Nightblade on Veteran

Jice

It cheesy because you NEED to use dark shades in order to not get stomped on by enemies, is a build without dark shades just as effective as taking out enemies, no. Why not? Because a good portion of nightblade builds, particularly single target builds, aren't effective at Veteran ranks anyways, I leveled up to VR5 using a single target build and then it all fell apart. I didn't make a nightblade to be pigeon holed into AOE builds and being forced to use dark shades just to be effective.

You don't need them, I could do the same thing with Agony, kill one, trap the other and deal with the lone one before the Agony breaks. Morphed to Malefic Wreath you can chain it on the same guy over and over till you can deal with him.

Mass Hysteria, Mirage, Elude, Bone Shield, Altar, Circle of Protection, Fire Rune, Ember Explosion etc. There are countless ways for a NB to protect themselves after opening up, you don't Need shades, but what they do need is more than 5 single target Melee abilities on a hot bar and to lose the expectation that they should do amazing things with just that.

ArgonianAssassin

Jice wrote: »

It cheesy because you NEED to use dark shades in order to not get stomped on by enemies, is a build without dark shades just as effective as taking out enemies, no. Why not? Because a good portion of nightblade builds, particularly single target builds, aren't effective at Veteran ranks anyways, I leveled up to VR5 using a single target build and then it all fell apart. I didn't make a nightblade to be pigeon holed into AOE builds and being forced to use dark shades just to be effective.

You don't need them, I could do the same thing with Agony, kill one, trap the other and deal with the lone one before the Agony breaks. Morphed to Malefic Wreath you can chain it on the same guy over and over till you can deal with him.

Mass Hysteria, Mirage, Elude, Bone Shield, Altar, Circle of Protection, Fire Rune, Ember Explosion etc. There are countless ways for a NB to protect themselves after opening up, you don't Need shades, but what they do need is more than 5 single target Melee abilities on a hot bar and to lose the expectation that they should do amazing things with just that.

If I put 5 strong melee damaging abilities on my bar I should expect to do some amazing damage in exchange for my survivability, but in the end I do crap damage with no survivability, mirage and stacked with ember explosion doesn't proc enough to be useful against melee enemies and doesn't seem to effect casters and archers at all, I signed up to be an awesome MELEE assassin, not a mage, I shouldn't have to stack 3/5 abilities on my bar with defense in order to get by, spamming the same 2 damaging skills isn't fun. I did play around in one of my 5 builds with Malefic Wrath and Agony but it just doesn't fit with what I aim to be as an assassin, what kind of assassin pops out of stealth and makes all of his targets run away in every direction, a bad one.

Agony is fun to use, I guess, I just don't enjoy using it on my bar. You're trying to stuff me into this hole where I have to stack defensive abilities in order to be decent and give up all my damage. My 3rd build was in fact, a defensive stacking build, and guess what, it doesn't work. Mirage, Leeching Strikes, Ember Explosion, Agony and Swallow Soul, that BARELY got me through the quest with Emeric and taking Bangkorai Garrison, BARELY. And those are just groups of 2, some times 3, with a build like this you are not getting the DPS to be an effective assassin and again, mirage stacked with ember explosion doesn't seem to phase archers and mages at all, so why should I be using them when half of the enemies I'm fighting aren't affected by it. Actually Malefic Wreath is the Agony Morph, right? I got it confused with the fear, but I morphed my agony into Prolonged Suffering

Tannakaobi

I thought I'd share my own NB build. I'm not yet VR but so far so good.

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mcszxg9k8IPq48wAv28wAvz8GFtc8IrgV8Ir3D8GHsW8IrgV8inyz8Irxv8innG8IPwB8x7mrsfr6rsfd8g7CLsXt6rsXx8C7xrzqa6rzqI8D7Jrzdm6LzdR6rzdc8F7brzrJ6LzrO8zz7zztyfm8zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

I'm in all Medium Armor and all my skill points are in Health. My main emphasis is on stamina. Making use of block and interrupt a great deal. So far I have been walking through with no problems 39 now. I often pull two or three mobs at a time, cast Veil of Blades and use Shadowy Disguise when needed. Charge and Killers blade is useful with this build to finish of those that wander away from my AOE death vortex and to generate health. Same applies with Shadowy Disguise and stamina using the passive.

My weapon two is what I'm working towards rather than what I'm using. I have no idea how effective it will be. I have visions of myself slipping in and out of Shadowy Disguise and picking off targets one by one without them moving. Time will tell. It's slowly getting there. I was duel wielding and changed to bow which has been painfully slow to level. Mainly because I enjoy weapon one so much.

What's the quickest way to level a new weapon?

Jaxx

What's the quickest way to level a new weapon?

Make sure the weapon is on your bar AND is currently selected when completing quests. I'm pretty sure that the skills on the second bar either don't get as much or any xp.

Jice

ArgonianAssassin wrote: »

Mirage and stacked with ember explosion doesn't proc enough to be useful against melee enemies and doesn't seem to effect casters and archers at all

Who said anything about the Proc? How about a 55% chance to not be hit by the enemy, the thing that actually drains your life? And blur does work on spells and Bows cause I use Blur all the time and spells whiz by all the time without hitting me. Though even I feel 15% isn't enough for it, but it works better than Immovable because I'm already armor soft capped which means Immovable only helps stop like an additional 2% if that.

And I didn't say stack the defensive buffs, I said have one at least. Like I said before the only thing you need to be good at Stealth killing is cloak, Assassin's blade and Veiled strike. What else are you putting on your bar that one of those doesn't already do, and if you need more than that, put it on the other hot bar and actually switch weapons. But to put 5 skills that do basically the same thing on a single bar means going about things too one dimensionally for the game the way it is. No class can just stand there and single target things down without some kinda control or survivability spells, NB is unique in that it gets to ignore the first mob cause it's dead in 3 seconds.

What I would do if I was going purely DW is have one bar dedicated for the opener using Magika, then have the other bar set up with Stamina based control abilities. So when you run out of magika you can switch and keep going while it charges. Blur on one, Evasion on the other.

And if you think using 3 skills in tandem with good CC's and Defenses is boring, my friends Shield Bash spam, Puncturing Strikes Spam and Crystal shards spam and Pulsar spam that are pretty much the dominant strategies from other classes would like a word. A boring, hastily executed, terrible for longevity in dungeons word.

ArgonianAssassin

Jice wrote: »

ArgonianAssassin wrote: »

Mirage and stacked with ember explosion doesn't proc enough to be useful against melee enemies and doesn't seem to effect casters and archers at all

Who said anything about the Proc? How about a 55% chance to not be hit by the enemy, the thing that actually drains your life? And blur does work on spells and Bows cause I use Blur all the time and spells whiz by all the time without hitting me. Though even I feel 15% isn't enough for it, but it works better than Immovable because I'm already armor soft capped which means Immovable only helps stop like an additional 2% if that.

And I didn't say stack the defensive buffs, I said have one at least. Like I said before the only thing you need to be good at Stealth killing is cloak, Assassin's blade and Veiled strike. What else are you putting on your bar that one of those doesn't already do, and if you need more than that, put it on the other hot bar and actually switch weapons. But to put 5 skills that do basically the same thing on a single bar means going about things too one dimensionally for the game the way it is. No class can just stand there and single target things down without some kinda control or survivability spells, NB is unique in that it gets to ignore the first mob cause it's dead in 3 seconds.

What I would do if I was going purely DW is have one bar dedicated for the opener using Magika, then have the other bar set up with Stamina based control abilities. So when you run out of magika you can switch and keep going while it charges. Blur on one, Evasion on the other.

And if you think using 3 skills in tandem with good CC's and Defenses is boring, my friends Shield Bash spam, Puncturing Strikes Spam and Crystal shards spam and Pulsar spam that are pretty much the dominant strategies from other classes would like a word. A boring, hastily executed, terrible for longevity in dungeons word.

Okay you're right you didn't say stack defensive buffs that was my own false assumption and I apologize for trying to put words into your mouth, and I care more about the proc, because I like to make use of that off-balance knock down, more damage and more survivability, he can't hit me if he's on the floor. I'm glad that spells are whizzing right by you when you use blur, I might reconsider using it more often it just never seems to be that effective when I stack the two skills and try to go about questing, and I'm glad we can both agree 15% is rather low. So you're suggesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, that my bar of only 5 skills should look like this: Shadow Cloak, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade, Blur and presumably Ember Explosion, to get the most out of my defensives and class skills, right? So where is my damage supposed to come from? My second bar, which I use often, is dedicated solely to the bow and aoes and cc's, Power Drain, Volley, Path of Darkness, Shadowy Image and the Fear skill whatever it's called, the trap morph. Are you saying I should be carrying around 3 sets of weapons? And be constantly switching out skills on my second bar, because that sounds very painful and inconvenient, I'd rather just stick to my dual daggers and swap out for my bow when I can't melee a dungeon boss, or for large trash packs and I'm not much of a fan of sitting there spamming light attacks, and this build has noticeably absent self heals, but then 15% miss chance again, doesn't seem worth using by itself, so maybe I should switch it out for another CC like, prolonged suffering but again where's my damage supposed to be coming from? The DoT from Prolonged Suffering is hardly noticeable, at least from the last time I used it I didn't notice any difference other than I had to deal with 2 mobs at a time instead of 3 since I had the archer in the back locked down, but during that time I was also using Swallow Soul and Ambush and Flurry to deal out damage, not light attacks.

Oh but you said purely Dual Wield, which I'm not, I'm playing just like my Skyrim character, melee assassin when it's convenient, archery assassin when it's not. And might I say, I don't feel much like an assassin type when I run with a bow. Let me also say, just like you closed, I enjoy my Nightblade tank far, far, more then I've enjoyed attempting to be a traditional assassin and I do far more then just sit there and shield bash spam and ransack spam on that character, I make use of all the skills on my bar, I gather up a whole large, 5 or 6 pack of enemies, drop down Refreshing Path, pop a healing potion, hit them all with lotus fan, drop down my Veil of Blades and watch things die. But, I don't quite like being a tank as my main, it's missing the theme of being an assassin which is what I want to be, a high damage high risk glass cannon assassin, and I'm definitely getting the glass, but none of the cannon.

Jice

I actually always wanted to try a build with Prolonged suffering, Crippling Grasp, Twisting Path and Soul Trap/Entropy and Shatter Soul Ultimate. I'm not sure on the damage from Prolonged suffering since I went with the other one, but it does more than most other DoTs and doesn't need to last to get full damage out of it like Maelific Wreath. Crippling Grasp's DoT damage is astounding for it's cost it does almost 2x the amount of any other damage ability in it's cost range, when it works that is, I don't have any plug ins so I don't know for sure, but sometimes it feels like it does no damage. Of course having a tank build though I morphed it for the 20% attack speed reduction..:P

Also, If Ultimate generates like I think it does which it may not, each tick of all thoes DoTs would Potentially build ultimate like a boss so you could get off Shatter soul like every pull. All I know is for my tank build, I can get to 200 ultimate at least once each pull in a group public dungeon. Which is how it's so easy to solo with Veil of Blades. Being a Werewolf helps too.

And Ember Expolsion was just a suggestion, but I think I'd be fine with the Assassination Trinity, Blur/Elude, and Maleific Wreath. Since Cloak gives you Shadow Barrier, it works functionally like ember explosion anyway but you're already using it to get off Sneak attacks. I'll test more later, work doesn't exactly let me install ESO on their systems..:P

Loco_Mofo

I don't see this as being cheesy at all...

He's simply using a class skill, one that's meant to be powerful, to kill single targets more effectively. Dark Shades are working as intended, no cheesy mechanics going on here.

ConciseRex

A bar of Siphoning Strikes, Shadow Cloak, Suprise Attack, Sparks and Killers Blade is enough to solo most world bosses and groups of 3 mobs up to VR (that's where I am at) I can not comment above this and I have been told enemy health doubles so it might not be viable past this but anyone who struggles up to VR5 is kidding themselves. It us entirely possible to open with a stealth criteria (not using cloak) hitting the first mob for about 1.3k dmg then 1 heavy and killers blade he is dead (killers blade returning health) use sparks on the melee enemy and use cloak> Suprise attack on other mob then you are left with one mob and thanks to leeching strikes pretty much full resources.

Medium armour for critical chance and Magika enchants for Suprise attack dmg (all atribute points into health). Don't even need a second var as this works fine for single target. Stun locking may be boring but it is effective. Survivability only really becomes an issue against CC immune bosses and generally these only arise in group content anyway.

EDIT
Shadow barrier and sparks are that effective I use full light for Magika bonus and my second bar is dest staff for the kicks. I suggested medium as people are more for "traditional" assassins.