onslaught, Incap, Soul Tether, Refreshing Path, Magnum Shot, and so on. Sorcs use Way of Fire. I've even seen a very strong player / dueller use Snake in the Stars (successfully against me), a set that was nerfed and left for dead after a recent PTS cycle. Either people know something and there is a hidden meta, or they're experimenting, or they latch on to one thing or another and it still works as well as most things.

Let's give you an example of something I tried on my nightblade. Jailbreaker. Why on earth would you wear such a set on a magblade? Because my skill bars play best with a divison between attack and defense and that normally results in me double-barring Concealed Weapon solely for the speed. Jailbreaker on the back bar replaces Concealed Weapon and frees up a skill slot. The stamina regen is also useful when you wear the Esoteric Greaves. It's not a bad option. The only reason I don't use it is that I don't like carrying and switching between 10,000 situational options. Really high-end PvEers generally do, though. That is actually how you square balance with the nature of an RPG. Situational usefulness of sets and skills.

When you run into a strong meta player, or a dueller, you got to ask yourself what situations their build is actually strong in? Are they playing alone? Do they need a small group to function? A large one? Did they sucker you into a 1v1 situation, because they can't actually brawl or sustain? Are they running detection? Can they do anything to you, as a nightblade, when you don't engage first?

The 500 armor sets in the game are a puzzle for players to solve. ZOS, I forget who it was, said as much once. It's not something that is entirely pre-planned and solved by them. When magsorc had a very strong archetype that required building for max magicka and stacked burst, people complained there was only one way to build and it was boring. Now that's been destroyed, that has arguably increased the build-crafting opportunities for sorc. Yet no one is happy? It's a very double-edged sword. Yes, I think class identity has been lost, everything feels kind of generic, but at an individual level there are arguably more choices to differentiate your build in small ways from others. It's like the clothes in the game. Most everything looks like ESO - crotch flaps abound - but it's all slightly different.

Brakkish

I feel it appropriate to demonstrate the opposite end of the spectrum. The counter to the run, gun and hide playstyle.

The "I openly invite all comers and have zero worries what you're bringing with you, playstyle"


https://youtu.be/flHpD-esoRw


Tip of the hat to all the NB's who tried their best in this video (and to the wardens, temps, dks, kitchen sinks) (bless their hearts). Skip to 3:30 if you want to see everyone pack up their toys and go home as I sheath and slow walk like an action hero back to my post and wait for the next crowd.

SmellyUnlimited

Wow, that’s some serious punishment you’re taking lol. Is the point of the build just to be as tanky as possible? It didn’t seem like the enemies were dying, but they also couldn’t make a dent on you. I think I’ve seen this Necro build before, like a grave lord or something to that effect. Basically unkillable. I mean, how exactly does someone successfully ever take you down?

Brakkish

SmellyUnlimited wrote: »

Wow, that’s some serious punishment you’re taking lol. Is the point of the build just to be as tanky as possible? It didn’t seem like the enemies were dying, but they also couldn’t make a dent on you. I think I’ve seen this Necro build before, like a grave lord or something to that effect. Basically unkillable. I mean, how exactly does someone successfully ever take you down?

A fair assessment - let's examine the statement "It didn't seem like enemies were dying"

If a "regular" dps were in that situation - they'd already been dead, no chance of killing anyone dead.
Second, if for whatever reason said DPS were blessed by the gods and didn't die - they would of needed godly DPS (unseen in this game) to overcome all of the heals that were present. In that group there were several able to cross heal, if they already weren't doing some (I imagine they were focussed on DPSing me down) but would've easily switched to cross healing if they required.

Arguably I could of dps'd down the NB's seen early on before the group showed up, but you and I both know the NB's would of peeled off before they died, so I elected to just conserve resources and troll until the larger group showed up. (I knew it'd be only a matter of time before more joined the fun).

So, in the scenario in that video - not dying IS the win.
And the answer to your last question about being taken down - lag kills all, enough lag at the right time will eventually do it.

SmellyUnlimited

Ha, true enough. And really, you effectively did “kill” the players trying to kill you, in that they were taken out of the greater fight completely while your group arrived. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that level of tank before in this game, although it is sorta strange ZoS hasn’t implemented some patch or revised certain sets to be able to combat the “unkillable build.” Seems like, from reading the forums at least, people have been complaining about the level of survivability in PvP being too high. Although that might just be their being angry about not getting the kills they wanted to…