Nightblade Needs your help

MrGhosty · November 2014

Hello all you beautiful people out there!
I am currently a V4 Nightblade in love with PvP, I understand that I am going to have a lot of work ahead of me to even remotely compete with many of the v12s and 14s out there. I am a dw/bow build and have been since I first created the character and while I'm happy with most of my primary skills I still feel I'm missing some things with the armor sets I've chosen and how my skills are assembled.

What I am asking for would be people's suggestions or things that worked for them personally and why they are suggesting it, I bow to the collective knowledge of the forums and would very much appreciate getting some input on what people like about their nightblades.

To help with suggestions, my PvP style is typically close to the main fights. I'm not big on ganking but love to counter gank. I am currently even with all my attributes across the board and want to have a fairly balanced build as my DW is primarily class and magic attacks while my bow uses several stamina with some magicka.

I humbly thank those of you in advance for your reply.

Cody · November 2014

you like to counter gank? hmm... my NB build is hugely dependent on getting that stealth hit......

if you wish to counter gank, get a shield. invest a lot in health, and it will work wonders.

my NB VR12 worked OK(though I have not played PvP recently, and will not again until blocking and casting is removed or nerfed)

aspect of fear is an excellent ability, and is a must have if you are using DW(along with sparks)

for bow, draining/magnum shot is a must have, so you can keep people away from you. be sure to pick the venom arrow morph so you can interrupt things like soul strike and crystal frags.

other than that, play around and find what works best for you.

MrGhosty · November 2014

appreciate it

Jacques Berge · November 2014

A few things super useful for counter ganking.... Piercing Mark, ambush, crippling grasp, and dark shades(which have sight and can detect players around a ganker)

MrGhosty · November 2014

oh yeah, those would be useful! Thanks

Stannum · November 2014

conter gank? Radiant maglite, ambush, flying blade, mass hysteria

jaibierwb17_ESO · November 2014

Your problem is that you are trying to use a hybrid build. You need to decide on either a magicka or stamina build. I started off with a hybrid and am getting much better results since I switched to stamina.

So here is what I've done:
Attributes: I don't remember my exact numbers, but you do want most of your points in health. Your minimum health at V14 if you want to be competitive in trials & other endgame content should be 2500. I aim for 2500-2600 after blue food (I don't use purple as I don't need magicka). Putting most attributes in health means that if you want to try out different builds you just need to change gear.

Gear: 5 piece Hundings Rage + 4 Nightmother's Gaze with DW daggers. I'd make weapons from nightmother, so you still get the 5 piece bonus from Hunding's rage if you switch to bow.
All medium armour. I use infused trait on large pieces and divines for small pieces. All armour is enchanted with +stamina. I use precise for weapon traits, enchant with what you want. I use fire damage, but any elemental damage or drain stamina would be good.

I use Shadow for my mundus. I was stacking crit chance, but was advised to switch to Shadow for crit damage. I've only decreased from about 76% crit to 71% and have noticed a big increase in dps.

Make sure your home campaign is set to the campaign where your alliance tends to do the best. This will give you significant buffs.

Abilities: I can't advise you on bow, I don't use it much, but I do mostly use DW. For large groups I start with power extraction (drain power morph) and then spam steel tornado. Don't go the stamina restore morph - if I've activated siphoning strikes beforehand I can whirl almost indefinitely anyway and still do good dps. I'm getting 2000-2500 dps on large groups with siphoning strikes, and can get just over 3000 without.
For single enemies I use rapid strikes and impale to execute. You can use a dot as well if you like. Ignore forums etc that talk about weaving heavy attacks in for animation cancelling, it's not necessary as you can do the same thing by using another rapid strikes attack. Even if I'm using siphoning strikes for a long boss fight, I can reliably get over 1000 dps.

For ultimate I use veil of blades for groups/trials and soul tether for solo play or pvp. The stun on soul tether is very handy for gaining the upper hand in 1v1 PVP fights. Some people use flawless dawnbreaker for the passive damage increase then have the ultimate they plan to use on their other weapon bar, but I haven't levelled it up myself, weapon swap still seems too buggy for me to bother.

MrGhosty · November 2014

Those were very good ideas thank you! I may just go that route!