PVE Build - Nightblade Tank (Heavy armor, 1h/shield)

Xithian

I typed this up to help someone that was having trouble staying alive on his Nightblade and figured it couldn't hurt to put it up in the Player Guides section as well. I'm currently a fair way into Veteran 3 with this build and haven't run into any problems yet. Feel free to provide feedback and suggestions.

http://tinyurl.com/mjp26vp

Shrunk url out of necessity. That's my basic build and you can get it rolling very early on.

Slot 1: Puncture (1h/shield), morphed to Pierce Armor. Originally the skill only lowers the target's armor. The morph makes it lower spell resist too. This makes your leech do more damage, and the health returned is based on damage dealt. It's a small amount but every bit helps. Also, this skill is great in groups because since you are debuffing the mob instead of buffing yourself it ups everyone's damage.

Slot 2: Low Slash (1h/shield), morphed to Deep Slash. The original skill here lowers the target's weapon damage. The morph makes it lower ALL damage. Very useful, especially when you already have decent mitigation from heavy armor and blocking.

*note* If you absolutely must have a dash attack of some sort, I'd use Shield Charge in place of Deep Slash. Pierce Armor is the more valuable of your weapon skills. You may be built like a tank but you are still a Nightblade, and it helps you deal more damage. Personally I tried Shield Charge for a while and just didn't see much need for it in PvE. It's stamina heavy and can't be used point blank.

Slot 3: Strife (Siphon), morphed to Swallow Soul. The morph gives you a buff to all healing received, at all times while slotted. This skill is going to account for most of your magicka usage, as the only other magicka skills you have are an opener and a finisher. During easy content I use it for damage. On harder fights I make sure I keep the heal going. Also, remember that you can cast this spell from behind your shield while blocking.

On that note, install this mod. --- http://tamrielfoundry.com/ftc/
It will let you see when your buffs and debuffs are up and how long they have left. Useful for all three of the skills I just covered. Also alerts when mobs enter "low HP" for the next skill...

Slot 4: Assassin's Blade (Assassin), morphed to Killer's Blade. This is your finishing move (deals more damage when mob is below 25% hp). The morph makes it also restore 15% of your HP on kills (up to 18% later). There is also a passive in the same line that makes kills with skills from this line give you mana back, making this finishing move basically give you back its casting cost. This skill is invaluable when charging into a large group of mobs. It also makes that last 25% on bosses a breeze.

Slot 5: Veiled Strike (Shadow), morphed to Concealed Weapon. The morph here just gives you a movement speed buff while sneaking at all times. I just liked the convenience of it, as the other morph is an armor debuff and we already have that covered with our first skill. The major note of this skill actually comes with the basic skill; the large stun when executed from stealth.

I will note that I am a khajiit in heavy armor, and the racial stealth bonus allows me to successfully use sneak attacks without relying on the medium armor passive to get stealth radius down. If you wont be using stealth, swap in whatever you want for this 5th ability. Honestly, for the first 40 levels or so I just used the 5th slot to dump in skills that I wanted to level up.

Originally the 5th slot was going to be for Summon Shade > Dark Shades, but I am still not there at level 50 (unlocks at Shadow 42) since I didn't have a Shadow skill slotted for a very long time while leveling. I have read that the damage on Summon Shade is horrible, but I am honestly more interested in stacking the 15% damage debuff with Deep Slash (the second skill up there), which also has a 15% damage debuff.

Ultimate: Soul Shred, morphed to Soul Tether. The damage is good, the stun is wonderful for those large pulls, and the single target effect is a nice bonus when you pop it during boss fights. The ultimate cost is 150, which isn't too bad for the return. It's also your only AoE.

For my mundis stone effect I went for Spell Resist and didn't look back. You'll be hitting the Armor softcap already while leveling in heavy armor, and spell damage is everywhere. After I got up over level 40 and started making heavy use of stealth attacks I ended up swapping it for movement speed. That's purely convenience though.

Play style:
Lately I've been making heavy use of Concealed Weapon. I will take down the first mob in a group in three hits in most cases. Concealed Weapon (from stealth), heavy attack, Killer's Blade. This uses zero stamina, and your Executioner passive from the Assassin line means that you will start rapidly regaining magicka when the first mob goes down.

For the rest of the mobs, or from the start if I'm just running in, I open with Pierce Armor. This makes sure that all of the attacks that follow take advantage of the armor/resist debuff that it puts on the mob. If I feel the need I slap on Deep Slash to deal a bit of damage and to debuff the mob's damage. If I don't feel that the debuff is needed I skip right to Swallow Soul and get that HoT (Heal Over Time) going. If it's going to be a longer fight, from this point on I merely keep my HoT going and keep the mob debuffed. I use basic light and heavy attacks for damage until the mob gets below 25% health and I can use Killer's Blade to finish them off. For easy fights just mash your face on the keyboard as needed. You'll live.

Another note, use your bash (click attack while holding block) often. As soon as you see the red marks around a mob showing a spell being cast, bash the living hell out of that mob. Doesn't matter what the spell is. Run across the combat zone if you have too. With the 1h/shield passives your bash is a beast, and mobs casting never ends well for you. Also block all heavy attacks, but resist the urge to slam the mob down while it is dazed unless you want to focus on that mob or it is already your target. You are a single target character, and taking mobs down one at a time is more effective than bouncing between them. Let the mob stand there swaying on its feet while you go back to whatever mob you were already killing, or switch fully to it. Don't bounce between mobs.

RatsnevE

I plan to match this build as closely as possible and/or until I can manage it myself without risk successfully to cover all three + areas PvE only and Solo as permitted. I don't know yet if I will have the real-life Stamina to accomplish everything 100% including the end-game PvP which seems very very far off right now. From what I understand it will mean completing the main story line 3 times (once for each main area). Can I do that in each area with the same Khajiit NB or do quests and things change depending on one's class and/or race? Thanks.

RatsnevE

What other recommended addons to consider?
I have FTC though I don't know what it all means yet.
How about a mini-map for the upper right corner?
How about an addon to manage potions better during battle?

Notice Khajiit doesn't have any Heavy Armor Expertise but wears it all the same with no problems using Medium Armor Expertise?

Tiitus

your tank build seems more like a survivable dps, i would ask is this a low lvl build?

ive crafted a build for myself and seems to work very well.

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mczPxyM0Vrx0miG8GFla8If0n8wAvm8wABh8GFlZ8Ir3D8IPbc8fWGr8fXhT8Irxv8IrtP8IPwB807068L7ocdoQr6MdoQF8T7JMrqAi6MrqAI6MrqAD6MrqAZ6crqLw8y7WbR3b6IR3r6MfQE16MfQE36MfQlr6MfQlu8x7GNsfd6rsfw6MwGAR8C7Grzqq6Lzqb8D7Jrzdc6Lzdm6LzdR6Lzds6MIsaM6MIrv36MIrEf6MIrEh8F7xNzrJ6LzrO6Lbut6MIPNU8zc7pcgePB6zgeXm6cgeXA6cgeYc8zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

i use breton for magicka, 5 heavy armor, 2 light armor. i use stamina armor glyphs.

bar 1 uses two handed and is used for aoe tanking.

bar 2 is used for single target.

to add the shadow skill line is really good for tanking.

you can also change out reverse slice with siphoning strikes for increased resource management during aoe tanking.

Xithian

Tiitus wrote: »

your tank build seems more like a survivable dps, i would ask is this a low lvl build?

It's meant to get you all the way to Vet with no problems. Everything unlocks very early. Also, if you'll notice I said for the 5th slot I'm waiting on Dark Shades to unlock, thus the only difference between your linked 1h skill set and this one is that you have Dark Cloak instead of Killer's Blade. I'm close enough to the softcaps on defenses that the bonus for coming out of stealth/invis isn't really enough to both with using a skill slot to invis. I make invis potions for when it's needed.

RatsnevE

This build and this game has a complicated depth to it I feel I don't begin to understand yet.

ElSlayer

Great guide. Keep up the good work.
Bookmarking this.

I'm going for almost the same build.
Differences are:
Ransack instead of Pierce armor;
Siphoning Attacks/Sap Essence (not sure yet - need more testing) instead of Veiled Strike;

Xithian

RatsnevE wrote: »

This build and this game has a complicated depth to it I feel I don't begin to understand yet.

Well, when you first start you don't have many skill points and skills are slow to unlock. For the first 10 levels or so you are very limited. When I first played in beta I was starting to think the whole game would be like that and it was discouraging. Then I discovered skill morphing. Then around level 15-20 you start to have more points to play with compared to how many skills you have available and you can afford to start trying new things.

The game does a decent job of easing you into things, but it does start out deceptively simple. Skill resets are also a major gold sink. My last skill reset ran me 13,000 gold. (It's 100g per skill point you have)

RatsnevE

In the end...when I got back to the same bosses I was having total trouble with before nothing was any different about it with this build. MMOs are absolutely beyond my ability. Why a boss has to play by different rules is beyond me but I'm not going to suffer this game any more. YES I AM!

Xithian

You are talking about the snake boss, correct? You have to attack the orbs that spawn. They heal the snake, but when you pop one it will heal you instead.

RatsnevE

The orbs don't appear before I've died many times but I was mainly talking about the one where you are with the queen. I can't get a handle on these tactics and leading up to these two solo dungeons I thought I was doing much better too.

I'm going to put in a call-back to zenimax but since no one else has these issues my expectations are very low right now and I doubt I will be back into the game any time soon.

Xithian

ElSlayer wrote: »

Great guide. Keep up the good work.
Bookmarking this.

I'm going for almost the same build.
Differences are:
Ransack instead of Pierce armor;
Siphoning Attacks/Sap Essence (not sure yet - need more testing) instead of Veiled Strike;

Are you using medium armor or heavy? If you are in heavy and using sword and board, you will likely be in the early stages of soft cap before your Ransack buff is even added in. That was my deciding factor on that one.

I also have the passive for +1750 armor/resist for 4 secs after coming out of stealth. That lands me about as close to hard cap as I'll get and makes sure I'm not interrupted while dealing with the first mob in the group.

Also, sometimes if it's a big nasty pull of several groups of mobs I will purposefully leave some mobs with 10% health or so. This lets me use Killer's Blade on them as needed for the 15% hp on kill, and keeps the mana regen passive going.

Feimerdre

RatsnevE wrote: »

The orbs don't appear before I've died many times

You have to learn basic mob mechanics on this mob. It's pretty straightforward easy:
Dont stand in the AoE. Move out the way of cone blasts. Interrupt spellcasting.
The point is to work out a strategy. Its not a problem to die 10 times if you
manage to make out the tactics needed to win. Be sure to repair armor.
Come back in 2 levels. You have all options to do this later. Who forces you?

RatsnevE

Feimerdre wrote: »

RatsnevE wrote: »

The orbs don't appear before I've died many times

You have to learn basic mob mechanics on this mob. It's pretty straightforward easy:
Don't stand in the AoE. Move out the way of cone blasts. Interrupt spellcasting.
The point is to work out a strategy. It's not a problem to die 10 times if you
manage to make out the tactics needed to win. Be sure to repair armor.
Come back in 2 levels. You have all options to do this later. Who forces you?

I think you are exactly right in your assessment of my poor fighting skills needing much work, but a support call back from Zenimax suggests also that some out of balance may exist too and the guy was willing to discuss and listen to my complaints at some length and submit my feedback.

I experienced this same problem with bosses playing Path of Exile too. Either the general run of battles needs to be improved so skills taking on any monster are improved or a boss's strengths in a solo dungeon need to be relaxed.

I have a backlog of games again in Steam to play off. When I revisit ESO again some time from now I will start in a new area, revisit this thread, and get my tactics straightened out properly then.

Feimerdre

I can assure you that Doshia was a LOT harder during beta. They already made
her a pretty good tune easier. Many ppl who play ESO that come from generic
MMOs do not realize that unlike in other games you are not at all forced here
to use a special type of armor for example. Doshia can be a breeze if you switch
to sword'n'board instead of a destro staff. Or if you use a full set of plate with
hitpoint enhancements just for this one fight.
Learn to accept and to use what the game mechanics offer you.
This might be plenty more than you can imagine at this time.

RatsnevE

Okay, Doshia is one--the one with the snake and these gold orbs. The other one is called Rites of the Queen. Forget the name now of that boss. Do the basic mechanics of striking, blocking, and interrupting differ any between these two?

Here is an example problem... I try to interrupt but it fails because I'm to low on magicka, my health is getting low, and my stamina is low. I dodge but don't get far. With blade and board I have no range attack. 'Q' is set for health and I need magicka. So now this boss casts one or is it two minions and I'm SOL before I know what hits me.

What does the patch on the ground signify--that anything in that area is about to get hit with a spell? Without any patch no one is casting any spell? When a character is outlined in red is she building up to cast a spell? When does the patch on the ground appear relative to the spell? I read somewhere that a baddie gets outlined in yellow too which signifies what again?

No point in getting far into these tactics until I'm back in the game.

Feimerdre

White outlines = preparing a heavy attack which can be blocked (right mousebutton)
After successful block you can line up a heavy attack yourself to knock down the
mob in most cases.
Red outlines = the mob is preparing a (mostly pretty nasty) spell which you can interrupt
in most cases (using both mousebuttons). There are mobs that cannot be interrupted
or I was too dumb to do so. After a successful interrupt you can knock down the
mob with a heavy attack.
Red circle on the ground = there will come a very bad area effect and it is generally
a good idea to move out of this circle ASAP.

I dont know the second one you describing. Generally there are some archetypes
of bosses you will encounter. I remember one in a cave (from a guild line quest) that
was pretty hard to kill as it drops ae poison on the ground, hits like a truck and
spawns an ally (a shadow).
Did this one totally differently with my NB and my Templar. As NB pulls shithloads
of damage I could simply stun and gun this one. See that you get a stealth opener,
helps a lot!
On my Templar (which is destro staff) I used a different approach as I couldnt pull
enough damage before I went out of magicka.
So I simply used the pushback attack from staff, my selfheal and kited the long way (with sprint)
using only light and heavy attacks from the staff in between.
This way a fight can take several minutes but in the end I made it.

RatsnevE

1. What is the best method to manage an incomplete and open solo dungeon quest: a.) Abandon it because if and when you come back to it at a much higher level it will restart at its original level--if that even means anything to a boss battle? -or- b.) leave it stuck open and unfinished because its level will otherwise level up to your current level if you abandon it--the boss battle will level up and be all the harder?

2. Ppl have described doing initial opening sneak attacks as a NB. Believe it or not I am not certain I know how to actually do this properly which isn't surprising since it appears my battle tactics have been so poorly managed.

I can crouch -Hidden- and approach right up to an opponent but it always appears they sense me and respond before I get off any hit. Remember I am using sword & board and have 1 point in Magicka with 2 points in Health and 2 points in Stamina or close to that. Am I suppose to just do an initial hit with the LMB or use one of the active skills 1 through 4 I have per this OP's build at the top of this thread?

Sigh... I'm going ahead and re-installing the game again. I just remembered that there are vast amounts of the in-game Help I haven't read that might spell out a lot on battle tactics--or not?

Thanks.

Feimerdre

As a NB you have several options as initial fight starters. Given the fact that you do
more damage with an "out of stealth attack" you just have to find out from the
skills descriptions what gets a bonus from steath - or find it out on normal mobs you can easily win against.

You will then find out something like an "optimal rotation" - this is how a "normal" fight in a given situation should work out "best" for you. Counting in playstyle and choice of skills this can look completely different from player a to b.

To answer your questions (at least I will try to): you can leave the quest open and come back two or three levels later. In fact in beta I did the level 8 fighters guild quest (Doshia) with a level 17 because the encounter was much harder than it is now and I was really slow in figuring out how it works. On level 17 I killed her even before she coould morph into the snake form In the actiual state of the quest I managed to do her with a level 9 NB and a Level 9 Templar in 2 or three attempts. I found her harder eg with a 2hander than with dualwield or even a staff. So I tried different approaches.

Coming back to the opener question: Veiled Strike is what you will go for as "from stealth" opener. You have to approach the mob from his backside angle. If you have some passives later on this will be easier, you will then be able to sneak up from the side too. You will realize on the interface if you are "hidden" and you can see a little eye opening up the nearer you get to a mob. If you come from his front you will be detected pretty fast. If you approach from behind you will see the eye opening only a little but normally you will not be detected. You open as NB preferably with Killer Blade, this is the ultimate from the Assassination tree. For a normal mob in your level range this means an instant kill. For a boss this means lotsa hp lost. If you find it hard to open with the ultimate you will use veiled strike as 2nd best option as it stuns 4 seconds. I would advise you to morph it into the armor debuff but if you have one out of the snb line you can also morph it into more speed while stealthed. Your second attack after veiled is a heavy weaon attack as it throws down the opponent. You can experimentate a little with that. For example to make more use out of the stun you can use an attack from our weapon line as 2nd hit foolowed then by a heavy attack to throw down the mob. This is highly dependant on how timed you are.
For the NB part I then normally get invis followed by veiled strike again. This will not make as hard damage as the opener but it will again stun the mob. Weaponline attack followed by heavy attack to throw down again. Rinse and repeat. If I realize I get low on magicka I would eventually throw in a siphon attack for selfheal. This is when the kiting starts and you switch to either bow or staff to hitt from afar and use stamina attacks while your magicka refreshes.

This is very roughly my technique that works for 99% of all fights I had so far. Coming mob packs I use Mark Target too in my rotation to get some self heal for multiple opponents. But this is for later in the content (starting when you unlock mark target ;-))
I went snb too for more reliable blocks for a while until I managed to find this more Assassin like playstyle which l personally prefer. This will not fit for everybody here as there are plenty of playstyles in this game thinkable and duable and performing well.

Hope I could be of any help.

RatsnevE

It's got to be helpful and thanks. It brings up something though. This build is presented as sword & board possible up through level 50 and beyond I suppose. So I don't have any ranged attack and I don't think at this level...ah but if I come back after level 15 I can switch to a bow...

Can enchantments on swords and daggers be used at range or do they not fire off unless you are in melee range?

Because of my character style I would rather come back to these quests in an overpowering manner. Will the Queen in Rites of the Queen wait that long or should I abandon quests I don't finishing knowing that when I return level 15 or higher these quests will open up again at their same low level?

Feimerdre

Just leave it open. You will find it much easier if you return later. Dont know this abandon thing never tried it.

As for the build - I respect snb builds for NBs as they work but its not my playstyle. I just responded to some obvious failures in skill working assumptions the TO made. I tried to explain how I get a maximum performance out of the Assassination skill tree. This is by far not the only viable option of how a NB may be played.

RatsnevE

Thanks for the input you gave me today Feimerdre. I will be focusing on these tactics rsn with the new character in the Tutorial until, I hope, it all becomes crystal clear. Then we will once again see if it really works. I'll be trying both these infamous bosses that have stuck it to me but if I'm still not successful I'll be ignoring them--and if the Queen ends up dying waiting and starving for my return that will be just too bad for her.

RatsnevE

Xithian--Is there any order to which Passives to pick up?
Should one try to reach the Mundus Stone -- "The Lover" asap?

Thanks.

Xithian

With passives it's sometimes easier to look at which ones you don't need as opposed to which ones you need to take first. You can normally narrow it down that way. Things that help with defense take a little priority for me.

Mostly though, if you stick to a specific build then you'll have enough points to unlock most of the passives as you gain access to them.

Don't feel the need to spend every skill point you have. If nothing looks good to you, save them until you unlock something good. I spent a fair bit of the upper levels with 6 or 7 skill points in reserve.

With the mundus stone, you should be fine until you find it naturally. It scales with level, so at low levels it isn't terribly important to me.

RatsnevE

Thanks... You may be incredibly happy to know, as I was/am, that I have finally figured out the basic battle tactics coordination concerning the gold (block) and red (interrupt) spike indicators and timing.

I seem to be saving gold and spent some last on empty soul gems. And, since I can't get Veiled Strike yet I've put Soul Trap IV in slot 5 to fill some soul gems.

Xithian

I used Soul Trap for a while as well. It wasn't a bad filler skill, especially with the morph to give back resources on kills. It wasn't until I got addicted to stealth attacks that I started keeping Concealed Weapon on my bar 24/7. Now I use it instinctively to start every fight. The long stun keeps your target out of the fight for a while, and I can often follow up with the ultimate for an AoE stun. Those two things do wonders to give you time to take down a group of mobs before they gang up on you.

I actually gave up my lycanthropy for vamprism yesterday. I don't recommend either if you have any trouble staying alive, as they make you take more damage from certain things (werewolves take 50% more poison damage, vampires take 50% more fire damage). I'm mostly just having fun right now though. I'm even leaning towards making the switch to medium armor with only a couple pieces of heavy. Not sure how well that'll go since I've played tanky all the way to V2. I'm not terribly interested in the other factions' areas though, so I'm looking for ways to speed up my questing.

RatsnevE

Xithian, would you give your build here a status update please? Is everything with the NB working okay as far as you know?

I read a recent post from someone that NB has been broken. I don't think it is. For a long time the Shadow skill didn't seem to be building but now it is and I now have Veiled Strike.

I also learned that dungeons like Rites of the Queen where you try to kill Norion or the one where you try to kill Doshia ARE NOT solo only. You can solo them if you are skilled but you can also go in with a group. Is that really true?

Thanks.

RatsnevE

Noticed a Green piece of armor that was a level higher, did more damage, and was valued a little higher then a Blue piece of similar armor. I was thinking blue would be better then green but apparently not?

RatsnevE

Some or all bosses don't seem to use or respond to the same tactics indicators--the gold or red spikes? Do you always see them or throw them out the window some times?

Xithian

I have seen one or two cases where a blue item was as good or better than blue, but only with quest rewards. The indicators on bosses should be the same. Honestly for the most part I just stay out of red spots and watch for big wind-up hits on the boss. I'm sure there's also the matter of whether or not a particular attack has a "wind-up". If not then there wont be any indicators because you cannot interrupt it.

Yes, people complain that Nightblade is broken. Most of the arguments on the subject stem from stealth and our invis skill, which honestly may be working as intended. If it worked the way people say it should then we would have no reason to die in PvE, ever. There are a few bugs. The only one I can think of that would affect this build is that if you die you can bug to lose the stealth movement speed from Concealed Strikes. This is fixed by relogging.

The only quests that you absolutely cannot do in a group are the Main Story quests, and Fighters Guild/Mages Guild quests. Those are all solo only. I had to look up that fight on youtube. I don't play Adlmeri. I'm guessing you're having trouble when the adds spawn? At low levels you will have a harder time dealing with multiple mobs. From the video I watched for that quest, you may be best off just chipping away at the boss (Don't use Puncture/Pierce Armor, that taunts. Let the queen tank for you as long as you can) until the adds spawn, and then burning all of your resources to take the boss down as fast as possible. The adds will despawn when he dies, so if you can kill him before they kill you then all is good.

Feimerdre

My assumption on that matter is that mostly ppl from Europe complain about NB because we have some serious ping issues sometimes. It may be called European Megaserver but as far as my information goes, it is still located in the US. I do realize lag issues when sneaking up on a group of mobs using my standard tactics. Sometimes my Veiled Strike will simply not go off and mobs detect me. Also approaching a group of 4 and opening the fight with Soul Thether will sometimes behave this way. This is pretty annoying as some fights really turn out nasty if I do not manage to take out the first target asap.
Second issue I am having lately (for the second time last night) is that somehow in the middle of a fight none of my skills is responding. I can hit what I want, nothing will be happening. Cant even swap weapons or dodge roll then. This means a guaranteed death for me. After ressurecting I will find myself walking in "walking" speed and the shortkey that switches "run" and "walk" making not any difference. I am not talking of "sprinting" here which is activated with SHIFT. Relogging will fix my character speed and makes the hotkey work again.