Nightblades- light or medium armor?

StonewallCSA

So I've only been playing ESO for a couple days, I'm running a wood elf night blade with a focus on siphoning first and shadow second, dual wield. I'm only level 7 but I haven't been able to decide light or medium armor. I wanted medium at first but I seem to get a lot more light armor drops and it seems easier to craft. So I'm wondering what peoples opinions are light armor or medium? Pros and cons of either?

kimboh

You really need to decide on which skills are more important to you, majicka based class skills or stamina based weapon skills. If you try to do both you will end up doing neither very well.
If you use more majicka skills go light armour, if you use more weapon skills use medium.
Your skill damage will scale off your maximum majicka/stamina so if you want to push your damage output to the higher level you will need to focus on one or the other, trying to be a hybrid will result in sub par performance later in the game.
Medium armour gives you passive buff to crit and sneak which is important if you want to be a sneaky assassin.

I have been playing a NB recently and had trouble with the same issue, I decided to focus on medium armour stamina build, as my main is a full magicka, light armour sorc and I wanted to try something totally different.
Try reading/watching some guides, from what I've heard NBs are one of the more difficult classes to play effectively.
Do a bit of research and decide what direction you want to take your build.

I would advise 5 med/2 light while levelling, that way you can level both skill lines at the same time, then if you decide to focus on stamina or magicka you already have both lines levelled to chose from.
A lot of people stick with the 5/2 combo but after experimenting I chose all 7 medium.

TheBull

Manly NBs ware medium.

Cuyler

Light armor = + magicka management
Medium armor = +crit +sneak +stam management

If your Dual Wield you've got a stamina build. Plan on spamming flurry or whirlwind? you'll need those extra crits and the increase stamina.

Your class skills use magicka however, so if your build uses a lot of the class skills you could benefit from light armor. You mention that you do "siphon" first then "stealth". There is a popular build referred to as the "siphoning" build, this uses the light armor bonuses and almost all class skills. More of a "caster" play style with a stick and dress.

Personally, I prefer using all dual wield and bow skills which all require stamina. Therefore my bosmer NB uses all medium armor.

abuniffpreub18_ESO

Not trying to steal your thread Stonewall but I have some questions.

On medium armor should I put all stamina enchants or some stamina and some magicka ?.
What about stats, magicka, health and stamina. Where should I put my points ?.

I'm planning on dual wield with daggers with flame enchants. And the reduce stamina cost on jewelry.

Any help is appreciated.

Nestor

abuniffpreub18_ESO wrote: »

On medium armor should I put all stamina enchants or some stamina and some magicka ?.
What about stats, magicka, health and stamina. Where should I put my points ?.

While I am sure that there are reasons to do this differently, I still follow the "Put all the Attributes Points into Health" strategy. The reason I do is I can swap out glyphs to boost Magic or Stamina as needed. In fact, with an add on you can run two sets of armor, one with Stamina Glyphs one with Magic Glyphs and switch out quickly. You don't need the add on to switch, it just makes it quicker.

All that being said, I put all my attributes into Health, and all my Glyphs are Mana on my NB. However recent updates have scaled weapon damage more so off of Stamina so I may be playing an unoptimized build. But, I also split my skill bar and half is magic attacks and the other half is stamina. I use up one side until I need it to regen then use the other. It works for me.

See this for the Stamina differences with Weapon Damage

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/140280/eso-calculations-for-advanced-players

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/142121/the-more-stamina-you-have-the-more-weapon-damage-you-will-do

Rosveen

abuniffpreub18_ESO wrote: »

Not trying to steal your thread Stonewall but I have some questions.

On medium armor should I put all stamina enchants or some stamina and some magicka ?.
What about stats, magicka, health and stamina. Where should I put my points ?.

I'm planning on dual wield with daggers with flame enchants. And the reduce stamina cost on jewelry.

Any help is appreciated.

Specialization is usually better, so if you're stamina-based, magicka glyphs will be a waste. Exact distribution depends on your race (Imperials or Redguards get natural attribute boosts, for example). You could go with health on big pieces (head, chest, legs) and stamina on small ones - or even all stamina if you follow Nestor's advice and put all attribute points into health. I opted for 29 into health and the rest into stamina on my Redguard NB.

Bouvin

It really depends how you want to play.

Light it nice for single target burst. Especially after they standardize and all skills that use magika will use spell power and spell crit.

I used light for a long time. Also nice if you want to carry a stick.

I'm currently using Medium with Dual Wield and Bow and doing ~1k DPS on single target, 2k+ on groups. With the right morphs you can get really good resource management to keep those stamina and magika bars full.

BloodStorm

Ya, like others said it depends on how you want to play. A magicka duel wield nightblade is not that bad though because of shadow cloak can be spammed and 100% crit chance. I personally think duel wield nightblade is better with magicka because you can get damage buffs from teleport strike morphed with ambush or w.e you want and other abilities to boost melee dps. I personally am a resto staff nightblade vampire which is really fun. Stamina still needs reworking. Also as a vampire with magicka as a nightblade you recover stamina with invigorating drain and ultimate / health. A Medium/ stamina build is doable and probably will pull ahead in melee burst a bit but lack survivability and crit that magicka build can have with inner light and light armor and so forth.

abuniffpreub18_ESO

Thanks for all the responses. Been away for a while so couldn't post.

I started an Argonian NB. I read a post here that was talking about with alchemy and some racials you could get almost instant cool down, we'll see.

I didn't do well with a stamina build so I'm trying magica. I'm using he standard spells, Ambush, Shadowy Disguise, Concealed Weapon, Killer's Blade, Swallow Soul in that order and Soul Harvest for the ultimate.

I put all my points in magica and all magica on my light armor. I don't have a problem with health. I can do 2 mobs on level or 2 levels higher without a problem. I use about 3/4 of my magica on 2 but potions get me back up if I need to but I regain fairly quickly.

I may try a bow when I reach level 15 in my second bar.

Did I do right with the Argonian or shuld I have used another race ?.

AlexDougherty

abuniffpreub18_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for all the responses. Been away for a while so couldn't post.

I started an Argonian NB. I read a post here that was talking about with alchemy and some racials you could get almost instant cool down, we'll see.

I didn't do well with a stamina build so I'm trying magica. I'm using he standard spells, Ambush, Shadowy Disguise, Concealed Weapon, Killer's Blade, Swallow Soul in that order and Soul Harvest for the ultimate.

I put all my points in magica and all magica on my light armor. I don't have a problem with health. I can do 2 mobs on level or 2 levels higher without a problem. I use about 3/4 of my magica on 2 but potions get me back up if I need to but I regain fairly quickly.

I may try a bow when I reach level 15 in my second bar.

Did I do right with the Argonian or shuld I have used another race ?.

If you like the argonian stick with him/her, if you don't like the Argonian then reroll, as long as you are having fun, that's all that counts.