NB AoE

TheWired

So, like many of you guys, I've tried many builds with my NB.
Playing a NB mage (using staves) is not an issue and allows me to handles a few mobs at once in PvE and do great in PvP but playing mainly with weapon skills got me killed most of the time with any builds I've tried.

So, I'm a bit tired of the pure "mage" build and wanted to try something else.
It's working alright so far, maybe some of you have tried this at higher level and can give feedback:

So, looking at all the skills we have, cloaking is clearly the most OP skill we have, as we get +armor/spell resist when coming out of invisibility/stealth, +100% crit rate and +10% weapon damage with our passives. My current AoE PvE build is:

Swallow Soul (Strife), Shadowy disguise (Shadow cloak), Dampen magic (annulment), Brawler (cleave), siphoning attacks (siphoning strikes).

I wear 5 pieces of light armor and 2 pieces of heavy (No set yet).
I use 3 jewelry accessories to reduce MP cost, and a two handed axe atm.
I use the "damage shield" weapon enchant or the "weapon/spell penetration".
My attribute points are 4 Magicka, 25 HP, 20 Stamina.

The logic behind it is that you need to regenerate more than the mobs hit you.
NB lacks instant heals, and I found that sap essence wasn't good enough anymore at vr1 (I get hit harder than I can regen). So the only source of somewhat efficient healing I've found is the damage shield from "Brawler" (cleave morph).

Basically, siphoning attacks takes care of my stamina and magicka regen. I chose this morph over leeching strikes because I spam skill rather than weapon attacks.
My skill rotation is the following:
Use dampen magic (light armor skill) before engaging the fight, use shadowy disguise, walk in and start spamming Brawler (cleave). The point of it is to just stealth, spam cleave, stealth, spam cleave, stealth, dampen magic, cleave, stealth... etc. I haven't maxed out on all the skills yet since I just tried this but it's been working all right so far and the cleave + weapon damage shield seems to be holding against 3 enemies. The dampen magic skill is VERY useful against mages (wasn't it supposed to be 100% spell resist at some point? Mine's only 50% atm).

Have any of you guys tried this at higher levels and survived with more than 3 mobs?

TheWired

Typed this from my mobile this morning and just realized that I forgot to mention soul swallow in my rotation. (Also, don't mind the typos and repetitions...).
Basically, it should be Dampen magic, soul swallow, shadowy disguise and then cleave cleave, shadowy disguise. Rinse and repeat. If I take too much damage I re-use dampen magic from cloak. Usually my magicka holds pretty well, stamina is doing okay even though I have to spam a couple of regular attacks here and there. (Might try swapping magicka reducing jewelry for stamina reducing set).

wafcatb14_ESO

check this build out , actual build is listed at the bottom of the show more section . Bow / 2 H NB PVP solo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfBsHLBrkZg

TheWired

I'll check that as soon as I get home.
Can't access Youtube without VPN from China /QQ

cebcurg

Nice video, to bad it doesn't show any fighting against a snb dk which I find funny.

Striken7

As a fellow non-mage NB (VR12 1H+S / Bow) I don't bother with AoE when I'm soloing. At the higher VR levels the damage output from mobs is very high, and the time to kill them is longer. I think you may have trouble killing them before they kill you.

I find it much easier to just isolate and CC when fighting groups of 3-4. Mass Hysteria (Aspect of Terror), Prolonged Suffering (Agony), Invasion (Shield Charge), and Draining Shot (Scatter Shot) all work very well combined with Shadowy Disguise (Shadow Cloak) at preventing enemies from hitting me.

kaosodin

Im 42, nb, dual weild, im having fun. Wish I did a bit more dps, but until then I just keep exploring trying to get to big boy pvp

Beldorr

For AOE I used to do several abilities with my aoe bar: Volcanic Rune > Lotus Fan > Sap Essence > Pulsar Spam. Very high DPS but lower survivability.

Now, Veil of blades, Sap essence, Siphioning Strikes allows me to kill pretty much anything at vr12. Volcanic rune is also a really good ability if you need a small break from all the mobs beating on you. Lotus Fan is also good opener since it gains a bonus from the stealth sneak attack and stun.

kitsinni

If you are talking about solo groups of like 3 at VR levels I have not found a way to blast through all of them without dieing. My best method has been to Stealth in, Surprise Attack one - Heavy - Impale first is dead. Use Mass Hysteria and send the two running and take them one at a time while fearing the other. You can also use Cloak + Surprise Attack to set one off balance and then hit them with a heavy to knock them down. After the first VR levels things get very tough to take all at once in groups without a healer and at the upper VR levels it is near impossible and the groups get much larger. In Craglorn they are in groups of 6+ a lot of times.

With a healer or group to power down trash mobs in dungeons/solo dungeons I have found using a Volcanic Rune - Twisting Path - Power Extraction - Whirlwind will tear through groups. I leave Siphon on and try to weave light attacks between whirlwinds for stamina recovery. I'm sure the same technique would work with 2 Hand but I have not tried it.

The other option is to have your second weapon be a Destro staff and use AE from Destro with Power Extraction. You could probably use Impulse and Wall of Elements (I'm guessing it does more damage than Twisting Path but has a similar effect).

I pretty much always use Veil of Blades as my Ulti.

Cody

SNEAK. I play a NB archer, and iv been able to even do vet zones just fine with him. When you face some enemies you know will kill you, sneak by them! the class IS meant for stealth after all, so of course trying to tank and dual wield it is going to get you killed.

Bromburak

wafcatb14_ESO wrote: »

check this build out , actual build is listed at the bottom of the show more section . Bow / 2 H NB PVP solo

Only skill he has are bad video cuts as usual for most of the youtube clowns.

methjester

Bromburak wrote: »

wafcatb14_ESO wrote: »

check this build out , actual build is listed at the bottom of the show more section . Bow / 2 H NB PVP solo

Only skill he has are bad video cuts as usual for most of the youtube clowns.

Bad cuts, only v5, techno... he wasn't fighting guys his own level it was mostly NPC's or -50s and V1's. Whatever, proves nothing.

PBpsy

This will take you trough most trash mobs in public group dungeons and even Craglorn delves and overhead. I managed to kill groups of 10 with it. It is a very tanky close quarters magicka based build

Armor: 5L/2H. I use the chest and pants as heavy for the looks and to get most armor + the small bonuses from passives. The 5 set bonus from light is enough.

Weapons: Sword and shield on both tabs I only use passives and blocking,

Stat distribution: 20/29/0.
Enchant distribution: Cap magicka is the main priority followed by health. Jewels have 1 Magicka regen to cap it and 2 reduced spell costs.

Sets:Twilight's embrace 5 pieces for 5% spell crit and Willow's path 3 pieces for 5%. In total 20% spell crit only from equipment an light armor passives. I also get 3% more from my weapon trait.

Main tab skills:
Siphoning attacks. This is pretty much what makes me sustainable. The Upcoming nerf be damned
Inner light. 20% Spell Critical. for a total of 43%. The idea is to get my self heals to crit as much as possible as well as increasing my bps and ultimate generation. The Crit Ultimate nerf was annoying but the build still works
Swallow soul:Damage around 300 Crits for 420 a lot. heal tick for ~85 and crits for ~125. It crits a lot.
Sap Essence: It is my main aoe attack,Heal and ultimate generator. Cirt for ~220 the heal is ~100 and it is instant.I strongly disagree with the OP assessment of this skills. It still holds well at VR12 for me.
Volcanic rune or Refreshing path or reapers mark or almost anything. Inner beast in Dungeons.
Ultimate: Veil of Blades

The second tab has killer's blade,surprise attack and shadowy disguise for bosses

The basic idea is to rush to the healer ,mage ,archer and cc and make sure I can interrupt him and use swallow soul on him. I let the others surround me and use sap essence, I block and I occasionally simple attack to regen my magica and stamina. The trick is to attack often enough so that I don't run out of stamina for blocking. I sometimes can sap/swallow soul them to death sometimes I just use veil of blades and switch to the second tab to execute them and gain more ultimate from soul Harvest.
My single target dps is around 250 but I rarely have a problem staying above 70% life 1v1. Against groups the dps is given my how many I fight it goes from 400 to +800.
The build only has problems if you have multiple mages that you can't isolate fast enough. It is great against melee only packs or any large pack of animals.
Fighting bosses depends on the boss and can go from really easy to really bad.I was able to solo some VR 9/10 world bosses with them and even some Craglorn bosses.

The only thing I really dislike is the damn spinning star from inner light

Aoifesan

For a stamina based build the best way to AoE is DW Cylcone of Steel(aoe10mrange tier three DW) ?, Siphoning Extraction ?morphed to the option for 9 total targets, Volcanic Rune to pop things in the air, Siphon strikes for sustain and Killer Blade if alone for the self heal.

With 3+ mobs This tops 800 DPS, with less than 3 it's around half that.

TheWired

PBpsy wrote: »

This will take you trough most trash mobs in public group dungeons and even Craglorn delves and overhead. I managed to kill groups of 10 with it. It is a very tanky close quarters magicka based build

Armor: 5L/2H. I use the chest and pants as heavy for the looks and to get most armor + the small bonuses from passives. The 5 set bonus from light is enough.

Weapons: Sword and shield on both tabs I only use passives and blocking,

Stat distribution: 20/29/0.
Enchant distribution: Cap magicka is the main priority followed by health. Jewels have 1 Magicka regen to cap it and 2 reduced spell costs.

Sets:Twilight's embrace 5 pieces for 5% spell crit and Willow's path 3 pieces for 5%. In total 20% spell crit only from equipment an light armor passives. I also get 3% more from my weapon trait.

Main tab skills:
Siphoning attacks. This is pretty much what makes me sustainable. The Upcoming nerf be damned
Inner light. 20% Spell Critical. for a total of 43%. The idea is to get my self heals to crit as much as possible as well as increasing my bps and ultimate generation. The Crit Ultimate nerf was annoying but the build still works
Swallow soul:Damage around 300 Crits for 420 a lot. heal tick for ~85 and crits for ~125. It crits a lot.
Sap Essence: It is my main aoe attack,Heal and ultimate generator. Cirt for ~220 the heal is ~100 and it is instant.I strongly disagree with the OP assessment of this skills. It still holds well at VR12 for me.
Volcanic rune or Refreshing path or reapers mark or almost anything. Inner beast in Dungeons.
Ultimate: Veil of Blades

The second tab has killer's blade,surprise attack and shadowy disguise for bosses

The basic idea is to rush to the healer ,mage ,archer and cc and make sure I can interrupt him and use swallow soul on him. I let the others surround me and use sap essence, I block and I occasionally simple attack to regen my magica and stamina. The trick is to attack often enough so that I don't run out of stamina for blocking. I sometimes can sap/swallow soul them to death sometimes I just use veil of blades and switch to the second tab to execute them and gain more ultimate from soul Harvest.
My single target dps is around 250 but I rarely have a problem staying above 70% life 1v1. Against groups the dps is given my how many I fight it goes from 400 to +800.
The build only has problems if you have multiple mages that you can't isolate fast enough. It is great against melee only packs or any large pack of animals.
Fighting bosses depends on the boss and can go from really easy to really bad.I was able to solo some VR 9/10 world bosses with them and even some Craglorn bosses.

The only thing I really dislike is the damn spinning star from inner light

This was an interesting read, thank you.
I thought about making a crit based build but didn't find it that great with lowbie sorcerer or DK so just skipped it with my NB.

I really want to play more melee oriented though. Let's hope they fix weapon and skill scaling with stamina in the next patch AND the cloak skill (which currently decloaks you when you DoT anything...)

steinernein

Brawler, Siphoning Attacks, Elude, Double Take.

Brawler, Shadowy Disguise, Siphoning Attacks, Elude/Double Take.

Both work. First one is more reliant on luck and smart play, second one is brainless for the most part.

TheWired

steinernein wrote: »

Brawler, Siphoning Attacks, Elude, Double Take.

Brawler, Shadowy Disguise, Siphoning Attacks, Elude/Double Take.

Both work. First one is more reliant on luck and smart play, second one is brainless for the most part.

I currently use brawler, shadowy disguise, leeching strikes, swallow soul and annulment.
I tried the non morphed version of the dodge skill but wasn't impressed as it seemed to have very little impact. Is the Elude morph more efficient? I kind of want to replace annulment but there are no skills I find useful (tried sap essence, power extraction, volcanic rune, the fear skill). Haven't tried immovable yet with this build (is it better than annulment vs mages given that we already have a passive boosting our stats when coming out of stealth?). If haste was working properly, I might have tried it but...

Artis

yea, yeah. nice video. not related to pve-discussion though.

anyway.. how do I aoe in heavy armor and shield. or 2H? The class itself doesn't have much aoe. And it's not that we compensate it with the higher single target dps....
I don't want to play mage and wear a freaking dress

PBpsy

Artemis wrote: »

yea, yeah. nice video. not related to pve-discussion though.

anyway.. how do I aoe in heavy armor and shield. or 2H? The class itself doesn't have much aoe. And it's not that we compensate it with the higher single target dps....
I don't want to play mage and wear a freaking dress

The Sap Essence,Siphoning attacks,Inner light Combo works with 5Heavy. I used quite bit while leveling from VR7 to VR12. It will not be as good as the a 5L build especially after the nerfs to ultimate from crits and the upcoming nerf to SA and the messed up state of mobs in VR5+ zones after the last patch. Going Heavy Chest and Heavy legs and the rest light gets most of the Light Armor perks and still looks pretty damn badass though.

TheWired wrote: »

PBpsy wrote: »

This will take you trough most trash mobs in public group dungeons and even Craglorn delves and overhead. I managed to kill groups of 10 with it. It is a very tanky close quarters magicka based build

Armor: 5L/2H. I use the chest and pants as heavy for the looks and to get most armor + the small bonuses from passives. The 5 set bonus from light is enough.

Weapons: Sword and shield on both tabs I only use passives and blocking,

Stat distribution: 20/29/0.
Enchant distribution: Cap magicka is the main priority followed by health. Jewels have 1 Magicka regen to cap it and 2 reduced spell costs.

Sets:Twilight's embrace 5 pieces for 5% spell crit and Willow's path 3 pieces for 5%. In total 20% spell crit only from equipment an light armor passives. I also get 3% more from my weapon trait.

Main tab skills:
Siphoning attacks. This is pretty much what makes me sustainable. The Upcoming nerf be damned
Inner light. 20% Spell Critical. for a total of 43%. The idea is to get my self heals to crit as much as possible as well as increasing my bps and ultimate generation. The Crit Ultimate nerf was annoying but the build still works
Swallow soul:Damage around 300 Crits for 420 a lot. heal tick for ~85 and crits for ~125. It crits a lot.
Sap Essence: It is my main aoe attack,Heal and ultimate generator. Cirt for ~220 the heal is ~100 and it is instant.I strongly disagree with the OP assessment of this skills. It still holds well at VR12 for me.
Volcanic rune or Refreshing path or reapers mark or almost anything. Inner beast in Dungeons.
Ultimate: Veil of Blades

The second tab has killer's blade,surprise attack and shadowy disguise for bosses

The basic idea is to rush to the healer ,mage ,archer and cc and make sure I can interrupt him and use swallow soul on him. I let the others surround me and use sap essence, I block and I occasionally simple attack to regen my magica and stamina. The trick is to attack often enough so that I don't run out of stamina for blocking. I sometimes can sap/swallow soul them to death sometimes I just use veil of blades and switch to the second tab to execute them and gain more ultimate from soul Harvest.
My single target dps is around 250 but I rarely have a problem staying above 70% life 1v1. Against groups the dps is given my how many I fight it goes from 400 to +800.
The build only has problems if you have multiple mages that you can't isolate fast enough. It is great against melee only packs or any large pack of animals.
Fighting bosses depends on the boss and can go from really easy to really bad.I was able to solo some VR 9/10 world bosses with them and even some Craglorn bosses.

The only thing I really dislike is the damn spinning star from inner light

This was an interesting read, thank you.
I thought about making a crit based build but didn't find it that great with lowbie sorcerer or DK so just skipped it with my NB.

I really want to play more melee oriented though. Let's hope they fix weapon and skill scaling with stamina in the next patch AND the cloak skill (which currently decloaks you when you DoT anything...)

For me this build was the most melee I could get while still being efficient. By melee I mean very up close and using my sword a lot, blocking and interrupting thsi is not to do the damage but to control the fight. The best I could do with other melee builds was to go still with high crit/ magicka builds using stealth and hit and run tactics. It is nice but it can get old fast. They want to block and dodge to often and the stamina cost is just to high for it to be fun for to long. I think many problems would be solved if they would increase the Stamina regen by at least 50%

Nicko_Lps

I dont think assasins (NB) should have AoE dmg...
You can have AoE from staffs from dual weld and from 2 hand,bow AoE is to laugh with.

Nb class should have an ultra high dmg at first hit,at an enemy that did not see you before and after this a high sustained damage but offcourse as any dps very fragile.
If you would have that,you would easy to take out 1 by 1 4-5 pack enemies without even bothering for AoE.

As said NB high single target damage,mage high AoE damage that looks more balanced at least to me.

Cheers mate

Bromburak

Sap Essence is a very helpful efficient NB AOE skill, but for most builds you need siphoning attacks and inner light as well. The problem with that is you are still dependent of cc and single burst. You will understand when you fight strong 5+ packs with a healer ...

Those healers provide insane heal waves and you must stun lock and kill them asap before dealing with the rest of the group, or you will have a hard time getting down any 5+ groups.

But to get this job done properly you need to drop def/support skills on the second bar and that hurts in Craglorn no matter if you are trying trials or vet dungeons.

Thats the trade off, builds with strikes, inner light and sap essence are expensive and block very important slots.

khele23eb17_ESO

Nicko_Lps wrote: »

As said NB high single target damage,mage high AoE damage that looks more balanced at least to me.

Let me translate this to ZOS-speak: give NBs decent single target damage, give casters aoe that deals as much damage to every affected target as NBs attacks to 1 target.