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Ultimate Bow Gank Nightblade PvP Guide + Video
IreWorks
Soul Shriven
Hi. I’m IreWorks. I’ve been playing ESO on PCNA on and off since the One Tamriel update and have pumped a few thousand hours into the game. I’m primarily a PvPer and have spent the bulk of my game time in Battlegrounds and No-CP Cyrodiil (prior to the no-proc change effectively killing those campaigns). I’ve played a wide variety of classes and roles over the years but my favorite playstyle by far is Bow Gank Nightblade - a contentious playstyle that I’ve experimented with pretty much every possible variation of.
I’m a writer by trade and thought it’d be fun to create a guide on the playstyle, as I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about how to play and build a successful bow ganker. Of course, one of the best things about ESO is that there’s a lot of room for experimentation and numerous niche/underdog builds can be piloted to great success. Regardless, we’re deep in a PvP tank meta that shows no signs of abating and I believe my build has more flexibility to contend with top tier players and the meta builds compared to the setups I see from the big content creators/quick Google searches.
Video version of guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xljkONeooVY
Let’s get into it…
OVERVIEW
The days of Snipe two-shotting players are long gone. Nerfs to the skill, single target spammables in general, and a tanky PvP meta where most players run 30K HP+ have caused traditional ranged ganking setups to fall out of favor. If you want to consistently kill players in 2-3 global cooldowns, melee builds, which synergize with most burst proc sets much better than ranged setups, are now the way to go. While my build doesn’t offer quite as much raw burst damage as optimized melee setups, it makes up for that with superior range and flexibility. Ganking in general is in a pretty tough spot these days but that’s partially offset by the various buffs Nightblades have gotten over the last few years - overall, the class is in a strong position and ganking setups can still catch top-tier players using meta builds off guard!
PROS
-Very high ranged burst damage that doesn’t require lengthy/telegraphed setups or waiting around for proc sets to come off cooldown
-Not quite as squishy as pure glass cannon builds. 7x medium armor, magicka and stamina sources of Major Expedition, and stealth gives you nigh unparalleled mobility to disengage and reposition as needed
-Significantly more “active” than most ganking setups. You don’t have to just sit in a corner and wait for a vulnerable target. Blasting everything in sight with Poison Injection is the way to go!
-Your ultimates are obviously hugely helpful for setting up big kill combos, but you’re not as reliant on them for kills compared to many other DPS builds
-Three execute effects gives you immense pressure on low-HP enemies
-Stealth guarantees a crit on your next attack, which equates to big money Snipe, Relentless Focus and Ult hits
CONS
-No group utility (heals, buffs, debuffs, etc) outside of raw damage
-Having no detection skill or non-ultimate AoE in the current incarnation of the build can make fighting other Nightblades annoying. Make sure you have a lot of detect potions handy if you want to go hunting for stealthers.
-Good Stamsorcs are able to stay on top of you and will usually win a fight of attrition
-Snipe is effectively impossible to use against pillar/tower humpers
-Though you can trade a few hits with opposing players, this isn’t a dueling or brawler build. Meta Dragonknights, Wardens and Arcanists (Rending Slashes Vateshran Ice Staff™ plz no steal my original idea) can tank your damage and burst you down quickly. Wardens that run Crystallized Shield and Dragonknights that run Protective Scale are essentially unkillable. Rely on hit and run tactics and your superior mobility against these foes.
-There’s a stigma to playing a bow ganker - seriously! Ragers are always gonna rage, but people tend to particularly dislike bow gankers. So, just be ready for some teabagging and rage whispers to come your way. Use their anger against them and don’t let it get to you!
U41 Overview
The latest patch was an eventful one for PvP, a mixed bag for Nightblades, and overall a slight nerf to this build. I’m not going to go over every change in U41, as that's beyond the scope of this guide - I’ll just focus on the Nightblade-specific ones here.
First, the bad: Concealed Weapon lost Major Berserk. While the class received some damage buffs, overall, this means that the vast majority of our damage is now 10% weaker, since there’s no realistic way to obtain Major Berserk elsewhere. We’re doing roughly 10% less damage than we were pre-patch - this is a considerable nerf. The popular consensus seems to be that Nightblades were buffed in U41, and though the Siphoning Strikes rework was a major boon for the class, effectively losing around 10% damage outside Concealed Weapon is a major nerf by any reasonable metric.
Thankfully, it’s not all bad news. Concealed Weapon effectively does 10% more damage than it did pre-patch, even considering the loss of Major Berserk. This makes for a very hard hitting melee spammable, and though Concealed Weapon isn’t the focal point of our build, we use it often enough that the damage buff is a nice consolation prize for losing Major Berserk. Keeping Minor Expedition through bar swap is also nice. I’ll discuss the Surprise Attack changes in the abilities section of the guide.
The more expensive version of Incapacitating Strike also received a 10% damage buff, but that just makes it hit as hard as it did pre-patch, considering the loss of Major Berserk. The non-stun version of Incap is weaker than pre-patch. Regardless, it’s still a good ult. We did lose the Reave passive, which was nice for sustain, but that’s more than made up for by the change to the Siphoning Strikes skill.
The new Siphoning Strikes skill is fantastic if you can make room for a sustain skill in your build. It is significantly better than the old ability. The Siphoning Attacks morph is now part of my bow gank build, having replaced Deep Thoughts, one of the Meditate morphs from the Psijic skill line.
Outside that, Debilitate was nerfed due to the overall buffs status effects received. Regardless, both Debilitate and Crippling Grasp are still so useless, you'd think they were Necromancer abilities.
Finally, Soul Harvest was buffed so its bonuses persist through bar swap, but unless you're using War Maidens's, it is still completely outclassed by Incapacitating Strike, especially because of Incap’s bonus damage to offset the loss of Major Berserk.
SKILLS
Front Bar
Focused Aim: It’s Snipe. The coolest spammable in the game! Though heavily nerfed over the years, Snipe is still a solid spammable and can really put the pressure on opponents that don’t mitigate or dodge the arrows. As a casted ability, you can immediately follow up a Snipe with a Light Attack and a different skill for considerable burst damage. I've swapped from Lethal Arrow to Focused Aim in U41 because Poisoned received a net damage nerf despite gaining execute scaling, which causes the Sundered/Minor Breach from Focused Aim to be the superior option. You'll still proc Poisoned, albeit at a lower rate, through other means.
Concealed Weapon: It may have lost Major Berserk, but Concealed Weapon is still a core part of my build. Combo this with a Snipe and LA for good burst damage. Hit people from their flank to proc off balance, AKA this is also our non-ultimate stun. Even as a ranged build we still get into melee fairly often, so Concealed Weapon will be doing a moderate portion of your overall DPS. This morph is better than Surprise Attack due to the considerably higher damage and Minor Expedition. It also helps us manage our resources by being a Magicka ability.
Poison Injection: A fantastic multi-purpose damage over time ability. Even on a high damage gank build, simply casting spammables like Focused Aim and Concealed Weapon isn’t going to be enough to kill any but the squishiest and/or inexperienced PvPers. You need something additional to add a bit of pressure to your kit. With this build, Poison Injection is far and away the best option. The ability does solid damage over time and the execute scaling is deceptively strong, especially for a ranged ability. When your opponent is at low health, even just the initial damage part of Poison Injection can hit extremely hard.
With Sheer Venom, getting the PI dot on everything that moves is typically a high priority. Prioritize comboing this with Snipe+LA unless you have a specific reason to use another ability, such as trying to finish someone off with Killer’s Blade.
Killer’s Blade: Not particularly flashy compared to other class executes, but it gets the job done. When combined with Poison Injection and Sheer Venom, this gives you a crazy amount of pressure against opponents in execute range. I use this over a 2H execute on my back bar due to the unfortunate fact that ESO can be a laggy/janky game, especially in Cyrodiil, and trying to quickly bar swap to execute someone can backfire too often for my liking. Your mileage may vary.
Shadowy Disguise: It’s stealth. Use this to sneak up on people, guarantee crits, and escape dicey situations. I front bar this for the same reason I front bar Killer’s Blade - I use the skill in too many scenarios where milliseconds make all the difference and I don’t want to deal with bar swap jank.
Incapacitating Strike: This might seem redundant with Dawnbreaker/Soul Tether on the back bar (and if you have the ult for those, they're generally better), but I tend to play very aggressively and find myself in a lot of situations where I want to use a burst ultimate but haven’t built up enough ultimate for DB/Soul Tether. Incap is great in those scenarios. Still, you can swap this out for one of the Bow ultimate morphs or front bar Dawnbreaker/Soul Tether and use Onslaught/Psijic Ult/Vampire Ult on back bar if you’d prefer.
Back Bar
Rally: We need Major Brutality prior to engaging targets to maximize our burst potential. We also need tripots for sustain, so therefore, Rally is the way to go for Major Brutality. It also offers Minor Endurance, which is a great boon for sustain. The heal is also incredibly powerful when you properly play around it. Combined with a Vateshran 2 hander, this ability also adds an additional 300 weapon damage with excellent uptime. Just a bunch of great things packed into one ability.
Merciless Resolve: One of the most powerful abilities in the game. Forget stealth - this is the thing that keeps Nightblades relevant in PvP. Try to use this immediately after Shadowy Disguise to guarantee a crit when possible. I previously used Relentless Focus as I appreciated that little extra bit of weapon damage, but like most people, I’ve now shifted to Merciless Focus to minmax the amount of burst damage I can do.
Resolving Vigor: This used to be the build’s flex spot - which was typically used for a stealth detection ability. That said, the overwhelming strength and popularity of abilities such as Rending Slashes and Elemental Susceptibility necessitates the extra healing. Even if dots don’t kill you outright, without this skill you’ll be spending so much time running away and spamming Rally and Deep Thoughts to offset chip damage that you might as well have died. This ability allows you to go toe-to-toe against traditional builds for a bit and otherwise take some chip damage while staying in the fight.
Siphoning Attacks: The reworked version of this skill is an immensely powerful sustain skill and has easily replaced Deep Thoughts, the Meditate morph from the Psijic skill line I previously used for years. This morph is preferred as it gives much more resource recovery. Assuming you’re managing Rally+Vigor well, the health cost isn’t that big of an issue and shouldn’t be noticeable unless you have to use the skill 3 times in a row. Using this periodically is also how we proc the XYZTransfer Nightblade passive, which boosts our ult gen.
Race Against Time: Minor Force buffs our burst damage. The immunity to snares/immobilizations is essential to not immediately die to Dragonknights/basically everything. This is also a second way to get Major Expedition (the other way is via dodge rolling with a Bow); alternating between these can ease your sustain issues. An all around essential skill for most PvP builds. The Psijic shield passive you get from slotting this/Race Against Time is also very nice - every little bit helps!
Dawnbreaker of Smiting/Soul Tether: These damage ults are great for stunning people in dodge roll, ult dumping in coordinated groups and generally blowing people up. I have personally had difficulty landing Dawnbreaker consistently ever since ZOS added a cast time. The ability is amazing when it hits, but I feel it is very inconsistent. ZOS attempted to address the consistency issue via a buff in Update 40 but after some testing it still feels pretty inconsistent to me. Soul Tether is a much more forgiving alternative. The damage isn’t quite as strong (an ally who activates the synergy can offset this) but landing the ult is considerably easier.
GEAR
Magma Incarnate/Baron Thirsk (1x): Great for sustain. The dual regen stats are more impactful than one line of weapon damage.
Markyn Ring of Majesty: No-strings attached stats.
Plaguebreak: A new addition to the build, replacing previous mainstay Stygian. Previously, Plaguebreak was already one of the best alternate sets for my build, and U41’s buff to the Diseased status effect has pushed Plaguebreak into being BiS. Between its 4 procs, Plaguebreak will typically do around as much damage, or slightly less than, Sheer Venom. And the bombing element can be fantastic and improves thisbuilds's viability in group play, where coordinated players tend to play tightly balled up. The 5 piece procs aside, the 2-4s are also optimal. All this said, enemies can only be affected by one instance of PB every 20 seconds, so if you're grouping with another PB user, it may be good for you to have an alternate set on hand if you care to minmax.
Sheer Venom (Front bar): Enormously powerful set when combined with Poison Injection. The PI dot will continually reapply Sheer Venom and as the set has no cooldown, maintaining this on multiple enemies for long periods of time is effortless. The fact that it also procs off of Killer’s Blade is great, too. Sheer Venom doesn’t offer up-front burst damage like a lot of other proc sets, but most burst proc sets work better with melee setups or have various inconsistencies. Sheer Venom is just really reliable and it isn’t fluff damage - between this and PI’s execute scaling, you have very impressive lethality against low-HP foes.
4.4 second Escapist Poisons. Adds a root to your kit and the CC immunity can be very helpful and confuse enemies. These poisons will force a dodge roll most of the time, which is great for a variety of reasons (drains stamina, forces the opponent to spend a GCD doing nothing+you can cast a Snipe while they're in the animation). I don't think any other poisons or enchantments are worth taking over a root. I don't think the damage from something like double DoT poisons is worth it without a synergistic set like Draugrkin and the good status effects from enchantments like Flame/Shock don't proc often enough without the Charged trait.
Vateshran’s Perfected Greatsword (Back bar): Used more for the 300 weapon damage, which has excellent uptime, as opposed to the damage proc. Frenzied Momentum can be procced on either bar but I often miss the proc as I use heavy bow attacks from range as a stun, which is usually more important than trying to play around the proc. Regardless, it’s a nice bit of additional burst when you do land the proc. The non-perfected version offers nearly identical performance. I prefer the Greatsword as the passive Weapon Damage slightly boosts your healing in addition to your damage, but any of the 2H Vateshran weapons are fine.
Weapon damage enchantment. Nice bonus for your burst. Regardless of what you run, you won't be proccing this very often.
Attributes/Enchants:
Tri-stat enchants on armor. If you’re poor, just run stamina or health. Either way, aim for around 30k health minimum. You can run less health if you want but I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it - good players will notice if your health tops off in the mid 20k area and focus you accordingly. And in Cyrodiil, the lower your health, the more attractive you are to hostile bombers - don’t be the weak link that breaks the chain!
I run one stamina recovery glyph on jewelry and the other two are weapon damage. As always, you want to run as low recovery as you can get away with and focus on maximizing your damage - especially with a build like this.
Food/Potions:
Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch or Jewels of Misrule: Max Health and great Stamina/Magicka recovery. Orzorga’s gives slightly more stats but is very expensive. Jewels are dirt cheap - don’t feel bad about running them. I run Jewels 99% of the time.
Tri-stat potions and detect potions: Self-explanatory. Given that we don’t run a detect skill, detect potions are our primary counter to enemy Nightblades. When you see one that you’re confident you can kill, chug a potion and get hunting!
Mundus: Lover
Best Mundus for consistent damage.
Champion Points
Blue: Deadly Aim, Force of Nature (if you're in larger fights/groups, which is how I tend to prefer CP PvP) and Fighting Finesse are optimal for damage. Duelist's Rebuff my preferred defensive option.
Red: Survival Instincts and Sustained by Suffering are excellent for sustain. Pain's Refuge is invaluable defensively and Bastion is a solid offensive option in the tree.
Green: Mostly a QoL tree but Sustaining Shadows is nice for reducing Sneak cost.
Traits:
Whatever mix of Divines and Well-fitted you prefer on the armor. I’m currently running 5x Divines and 2x Well-fitted. Divines results in more damage, while Well-fitted improves your mobility, survivability and sustain.
I prefer Infused on the jewelry for consistency and slightly stronger healing but you can run Bloodthirsty, which synergizes especially well with Sheer Venom/Poison Injection, if you’d prefer. You already have more than enough mobility so I’d advise against Swift.
As for weapons, go Sharpened for max damage. You could run Nirnhoned on backbar for slightly better healing.
Vampire Stage 2: The Strike from the Shadows passive gives 300 weapon damage with essentially permanent uptime thanks to Shadowy Disguise. I avoid Vampire Stage 3 because if your health is low enough for the Undeath passive to really kick in, you’re probably dead regardless. The additional ability costs and flame damage vulnerability aren’t worth it. Avoiding damage, rather than mitigating it, is the way to go with this build.
Alternative Sets:
Balorgh: A classic burst damage set. I have never liked intentionally saving up ultimate for big Balorgh bursts, despite the set’s undeniable strength. If you’re a fan and don’t mind losing some sustain, replacing Markyn and Magma Incarnate with this is OK.
Stygian: I used this set in the build for years before replacing it with Plaguebreak in U41. Assuming you can double bar a set, Stygian is the best no-strings attached stat set for stealthers. Other stat set options have various downsides, such as not buffing all of your kit, consistency issues, or just offering raw damage than Stygian. The set needs to be double barred, as the 5 piece bonus does not carry over between bars - probably a bug, but with ZOS, who knows.
Rallying Cry/Powerful Assault: Not the best when playing this build solo as you’ll get more mileage out of selfish, higher stat sets to maximize burst. But if you’re playing with a friend or group and want to run group sets, these are good.
Shattered Fate (5 piece): It’s…fine. Just don’t expect this to be the silver bullet that lets you break the tank meta. Stygian buffs your healing and this doesn’t, while Sheer Venom or other proc sets just give more pressure overall. But Stygian pieces can be very expensive and Sheer Venom requires an annoying dungeon grind, so this is a solid craftable beginner set if you need to grind out my recommended gear. If I were to avoid damage proc sets, this is probably what I’d prefer to pair with Stygian.
Way of Fire: Way of Fire is great with PI for the same reason it’s always been popular to pair with Rending Slashes - put the Weapon Dot on someone and WoF will proc nearly on cooldown - resulting in great proc set uptime and considerable damage. This is a solid option for the build but you want to double bar Way of Fire, which means you’d be running at least 3 heavy armor pieces, which will really slow you down and isn’t optimal from a stat perspective. Still a very good option and a top-tier option for damage per screenshots, but I think you get more mileage out of Plaguebreak+Sheer Venom in actual gameplay.
Avoid these sets:
Vateshran’s Perfected Bow: Snipe is still a serviceable skill, but it’s been nerfed to the point where it’s not worth building around it so heavily. You’ll end up Sniping at close range fairly often but you’ll still get more mileage out of other sets. The damage bonus falls off hard and fast if you aren’t basically clipping through an enemy’s character model, so this is a very hard weapon to play around. Would require replacing another set(s), which will result in an overall damage loss.
Master’s Bow: You’ll ideally have Poison Inject active on everything you’re targeting, but in reality, that won’t always be the case (especially when you’re ult dumping a group on short notice, which happens a lot). Vateshran’s 2H gives nearly as much Weapon Damage without requiring a dot on a specific target. You could run both, but then you’d have to drop Markyn/Magma Incarnate, which isn’t worth it.
Venomous Smite/Shadow of the Red Mountain: Popular proc sets, but long cooldowns - and inconsistent hits, in the case of Shadow of the Red Mountain - hamper their usability. I prefer more consistent sets.
Night Mother’s Gaze: Won’t apply to your first hit, which is a bummer when you’re opening a burst rotation with a big hitter like Dawnbreaker or Merciless Resolve. The 5 piece effect could be redundant in a lot of scenarios where the enemies are already debuffed. I’m also not a fan of crit chance stat lines since we can already guarantee a crit on any big hit thanks to Shadowy Disguise.
Flame Blossom/Caluurion’s Legacy: Good ganking proc sets but they work much better on melee setups.
Swamp Raider/Marksman/Hawk’s Eye/Morag Tong: A lot of people recommend these sets (mainly the first two) for bow gankers and the people who do so are posting cringe. These don’t buff all of your skills. While the Bow skills are the main draw of this build, Light Attacks and the other abilities are considerable portions of your average DPS breakdown and you want to prioritize sets that buff everything you use. Stat sets that don’t buff Merciless Resolve or all of your ults are massive Ls.
Poisonous Serpent: Essentially the medium armor version of Way of Fire with a worse proc condition. You’ll probably struggle to proc it off cooldown, which causes it to lag behind other options. Some burst setups forego or delay Light Attacks, which makes this set a definite no-go.
Wretched Vitality: One of the best sets for less experienced PvPers regardless of class as it greatly boosts sustain. This is also a strong set for experienced PvPers but with a build like this you need to invest more heavily into damage to maximize burst potential.
Stuhn’s Favor/Witch-Knight’s Defiance: Good stat sets but they usually will require a bit of setup. It's better to initiate combat as fully buffed up as possible to maximize up front burst.
Syvarra’s Scales: The proc is very powerful but having max stat lines on the 2-4 pieces is terrible and really tanks the rest of your damage.
Spriggan’s Thorns: 2x max stamina lines is gross and the 5 piece effect has been powercrept by newer sets. Probably good in No-proc campaigns though.
Scavenging Demise: Very telegraphed and you’ll feel bad when the proc misses. When aggressively dotting everything up this will often proc on suboptimal targets.
Clever Alchemist: I’ve never liked playing around my potion for burst but personal preferences aside, you really want to save your potion for when you need the sustain with this build.
No Proc Campaign Setup:
I run 12 Shattered Fate, though only the 5 and 10 piece effects are active due to me running Shattered Fate weapons on both bars. I continue running Markyn Ring of Majesty and 1x Magma Incarnate/Baron Thirsk. I have yet to farm it but if it worked in No-Proc PvP, the new Torc of the Last Ayleid King: would likely be BiS. I've read reports that it is not working in those instances currently - whether this is a bug or not is unknown.
RACE:
Khajiit
Wood Elf
Dark Elf
Orc
High Elf
All of these are good. Khajiit is best for minmaxing burst damage because its critical damage bonus is the hardest to replicate via other sources. I run Wood Elf - I’m a fan of the big stamina recovery and movement speed bonuses and the reduced fall damage is also quite nice.
Playstyle:
The general rule of thumb is to open a Battleground/Cyrodiil engagement by peppering people with Focused Aim and Poison Injections from range. Feel your opponents out - who actually takes damage, who is positioning intelligently, etc. Find the weak links on the enemy team, judge whether your allies will do anything, etc. Poison Injection/Sheer Venom application is your top priority unless using another ability would potentially net you a kill.
Focused Aim and Merciless Resolve can blow squishies up from range but barring that and the random Poison Injection/Sheer Venom finishes, you’ll typically need to enter melee range to finish players off. Guaranteeing crits on your heavy hitters via Shadowy Disguise is crucial, so make sure you don’t use Light Attacks early out of stealth, lest you waste your guaranteed crit on them.
If you’re in a safe position and don’t expect to be able to capitalize on a kill within the next few seconds, take the time to reapply buffs or use Deep Thoughts to top off your resources. Unless you’re being completely ignored it’s usually best to have the Vigor HoT on you as often as possible.
Finally, to borrow some FPS lingo, don’t ego challenge enemies. There’s a misconception that gankers can only get kills on inexperienced/squishy players but when played properly this build can give hell to even the best PvPers out there. That said, this isn’t a build that generally wants to take fair fights or go toe-to-toe with brawlers for more than a few seconds at a time. Understanding when you can push for a kill and when you need to run and hide are essential. Pick your fights carefully!
Combos:
Merciless Resolve is not listed in most of these combos because it is a situational skill that you will ideally use when you’re confident it won’t be dodged/mitigated. This section is more about bread and butter combos.
Focused Aim-> Light Attack+Any ability other than Focused Aim
Three attacks hit at once for great burst damage. Getting the Poison Injection proc on target is usually a priority unless you think the target will die to Killer’s Blade. Concealed Weapon from the flank is important for Off Balance and setting up a stun.
Shadowy Disguise/Sneak -> Focused Aim -> Shadowy Disguise -> Focused Aim
The OG bow gank combo. This used to be enough to kill squishies outright prior to the tank meta. It’s no longer the go-to combo but can still deal immense damage to squishier targets from range.
Shadowy Disguise -> Anything
Guarantee a crit on a heavy hitter.
Shadowy Disguise -> Ult/Merciless Resolve-> Ult/Merciless Resolve -> Light Attack+Killer’s Blade
This is enough to nuke a vulnerable target in around one second. Use your best judgment to determine which DPS skill to open with.
Outro
Thanks for reading. I'm @Ire'Works in-game on PCNA and I also have a Twitch. I don't stream regularly or have a set schedule but when I do stream, it'd be cool to say hello to someone other than the bots.
Thanks. See ya in the Battlegrounds. Remember to not play the objective - every mode is Deathmatch. A shame the developers took away the ability to select your BG mode. Winkwinknudgenudge bring that back
Edited by ZOS_Kevin on 7 November 2024 11:05 I’m a writer by trade and thought it’d be fun to create a guide on the playstyle, as I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about how to play and build a successful bow ganker. Of course, one of the best things about ESO is that there’s a lot of room for experimentation and numerous niche/underdog builds can be piloted to great success. Regardless, we’re deep in a PvP tank meta that shows no signs of abating and I believe my build has more flexibility to contend with top tier players and the meta builds compared to the setups I see from the big content creators/quick Google searches.
Video version of guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xljkONeooVYLet’s get into it…
OVERVIEW
The days of Snipe two-shotting players are long gone. Nerfs to the skill, single target spammables in general, and a tanky PvP meta where most players run 30K HP+ have caused traditional ranged ganking setups to fall out of favor. If you want to consistently kill players in 2-3 global cooldowns, melee builds, which synergize with most burst proc sets much better than ranged setups, are now the way to go. While my build doesn’t offer quite as much raw burst damage as optimized melee setups, it makes up for that with superior range and flexibility. Ganking in general is in a pretty tough spot these days but that’s partially offset by the various buffs Nightblades have gotten over the last few years - overall, the class is in a strong position and ganking setups can still catch top-tier players using meta builds off guard!
PROS
-Very high ranged burst damage that doesn’t require lengthy/telegraphed setups or waiting around for proc sets to come off cooldown
-Not quite as squishy as pure glass cannon builds. 7x medium armor, magicka and stamina sources of Major Expedition, and stealth gives you nigh unparalleled mobility to disengage and reposition as needed
-Significantly more “active” than most ganking setups. You don’t have to just sit in a corner and wait for a vulnerable target. Blasting everything in sight with Poison Injection is the way to go!
-Your ultimates are obviously hugely helpful for setting up big kill combos, but you’re not as reliant on them for kills compared to many other DPS builds
-Three execute effects gives you immense pressure on low-HP enemies
-Stealth guarantees a crit on your next attack, which equates to big money Snipe, Relentless Focus and Ult hits
CONS
-No group utility (heals, buffs, debuffs, etc) outside of raw damage
-Having no detection skill or non-ultimate AoE in the current incarnation of the build can make fighting other Nightblades annoying. Make sure you have a lot of detect potions handy if you want to go hunting for stealthers.
-Good Stamsorcs are able to stay on top of you and will usually win a fight of attrition
-Snipe is effectively impossible to use against pillar/tower humpers
-Though you can trade a few hits with opposing players, this isn’t a dueling or brawler build. Meta Dragonknights, Wardens and Arcanists (Rending Slashes Vateshran Ice Staff™ plz no steal my original idea) can tank your damage and burst you down quickly. Wardens that run Crystallized Shield and Dragonknights that run Protective Scale are essentially unkillable. Rely on hit and run tactics and your superior mobility against these foes.
-There’s a stigma to playing a bow ganker - seriously! Ragers are always gonna rage, but people tend to particularly dislike bow gankers. So, just be ready for some teabagging and rage whispers to come your way. Use their anger against them and don’t let it get to you!
U41 Overview
The latest patch was an eventful one for PvP, a mixed bag for Nightblades, and overall a slight nerf to this build. I’m not going to go over every change in U41, as that's beyond the scope of this guide - I’ll just focus on the Nightblade-specific ones here.
First, the bad: Concealed Weapon lost Major Berserk. While the class received some damage buffs, overall, this means that the vast majority of our damage is now 10% weaker, since there’s no realistic way to obtain Major Berserk elsewhere. We’re doing roughly 10% less damage than we were pre-patch - this is a considerable nerf. The popular consensus seems to be that Nightblades were buffed in U41, and though the Siphoning Strikes rework was a major boon for the class, effectively losing around 10% damage outside Concealed Weapon is a major nerf by any reasonable metric.
Thankfully, it’s not all bad news. Concealed Weapon effectively does 10% more damage than it did pre-patch, even considering the loss of Major Berserk. This makes for a very hard hitting melee spammable, and though Concealed Weapon isn’t the focal point of our build, we use it often enough that the damage buff is a nice consolation prize for losing Major Berserk. Keeping Minor Expedition through bar swap is also nice. I’ll discuss the Surprise Attack changes in the abilities section of the guide.
The more expensive version of Incapacitating Strike also received a 10% damage buff, but that just makes it hit as hard as it did pre-patch, considering the loss of Major Berserk. The non-stun version of Incap is weaker than pre-patch. Regardless, it’s still a good ult. We did lose the Reave passive, which was nice for sustain, but that’s more than made up for by the change to the Siphoning Strikes skill.
The new Siphoning Strikes skill is fantastic if you can make room for a sustain skill in your build. It is significantly better than the old ability. The Siphoning Attacks morph is now part of my bow gank build, having replaced Deep Thoughts, one of the Meditate morphs from the Psijic skill line.
Outside that, Debilitate was nerfed due to the overall buffs status effects received. Regardless, both Debilitate and Crippling Grasp are still so useless, you'd think they were Necromancer abilities.
Finally, Soul Harvest was buffed so its bonuses persist through bar swap, but unless you're using War Maidens's, it is still completely outclassed by Incapacitating Strike, especially because of Incap’s bonus damage to offset the loss of Major Berserk.
SKILLS
Front Bar
Focused Aim: It’s Snipe. The coolest spammable in the game! Though heavily nerfed over the years, Snipe is still a solid spammable and can really put the pressure on opponents that don’t mitigate or dodge the arrows. As a casted ability, you can immediately follow up a Snipe with a Light Attack and a different skill for considerable burst damage. I've swapped from Lethal Arrow to Focused Aim in U41 because Poisoned received a net damage nerf despite gaining execute scaling, which causes the Sundered/Minor Breach from Focused Aim to be the superior option. You'll still proc Poisoned, albeit at a lower rate, through other means.
Concealed Weapon: It may have lost Major Berserk, but Concealed Weapon is still a core part of my build. Combo this with a Snipe and LA for good burst damage. Hit people from their flank to proc off balance, AKA this is also our non-ultimate stun. Even as a ranged build we still get into melee fairly often, so Concealed Weapon will be doing a moderate portion of your overall DPS. This morph is better than Surprise Attack due to the considerably higher damage and Minor Expedition. It also helps us manage our resources by being a Magicka ability.
Poison Injection: A fantastic multi-purpose damage over time ability. Even on a high damage gank build, simply casting spammables like Focused Aim and Concealed Weapon isn’t going to be enough to kill any but the squishiest and/or inexperienced PvPers. You need something additional to add a bit of pressure to your kit. With this build, Poison Injection is far and away the best option. The ability does solid damage over time and the execute scaling is deceptively strong, especially for a ranged ability. When your opponent is at low health, even just the initial damage part of Poison Injection can hit extremely hard.
With Sheer Venom, getting the PI dot on everything that moves is typically a high priority. Prioritize comboing this with Snipe+LA unless you have a specific reason to use another ability, such as trying to finish someone off with Killer’s Blade.
Killer’s Blade: Not particularly flashy compared to other class executes, but it gets the job done. When combined with Poison Injection and Sheer Venom, this gives you a crazy amount of pressure against opponents in execute range. I use this over a 2H execute on my back bar due to the unfortunate fact that ESO can be a laggy/janky game, especially in Cyrodiil, and trying to quickly bar swap to execute someone can backfire too often for my liking. Your mileage may vary.
Shadowy Disguise: It’s stealth. Use this to sneak up on people, guarantee crits, and escape dicey situations. I front bar this for the same reason I front bar Killer’s Blade - I use the skill in too many scenarios where milliseconds make all the difference and I don’t want to deal with bar swap jank.
Incapacitating Strike: This might seem redundant with Dawnbreaker/Soul Tether on the back bar (and if you have the ult for those, they're generally better), but I tend to play very aggressively and find myself in a lot of situations where I want to use a burst ultimate but haven’t built up enough ultimate for DB/Soul Tether. Incap is great in those scenarios. Still, you can swap this out for one of the Bow ultimate morphs or front bar Dawnbreaker/Soul Tether and use Onslaught/Psijic Ult/Vampire Ult on back bar if you’d prefer.
Back Bar
Rally: We need Major Brutality prior to engaging targets to maximize our burst potential. We also need tripots for sustain, so therefore, Rally is the way to go for Major Brutality. It also offers Minor Endurance, which is a great boon for sustain. The heal is also incredibly powerful when you properly play around it. Combined with a Vateshran 2 hander, this ability also adds an additional 300 weapon damage with excellent uptime. Just a bunch of great things packed into one ability.
Merciless Resolve: One of the most powerful abilities in the game. Forget stealth - this is the thing that keeps Nightblades relevant in PvP. Try to use this immediately after Shadowy Disguise to guarantee a crit when possible. I previously used Relentless Focus as I appreciated that little extra bit of weapon damage, but like most people, I’ve now shifted to Merciless Focus to minmax the amount of burst damage I can do.
Resolving Vigor: This used to be the build’s flex spot - which was typically used for a stealth detection ability. That said, the overwhelming strength and popularity of abilities such as Rending Slashes and Elemental Susceptibility necessitates the extra healing. Even if dots don’t kill you outright, without this skill you’ll be spending so much time running away and spamming Rally and Deep Thoughts to offset chip damage that you might as well have died. This ability allows you to go toe-to-toe against traditional builds for a bit and otherwise take some chip damage while staying in the fight.
Siphoning Attacks: The reworked version of this skill is an immensely powerful sustain skill and has easily replaced Deep Thoughts, the Meditate morph from the Psijic skill line I previously used for years. This morph is preferred as it gives much more resource recovery. Assuming you’re managing Rally+Vigor well, the health cost isn’t that big of an issue and shouldn’t be noticeable unless you have to use the skill 3 times in a row. Using this periodically is also how we proc the XYZTransfer Nightblade passive, which boosts our ult gen.
Race Against Time: Minor Force buffs our burst damage. The immunity to snares/immobilizations is essential to not immediately die to Dragonknights/basically everything. This is also a second way to get Major Expedition (the other way is via dodge rolling with a Bow); alternating between these can ease your sustain issues. An all around essential skill for most PvP builds. The Psijic shield passive you get from slotting this/Race Against Time is also very nice - every little bit helps!
Dawnbreaker of Smiting/Soul Tether: These damage ults are great for stunning people in dodge roll, ult dumping in coordinated groups and generally blowing people up. I have personally had difficulty landing Dawnbreaker consistently ever since ZOS added a cast time. The ability is amazing when it hits, but I feel it is very inconsistent. ZOS attempted to address the consistency issue via a buff in Update 40 but after some testing it still feels pretty inconsistent to me. Soul Tether is a much more forgiving alternative. The damage isn’t quite as strong (an ally who activates the synergy can offset this) but landing the ult is considerably easier.
GEAR
Magma Incarnate/Baron Thirsk (1x): Great for sustain. The dual regen stats are more impactful than one line of weapon damage.
Markyn Ring of Majesty: No-strings attached stats.
Plaguebreak: A new addition to the build, replacing previous mainstay Stygian. Previously, Plaguebreak was already one of the best alternate sets for my build, and U41’s buff to the Diseased status effect has pushed Plaguebreak into being BiS. Between its 4 procs, Plaguebreak will typically do around as much damage, or slightly less than, Sheer Venom. And the bombing element can be fantastic and improves thisbuilds's viability in group play, where coordinated players tend to play tightly balled up. The 5 piece procs aside, the 2-4s are also optimal. All this said, enemies can only be affected by one instance of PB every 20 seconds, so if you're grouping with another PB user, it may be good for you to have an alternate set on hand if you care to minmax.
Sheer Venom (Front bar): Enormously powerful set when combined with Poison Injection. The PI dot will continually reapply Sheer Venom and as the set has no cooldown, maintaining this on multiple enemies for long periods of time is effortless. The fact that it also procs off of Killer’s Blade is great, too. Sheer Venom doesn’t offer up-front burst damage like a lot of other proc sets, but most burst proc sets work better with melee setups or have various inconsistencies. Sheer Venom is just really reliable and it isn’t fluff damage - between this and PI’s execute scaling, you have very impressive lethality against low-HP foes.
4.4 second Escapist Poisons. Adds a root to your kit and the CC immunity can be very helpful and confuse enemies. These poisons will force a dodge roll most of the time, which is great for a variety of reasons (drains stamina, forces the opponent to spend a GCD doing nothing+you can cast a Snipe while they're in the animation). I don't think any other poisons or enchantments are worth taking over a root. I don't think the damage from something like double DoT poisons is worth it without a synergistic set like Draugrkin and the good status effects from enchantments like Flame/Shock don't proc often enough without the Charged trait.
Vateshran’s Perfected Greatsword (Back bar): Used more for the 300 weapon damage, which has excellent uptime, as opposed to the damage proc. Frenzied Momentum can be procced on either bar but I often miss the proc as I use heavy bow attacks from range as a stun, which is usually more important than trying to play around the proc. Regardless, it’s a nice bit of additional burst when you do land the proc. The non-perfected version offers nearly identical performance. I prefer the Greatsword as the passive Weapon Damage slightly boosts your healing in addition to your damage, but any of the 2H Vateshran weapons are fine.
Weapon damage enchantment. Nice bonus for your burst. Regardless of what you run, you won't be proccing this very often.
Attributes/Enchants:
Tri-stat enchants on armor. If you’re poor, just run stamina or health. Either way, aim for around 30k health minimum. You can run less health if you want but I don’t think the tradeoff is worth it - good players will notice if your health tops off in the mid 20k area and focus you accordingly. And in Cyrodiil, the lower your health, the more attractive you are to hostile bombers - don’t be the weak link that breaks the chain!
I run one stamina recovery glyph on jewelry and the other two are weapon damage. As always, you want to run as low recovery as you can get away with and focus on maximizing your damage - especially with a build like this.
Food/Potions:
Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch or Jewels of Misrule: Max Health and great Stamina/Magicka recovery. Orzorga’s gives slightly more stats but is very expensive. Jewels are dirt cheap - don’t feel bad about running them. I run Jewels 99% of the time.
Tri-stat potions and detect potions: Self-explanatory. Given that we don’t run a detect skill, detect potions are our primary counter to enemy Nightblades. When you see one that you’re confident you can kill, chug a potion and get hunting!
Mundus: Lover
Best Mundus for consistent damage.
Champion Points
Blue: Deadly Aim, Force of Nature (if you're in larger fights/groups, which is how I tend to prefer CP PvP) and Fighting Finesse are optimal for damage. Duelist's Rebuff my preferred defensive option.
Red: Survival Instincts and Sustained by Suffering are excellent for sustain. Pain's Refuge is invaluable defensively and Bastion is a solid offensive option in the tree.
Green: Mostly a QoL tree but Sustaining Shadows is nice for reducing Sneak cost.
Traits:
Whatever mix of Divines and Well-fitted you prefer on the armor. I’m currently running 5x Divines and 2x Well-fitted. Divines results in more damage, while Well-fitted improves your mobility, survivability and sustain.
I prefer Infused on the jewelry for consistency and slightly stronger healing but you can run Bloodthirsty, which synergizes especially well with Sheer Venom/Poison Injection, if you’d prefer. You already have more than enough mobility so I’d advise against Swift.
As for weapons, go Sharpened for max damage. You could run Nirnhoned on backbar for slightly better healing.
Vampire Stage 2: The Strike from the Shadows passive gives 300 weapon damage with essentially permanent uptime thanks to Shadowy Disguise. I avoid Vampire Stage 3 because if your health is low enough for the Undeath passive to really kick in, you’re probably dead regardless. The additional ability costs and flame damage vulnerability aren’t worth it. Avoiding damage, rather than mitigating it, is the way to go with this build.
Alternative Sets:
Balorgh: A classic burst damage set. I have never liked intentionally saving up ultimate for big Balorgh bursts, despite the set’s undeniable strength. If you’re a fan and don’t mind losing some sustain, replacing Markyn and Magma Incarnate with this is OK.
Stygian: I used this set in the build for years before replacing it with Plaguebreak in U41. Assuming you can double bar a set, Stygian is the best no-strings attached stat set for stealthers. Other stat set options have various downsides, such as not buffing all of your kit, consistency issues, or just offering raw damage than Stygian. The set needs to be double barred, as the 5 piece bonus does not carry over between bars - probably a bug, but with ZOS, who knows.
Rallying Cry/Powerful Assault: Not the best when playing this build solo as you’ll get more mileage out of selfish, higher stat sets to maximize burst. But if you’re playing with a friend or group and want to run group sets, these are good.
Shattered Fate (5 piece): It’s…fine. Just don’t expect this to be the silver bullet that lets you break the tank meta. Stygian buffs your healing and this doesn’t, while Sheer Venom or other proc sets just give more pressure overall. But Stygian pieces can be very expensive and Sheer Venom requires an annoying dungeon grind, so this is a solid craftable beginner set if you need to grind out my recommended gear. If I were to avoid damage proc sets, this is probably what I’d prefer to pair with Stygian.
Way of Fire: Way of Fire is great with PI for the same reason it’s always been popular to pair with Rending Slashes - put the Weapon Dot on someone and WoF will proc nearly on cooldown - resulting in great proc set uptime and considerable damage. This is a solid option for the build but you want to double bar Way of Fire, which means you’d be running at least 3 heavy armor pieces, which will really slow you down and isn’t optimal from a stat perspective. Still a very good option and a top-tier option for damage per screenshots, but I think you get more mileage out of Plaguebreak+Sheer Venom in actual gameplay.
Avoid these sets:
Vateshran’s Perfected Bow: Snipe is still a serviceable skill, but it’s been nerfed to the point where it’s not worth building around it so heavily. You’ll end up Sniping at close range fairly often but you’ll still get more mileage out of other sets. The damage bonus falls off hard and fast if you aren’t basically clipping through an enemy’s character model, so this is a very hard weapon to play around. Would require replacing another set(s), which will result in an overall damage loss.
Master’s Bow: You’ll ideally have Poison Inject active on everything you’re targeting, but in reality, that won’t always be the case (especially when you’re ult dumping a group on short notice, which happens a lot). Vateshran’s 2H gives nearly as much Weapon Damage without requiring a dot on a specific target. You could run both, but then you’d have to drop Markyn/Magma Incarnate, which isn’t worth it.
Venomous Smite/Shadow of the Red Mountain: Popular proc sets, but long cooldowns - and inconsistent hits, in the case of Shadow of the Red Mountain - hamper their usability. I prefer more consistent sets.
Night Mother’s Gaze: Won’t apply to your first hit, which is a bummer when you’re opening a burst rotation with a big hitter like Dawnbreaker or Merciless Resolve. The 5 piece effect could be redundant in a lot of scenarios where the enemies are already debuffed. I’m also not a fan of crit chance stat lines since we can already guarantee a crit on any big hit thanks to Shadowy Disguise.
Flame Blossom/Caluurion’s Legacy: Good ganking proc sets but they work much better on melee setups.
Swamp Raider/Marksman/Hawk’s Eye/Morag Tong: A lot of people recommend these sets (mainly the first two) for bow gankers and the people who do so are posting cringe. These don’t buff all of your skills. While the Bow skills are the main draw of this build, Light Attacks and the other abilities are considerable portions of your average DPS breakdown and you want to prioritize sets that buff everything you use. Stat sets that don’t buff Merciless Resolve or all of your ults are massive Ls.
Poisonous Serpent: Essentially the medium armor version of Way of Fire with a worse proc condition. You’ll probably struggle to proc it off cooldown, which causes it to lag behind other options. Some burst setups forego or delay Light Attacks, which makes this set a definite no-go.
Wretched Vitality: One of the best sets for less experienced PvPers regardless of class as it greatly boosts sustain. This is also a strong set for experienced PvPers but with a build like this you need to invest more heavily into damage to maximize burst potential.
Stuhn’s Favor/Witch-Knight’s Defiance: Good stat sets but they usually will require a bit of setup. It's better to initiate combat as fully buffed up as possible to maximize up front burst.
Syvarra’s Scales: The proc is very powerful but having max stat lines on the 2-4 pieces is terrible and really tanks the rest of your damage.
Spriggan’s Thorns: 2x max stamina lines is gross and the 5 piece effect has been powercrept by newer sets. Probably good in No-proc campaigns though.
Scavenging Demise: Very telegraphed and you’ll feel bad when the proc misses. When aggressively dotting everything up this will often proc on suboptimal targets.
Clever Alchemist: I’ve never liked playing around my potion for burst but personal preferences aside, you really want to save your potion for when you need the sustain with this build.
No Proc Campaign Setup:
I run 12 Shattered Fate, though only the 5 and 10 piece effects are active due to me running Shattered Fate weapons on both bars. I continue running Markyn Ring of Majesty and 1x Magma Incarnate/Baron Thirsk. I have yet to farm it but if it worked in No-Proc PvP, the new Torc of the Last Ayleid King: would likely be BiS. I've read reports that it is not working in those instances currently - whether this is a bug or not is unknown.
RACE:
Khajiit
Wood Elf
Dark Elf
Orc
High Elf
All of these are good. Khajiit is best for minmaxing burst damage because its critical damage bonus is the hardest to replicate via other sources. I run Wood Elf - I’m a fan of the big stamina recovery and movement speed bonuses and the reduced fall damage is also quite nice.
Playstyle:
The general rule of thumb is to open a Battleground/Cyrodiil engagement by peppering people with Focused Aim and Poison Injections from range. Feel your opponents out - who actually takes damage, who is positioning intelligently, etc. Find the weak links on the enemy team, judge whether your allies will do anything, etc. Poison Injection/Sheer Venom application is your top priority unless using another ability would potentially net you a kill.
Focused Aim and Merciless Resolve can blow squishies up from range but barring that and the random Poison Injection/Sheer Venom finishes, you’ll typically need to enter melee range to finish players off. Guaranteeing crits on your heavy hitters via Shadowy Disguise is crucial, so make sure you don’t use Light Attacks early out of stealth, lest you waste your guaranteed crit on them.
If you’re in a safe position and don’t expect to be able to capitalize on a kill within the next few seconds, take the time to reapply buffs or use Deep Thoughts to top off your resources. Unless you’re being completely ignored it’s usually best to have the Vigor HoT on you as often as possible.
Finally, to borrow some FPS lingo, don’t ego challenge enemies. There’s a misconception that gankers can only get kills on inexperienced/squishy players but when played properly this build can give hell to even the best PvPers out there. That said, this isn’t a build that generally wants to take fair fights or go toe-to-toe with brawlers for more than a few seconds at a time. Understanding when you can push for a kill and when you need to run and hide are essential. Pick your fights carefully!
Combos:
Merciless Resolve is not listed in most of these combos because it is a situational skill that you will ideally use when you’re confident it won’t be dodged/mitigated. This section is more about bread and butter combos.
Focused Aim-> Light Attack+Any ability other than Focused Aim
Three attacks hit at once for great burst damage. Getting the Poison Injection proc on target is usually a priority unless you think the target will die to Killer’s Blade. Concealed Weapon from the flank is important for Off Balance and setting up a stun.
Shadowy Disguise/Sneak -> Focused Aim -> Shadowy Disguise -> Focused Aim
The OG bow gank combo. This used to be enough to kill squishies outright prior to the tank meta. It’s no longer the go-to combo but can still deal immense damage to squishier targets from range.
Shadowy Disguise -> Anything
Guarantee a crit on a heavy hitter.
Shadowy Disguise -> Ult/Merciless Resolve-> Ult/Merciless Resolve -> Light Attack+Killer’s Blade
This is enough to nuke a vulnerable target in around one second. Use your best judgment to determine which DPS skill to open with.
Outro
Thanks for reading. I'm @Ire'Works in-game on PCNA and I also have a Twitch. I don't stream regularly or have a set schedule but when I do stream, it'd be cool to say hello to someone other than the bots.
Thanks. See ya in the Battlegrounds. Remember to not play the objective - every mode is Deathmatch. A shame the developers took away the ability to select your BG mode. Winkwinknudgenudge bring that back
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