Questions for nightblade healers/casters (warlock/bloodmage build)

Lynx7386 · July 2014

My nightblade has been stamina based since level 1, he's currently level 43 and I've gone through every stamina build imaginable. Ultimately it just isnt working out the way I'd like, so I'm strongly considering dishing out the enormous respec cost (a whopping 15k at my level now) to try out the light armor/caster nightblade build.

I have a few questions about the build first though:

1. I'm not a fan of the destruction staff in any way, shape, or form. Is it just as viable to use a resto staff for both damage and healing scenarios?

2. What primary single target and aoe damage spells does the build use? I would assume strife and cripple for single target and power sap for aoe, but that seems pretty limited. What other spells are being used?

3. Is it worth investing in undaunted or mage's guild spells for combat purposes or healing? Is blood altar good enough for heals/group content to spend the point there? How is trapping webs for damage and soloing? What about bone armor or necrotic orb or entropy?

4. Is it better to focus on spells and go light armor, or to boost magicka through attribute points and enchants and use medium armor for the critical boost on abilities like assassin's blade, veiled strike, and teleport strike? Or, are those abilities just as good for light armor due to the extra magicka, and the crit doesnt really matter?

5. Is it worth sacraficing a slot for magelight with this build? Probably already going to be using slots for siphoning attacks and haste.

6. Does haste work with the resto staff light and heavy attacks? Does the morph for haste that boosts heavy attack damage work for the resto staff (and the passive that heals for a percentage of damage done with resto heavy attacks?)

7. Is it worth using mark target on this build? How about aspect of terror or summon shade? Are these going to be worth the slot they take up when soloing, or when healing/doing group content?

8. For healing groups is it better to focus entirely on resto staff abilities, or to throw in power sap, refreshing path, strife, and things like blood altar?

9. Is power sap spam effective enough with the resto staff damage boost to use for aoe situations like impulse? I notice the damage is slightly lower and the cost is slightly higher than impulse, but it also heals while doing damage.

10. Ultimately, is it worth 15k gold and the hassle of levelling resto staff and light armor from scratch to try out a caster/healer build with my nightblade, or should I just stick to the daggers and tough it out?

Aeratus · July 2014

1. Resto is preferred for single target damage, because the cycle of life passive makes it so that its damage is greater than that of destro. However, for multi-target, only destro has meaningful AOE damage (using impulse / pulsar), especially when combined with drain power (power extraction, sap essence). Therefore, if you're playing as dps in a vet dungeon, a destro staff is needed.

2. For single target (using resto), funnel health (or swallow soul) + impale + crippling grasp + another of your choice. Funnel health is the largest damage source. For destro AOE, see above. Also, use veil of blades as the ultimate. Also, for AOE, siphoning attacks (and not leeching strikes) is essential, IMO.

When playing solo, please note that aspect of terror (mass hysteria) is essential for crowd control in vet zones.

Players are divided between power extraction and sap essence. There are definitely some situations where you can have 9 mobs around you for power extraction. However, one hidden advantage of sap essence is that your heals on your allies also generate ultimate. So sap essence can always "hit" 10 targets (6 mobs + 3 allies + yourself) for ultimate generation.

3. Mages guild is needed for volcanic runes, which is your AOE utility skill. The other mages guild spells depend on your preference. Some healers use equilibrium, but not strictly necessary. I don't use undaunted, and don't see many people that do.

5. Those skills you mentioned are all melee. But if you're going with staff, you might be better off with ranged. Furthermore, although melee nightblade skills use weapon crit, their damage is based on magicka and spell damage. So you can't lose if you go light armor.

For AOE destro in dungeons, I do use mage light usually. This is because if you're impulse spamming, mage light increases your damage. For my destro bar, I use pulsar, strife (funnel is ideal but i use swallow), siphoning attacks, power extraction, and mage light. Sometimes i switch strife with volcanic runes.

6. Haste does work with staves, but I don't use haste. This is becuas when you repeatedly cancel the animation of the light attack using strife, haste won't be helping you since it only governs normal attacks rather than skills.

7. As mentioned above, aspect of terror is essential to solo, IMO. Few people use shades except for NB tanks. As for mark target, that is your preference. The issue with mark target is that you can be killed pretty quickly by bosses, and secondly, most mobs have very low defense to begin with (instead, they rely on HP, rather than defense).

8/9. Drain power alone is not anywhere near the damage as impulse. This is because the animation speed of drain power is relatively slow, whereas impulse is very fast. Drain is meant to be a booster skill. Some healers do use sap essence, but it's your preference. I think funnel health is an excellent skill for healers. As for the undaunted ones, I don't use them personally.

10. Yes. 15k is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few players who have spent 400k on respecs.

Lynx7386 · July 2014

8/9. Drain power alone is not anywhere near the damage as impulse. This is because the animation speed of drain power is relatively slow, whereas impulse is very fast. Drain is meant to be a booster skill. Some healers do use sap essence, but it's your preference. I think funnel health is an excellent skill for healers. As for the undaunted ones, I don't use them personally.

Yea, I noticed that when i picked it up last night, was hoping it'd be a bit better on it's own.

Guess I'll have to start levelling up destro staff too.

The issue with mark target is that you can be killed pretty quickly by bosses, and secondly, most mobs have very low defense to begin with (instead, they rely on HP, rather than defense).

I was mostly looking into using mark target for the 60% health return and 30 second spell and weapon power buff you get after killing the target, I loved using it when I had a melee build, figured it should work just as well as a caster.

6. Haste does work with staves, but I don't use haste. This is becuas when you repeatedly cancel the animation of the light attack using strife, haste won't be helping you since it only governs normal attacks rather than skills.

Thank you SO much for that piece of info. I had already respecced before you posted here, but i was having a hard time killing things. I was using strife -> cripple and then spamming heavy attacks and it took forever. Doing the light attack -> strife clip has made my kill speed when soloing skyrocket, and i get more returns from siphoning attacks too.

5. Those skills you mentioned are all melee. But if you're going with staff, you might be better off with ranged. Furthermore, although melee nightblade skills use weapon crit, their damage is based on magicka and spell damage. So you can't lose if you go light armor.

Yea the only non-spell crit abilities i've taken to using with the new build are ambush and impale.

Ambush for the 30% damage bonus and sneak/stealth damage bonus on single targets. Without medium armor my stealth isnt so good, but I still get a huge damage bonus on ambush and it can be used from 28 meter range. So when soloing I'll ambush from stealth, then use strife with the 30% extra damage, usually that's more than enough to kill the target outright. If not, I can still use ambush throughout the fight for the damage bonus on strife, which in turn ends up becoming increased healing.

Players are divided between power extraction and sap essence. There are definitely some situations where you can have 9 mobs around you for power extraction. However, one hidden advantage of sap essence is that your heals on your allies also generate ultimate. So sap essence can always "hit" 10 targets (6 mobs + 3 allies + yourself) for ultimate generation.

I'm most likely going to go with sap essence simply because it doubles as a heal, and my primary group role will be healing, not damage.

ozgod22_eso · July 2014

I also made the transition to nightblade destro/resto. What do you guys use for mitigation? I'm using Mass Hysteria for CC and Funnel Health for self heals but do you guys use any mitigation skills at all? Or just CC and hope to dps mobs down before they hit you?

Aeratus · July 2014

I was mostly looking into using mark target for the 60% health return and 30 second spell and weapon power buff you get after killing the target, I loved using it when I had a melee build, figured it should work just as well as a caster.

If that is your playstyle, then by all means go with it. Personally, I think using mark target takes too much micromanagement, and the healing is situational in that I don't always need the healing. So personally I didn't choose to use mark target.

ozgod22_eso wrote: »

I also made the transition to nightblade destro/resto. What do you guys use for mitigation? I'm using Mass Hysteria for CC and Funnel Health for self heals but do you guys use any mitigation skills at all? Or just CC and hope to dps mobs down before they hit you?

The only mitigation that I used is veil of blades, which reduces damage by 60%. This allowed me to survive groups of even 7 or 8 vet mobs at once if they somehow got pulled. Veil of blades is one of the best ultimates in the game.

As additional mitigation, you can use swallow soul instead of funnel health, for +10% healing received. However, funnel health is vastly superior for group play if you are dps or healer (mainly because the heals on the allies can generate ultimate for you), so after finishing the solo zones, you can respec to funnel health.

For me, my solo setup which for the vet zones (including the v10 zone) was:

Pulsar, Siphoning Attacks, Mass Hysteria, Swallow Soul, Impale - Veil of Blades (ult)

Pulsar is for pure dps. You can replace it with destructive clinch for more CC if needed.

ozgod22_eso · July 2014

Thanks again for an insightful post Aeratus. Right now I'm going with this for my Destro bar for solo:

Weapon: Inferno Staff of Flame
Armor: 5 light (Song of Lamae set) 2 med

1: Destructive Clinch
2: Funnel Health
3: Impale
4: Siphoning Attacks
5: Aspect of Terror

Ult: Veil of Blades

I've been doing much better (probably getting used to the setup too). I have a way to go for me to get Impulse/Pulsar so I have Destructive Clinch in there. The only thing is that I lose a lot of the AOE since my other bar is the resto single target very similar to yours:

1. Crippling Grasp
2. Funnel Health
3. Impale
4. Siphoning Attacks
5. Invigorating Drain

So for my Destro bar I was thinking of Fire Rune instead of Clinch until I get Impulse/Pulsar, what are your thoughts on this?

Lynx7386 · July 2014

I morphed drain power to sap essence last night, and was very disappointed. The amount healed was much less than I was expecting - only around 72 base healing at vet rank 1, so with 6 targets hit it'd only be a 158 heal per use. That's not much considering I've got around 2k health.

I ended up respeccing for power extraction and the damage gain was far more noticable. Even when there's not a full 9 targets, the benefit of power extraction is a higher base damage boost. Drain power/sap essence only gives +6% damage per target, up to 6 targets (36% boost), while power extraction gives +11% damage per target up to 9 targets (99% boost), three times as much. Even when only hitting 6 targets you're getting 30% more damage with it, and it's much more useful when hitting only 2 or 3 targets while soloing.

I still highly recommend running impulse with it too. Just between veil of blades, impulse, and power extraction I'm able to take on groups of 10-15 enemies (assuming I can get that many in one pull) with ease. I used to take on packs of 3, now I'm finding it more efficient to pull 3 packs of 3 and aoe them down. If I can get 9 or more enemies in range for power extraction, the boost will cause impulse to take them down in only 2 or 3 uses.