Skills in Thieves Guild vs Dark Brotherhood

Draxund

So I'm debating my next DLC purchase and stuck between Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood (maybe one day down the line I'll get both, but since I'm a filthy casual right now, I'm only going with one). Both are attractive to me because they offer skill lines. So for those that have played both, which skill line do you think is better and more useful for long-term game play? I primarily focus on PvE and soloing content.

Lumi

I think Thieves Guild passives are more useful (mainly Swiftly Forgotten, Finders Keepers and Clemency) but I find Dark Brotherhood to be much more fun (Blade of Woe... ). I think it depends whether you like to steal or get your fenced items more murderous way...

xerasia

As far as gameplay goes, I prefer Dark Brotherhood. Both skill lines have their perks...here's a link to compare them. Defaults to DB, but you can click the TG line: http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Guild+Skills

JerzeeDevil

Do both= win overall. Huge bonuses for PvE gameplay, small ones for PvP.

Nestor

Unless you just like murdering innocent NPCs, Thieves is probably a better Guild of the two for all the other larcenous activities in the game which I would imagine you would do more often.

In fact, there is only one skill in DB that has any use outside of murdering people. Thieves has skills that can save your bacon if you just make a simple mistake and click on an owned object instead of an NPC. This happens more than you would think.

Travy_2Hype

I would have to say, I was disappoint in the Thieve's Guild DLC overall, and absolutely love the Dark Brotherhood DLC! But similar to what Nestor stated, if you don't really enjoy killing innocents then the Dark Brotherhood DLC wouldn't be that useful for you, and I LOVE killing innocents.

The main skill from Dark Brotherhood that I enjoy is that the radius for enemies to spot you while mounted is reduced by 50%, I can ride my mount mostly anywhere without attracting unwanted attention. The most useful thing I found from the Thieve's Guild DLC is that once you reach lv10 you gain a merchant that you can summon and fence item to, there's nothing worse than stealing a load of stuff just to get caught by a guard and lose it all.

dan0311

I would like to second Travy's response and also insert a quick reminder that once you attain Pirharri the Smuggler for one toon, you have her for all subsequent toons. Like a mount, she is account-wide. Leveling Legerdemain and TG is a LOT faster with her by your side.

She is without a doubt one of the best quality-of-life improvements you can make in your game, especially when you are trying to level Legerdemain. Steal whatever you want then fence it on the spot. If someone sees you steal something because they can see through walls or have eyes in the back of their head, whip out Pirharri and immediately fence all the valuable stolen goods you have. Proceed forth, get stopped by a guard, give them 92g and all your cheap stolen stuff and then walk on, my friend...you have just beaten the system.

And in case you are interested, my SECOND favorite quality-of-life buff is the CP passive that cuts your node harvesting time in half. It adds up.

Thank you, Pirharri, for all you do. I just wish you wouldn't run away when I try to talk to you. :-)

Beamer_Miasma

Selling to Pirharri is easy but a bad idea, she takes a 35% cut. Let's say you manage to steal 1000 gold worth of items per 10 minutes, then:

- You get 650 gold per 10 minutes from Pirharri with no travel time.
- You get 1000 gold per 10 minutes, or 650 gold per 6.5 minutes from a regular fence leaving you 3.5 minutes per 10 minutes travel time, a full 35% of the time you spend being a thief

The actual time you spend traveling to and from fences is (should be) far less than 35% of the time you play being a thief, so you're giving up a lot of gold by selling to Pirharri.

The ones I use:

TG:
Swiftly Forgotten - I take the 1st level as soon as I can, the rest when I can spare the skill points.
Haggling - typically later on in the game when I can spare 4 points at once, but if I do a lot of stealing on a character I prioritize it a bit more
Clemency - very useful, only 1 point, I take it as soon as I can
All the others when there's nothing combat/crafting related left to spend the points on

DB:
Shadowy Supplier - 1 skill point only, free alchemy ingredients (choose the poison option)
Shadow Rider - 1 skill point only, especially useful on characters that haven't upgraded their mount skills yet.
The others I don't take, I have better sources of Maj Exp than Padomaic Spirit when I need it, and the others only serve to reduce bounty and heat, but with maxed Swiftly Forgotten and huge stacks of Edicts that really isn't much of a concern anymore.

Darkenarlol

i'll advise you to start with DB and then jump into TG

- having such usefull tool as Blade of Woe makes clearing TG tasks alot easier -

you can *clear* your map of undesirable witnesses and benefit from classic steal-steal-Woe kill combo

for most efficient stealing streaks (dead NPC respawns faster with all his loot than the loot itself in aleve NPC's pockets)


- (spoiler lol) there gonna be dialog options where NPC gonna recognize you as a member of DB

which changes dialog options (yes ZOS did such a great job by adding dilog options related to DB in

previous DLC TG)

- you gonna play as badas_s assasin willing to give a little help to those useless thiefs =D

- TG last quest dialog options =P

Mayrael

Stealing? Obviously thieves guild, many nice skills improving your income, decreasing bounties etc. useful only in PvE.

Drake Brotherhood? Personally I find only 2 skills useful. Blade of woe and Shadow rider. For me Shadow Rider is one of the must have skills in PvP, allows to ride smoothly in IC, around keeps and resources without pulling mobs or guards.