Nightblade Subclassing and Crit

Genfe · July 2025

I was taking a look at some of the numbers since the change to remove savagery off of cloak.

If I run a night blade and remove assassination I’ll have 13.4% crit.

If I put on the assassination skill line, I’m at 45% crit.

Personally, I think this is a little too much of a difference just for removing and slotting one skill line.

Maybe I’m being picky or overdramatic just seemed a little off to me

Theignson · July 2025

This is why everyone is running assassination (@ least in pvp)

The other strange thing is so many are running three attack lines, but they are still super tanky. It’s like all this time 2/3 of all skill lines were useless (again referring to pvp)

Sluggy · July 2025

And next patch you'll even get the Major Savagery/Prophecy buff as well on both bars just for slotting the hardest hitting skill in the game.

LittlePinkDot · July 2025

Theignson wrote: »

This is why everyone is running assassination (@ least in pvp)

The other strange thing is so many are running three attack lines, but they are still super tanky. It’s like all this time 2/3 of all skill lines were useless (again referring to pvp)

If they're slotting 3 damage skill lines, where are they getting major resolve?

Major_Mangle · July 2025

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

This is why everyone is running assassination (@ least in pvp)

The other strange thing is so many are running three attack lines, but they are still super tanky. It’s like all this time 2/3 of all skill lines were useless (again referring to pvp)

If they're slotting 3 damage skill lines, where are they getting major resolve?

Storm calling (pseudo damage/utility skilline)

Theignson · July 2025

Burst heals (healthy offering, green dragon blood etc) used to be essential in PvP , I thought. But none of the popular lines now used after subclassing have a burst heal.
I assume everyone is using healing soul?
Or is the damage so high you don’t need burst heal with Crit surge and vigor

Sluggy · July 2025

Theignson wrote: »

Burst heals (healthy offering, green dragon blood etc) used to be essential in PvP , I thought. But none of the popular lines now used after subclassing have a burst heal.
I assume everyone is using healing soul?
Or is the damage so high you don’t need burst heal with Crit surge and vigor

Admittedly, I only played for a couple days after Vengeance ended and after the new patch dropped - mostly just so I could compare and contrast. I also spent at least one of those days in Cyrodiil just leveling a skill line so I was effectively playing a useless character that didn't do much except heal and block (it was surprisingly effective at not dying despite having an almost completely useless frontbar).

It seemed like some people were playing kill-or-be-killed with all out offense. I played for a bit with a warden that had absolutely zero burst heals and it felt fine. It was effectively the same build as before though - 42k armor, 42k life, triple infused damage on jewlery and counting on procing dwing's Major Berserk and Balorgh for damage. Only difference was I dropped Frost for Stormcalling. Personally, I still feel like most everyone is fighting with pool noodles.

Going in with my DK that dropped Earthen Heart for Stormcalling's equivalent skills felt just about the same as before. I could layer on tons of heals and try to whittle down opponents over several minutes. In both cases it was very hard for any individual to do any serious damage to me and pretty much all deaths were due to being zerged down, serious lag spikes, or my own poor judgement on how much damage I could do without punching myself out and getting stunned and killed. You know, exactly the same as before.

Turtle_Bot · July 2025

Theignson wrote: »

Burst heals (healthy offering, green dragon blood etc) used to be essential in PvP , I thought. But none of the popular lines now used after subclassing have a burst heal.
I assume everyone is using healing soul?
Or is the damage so high you don’t need burst heal with Crit surge and vigor

Heal soul is probably 90% (or more) of this.

Thanks to having Major Vitality as a potential script while also being on par with regular burst heals (HtD, etc) makes it a no-brainer to slot in as the burst heal, which frees up skill lines since players no longer need to find one that has a good burst heal in it.

Contingency is another factor as well (although less common than heal soul), since it can be block/dodge cast on the front bar when switching to the back bar and gives a burst heal + unique mitigation + other named buff, or it can be cast on the back bar when switching to the front bar as a heal/shield + unique flat damage increase + named buff for the next burst window.

These 2 scribing skills allow for builds to ignore burst heals as a basic building block when choosing skill lines, which enables choosing/stacking more DPS lines or utility lines. These 2 skills also basically rendered all defensive lines mute outside of overperforming outliers such as restoring light that has an insane amount of sustain + healing over time + cleanse as well as an armor buff worth slotting and very strong passives that it's worth considering the line as a whole for a more balanced build.

Storm Calling is a unique case, it is a mix of everything, offense (from the passives) as well as defense and utility (from hurricane + streak + surge) so it's very common to see it picked as the 3rd line (i.e. a pseudo defensive line) to support a full DPS build that uses a combination of 2/3 of the Assassination, Aedric Spear, Animal Companions, Gravelord and Ardent Flame skill lines, since it grants Major Resolve + Major Brut/Sorc + a heal over time (that synergizes with the current crit meta) + mobility + CC.