Hello! Can someone help me with a Nightblade build?

Gabrielzavadski

Hello, I will explain how I'm currently playing with my low level character:

So... I wanted to make a nightblade build that uses mainly magicka, focusing on heavy armor to resist damage, and stealing enemies life force (health, magicka, stamina or other things like speed or weapon damage) while keeping the enemy occupied with things like stuns, snares, disorientation or magical copies of myself (last Shadow skilll). I am currently level 19 and already can make Fungal Grotto solo, relying on my sword and shield to protect myself from the enemy and causing damage, while using bow to kill enemies at distance. I'am able to keep up my health full using life stealing powers, using stamina only to break free from stuns and my magicka recovers while I use bow at distance to fill my ultimate.

Well, now I'm trying to improve my character, unlocking more skills, become a vampire, and craft a good heavy armor, but I need help; Most of the skills that would fit perfectly, people say that are trashy skills, like entropy, in which damages the enemy while heals me and also increases my spell power... so ... if someone wants to help me, I would be very grateful.

I'm planning to make a build that fits for PvE and for PvP, mainly focusing on small scale battles or single targets.

Here is a build calculator preset that I created... comes with lore and everything! http://www.eso-skillfactory.com/en/build/nightblade/dark-knight-nightblade/12438/

Sorry for the bad english, it's not my native language.

kylewwefan

While leveling, it seems best to focus on damage. If you want to go magic blade, focus on light armor. The armor passives really make your build shine. Medium armor is great for stamina builds. Heavy armor for tanks or maybe 2 piece heavy for more survivability.
For PvP your build will be a bit different. Just swapping out armor and tweaking champion points could do.

BruhItsOver9000

I know heavy armor looks cool bruh, but you have to wear light armor. However you could go 5x light 2x heavy.
What role do you want to be tank or dd.

Gabrielzavadski

BruhItsOver9000 wrote: »

I know heavy armor looks cool bruh, but you have to wear light armor. However you could go 5x light 2x heavy.
What role do you want to be tank or dd.

I wanted to make a tank, but without sacrifice too much damage...

BruhItsOver9000

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

BruhItsOver9000 wrote: »

I know heavy armor looks cool bruh, but you have to wear light armor. However you could go 5x light 2x heavy.
What role do you want to be tank or dd.

I wanted to make a tank, but without sacrifice too much damage...

I've never played a nb tank before, but watch this. You don't have to follow the build, but take notes.

Shaiba

Hello

I'll talk only about PvE purposes, I never played my tank in PvP.

If you want to play as a magicka nightblade tank, i'd suggest to remove the bow from the build. Bow are more oriented towards stamina build. You can use Sword and shield on both bar, or 1 bar with sword and shield, the other with a resto staff if you want a distant weapon. About armor, heavy one is good for tanking (of course ).

Here is a good guide (not too much outdated) of a magicka nightblade tank :
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/258008/the-bloodletter-an-evolution-to-sap-tanking-nightblade-tank-build/p1
Hope it will help you.

Here are the skill i'm using on my nb tank (it's kinda similar to the bloodletter but with less group healing) :
1st Bar (Sword and Shield) :
- Pierce-Armor (to taunt bosses, mobs, ... to keep them away from your teammates)
- Funnel Health (i'm not using swallow soul cause I sometimes switch to pure healer on this char, if you wanna focus only on tanking on your char, swallow soul is a better morph I think)
- Refreshing path (for major guard and major resolves (from passive of the skill tree), some HoT and DoT)
- Absorb Magic (for the passive effect)
- Siphoning Attacks (for ressource sustain)
Ulti : Veil of blade (for dps and damage mitigation)

2nd Bar (Sword and Shield too) :
- Inner Rage (to taunt from distance)
- Sap essence (for trash mobs, good AoE, and good healing tools)
- Proxi Deto (for AoE damage)
- Shadowy Image (for minor maim, major guard and major resolves (from passive from the skill tree))
- Double Take (for Major Evasion, I think if you play with a healer that has gossamer set you can remove this one from your PvE bar)
Ulti : Aggressive Warhorn (for buff)

For leveling phase, I suggest you to craft some basic tanking gear such as Tava (good crafted set for NB tanking), Alessia, Hist Bark, Song of Lamae, this kind of stuff. You want to get the good gear at 160 CP, before that, crafted set are good.

But you'll need to know that with this tank build you can have decent amount of damage (for a tank), but you won't have the damage of a DPS. Not at all.

Gabrielzavadski

BruhItsOver9000 wrote: »

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

BruhItsOver9000 wrote: »

I know heavy armor looks cool bruh, but you have to wear light armor. However you could go 5x light 2x heavy.
What role do you want to be tank or dd.

I wanted to make a tank, but without sacrifice too much damage...

I've never played a nb tank before, but watch this. You don't have to follow the build, but take notes.

I had not found this interesting video before... this helped me a lot, thanks!

Gabrielzavadski

Shaiba wrote: »

Hello

I'll talk only about PvE purposes, I never played my tank in PvP.

If you want to play as a magicka nightblade tank, i'd suggest to remove the bow from the build. Bow are more oriented towards stamina build. You can use Sword and shield on both bar, or 1 bar with sword and shield, the other with a resto staff if you want a distant weapon. About armor, heavy one is good for tanking (of course ).

Here is a good guide (not too much outdated) of a magicka nightblade tank :
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/258008/the-bloodletter-an-evolution-to-sap-tanking-nightblade-tank-build/p1
Hope it will help you.

Here are the skill i'm using on my nb tank (it's kinda similar to the bloodletter but with less group healing) :
1st Bar (Sword and Shield) :
- Pierce-Armor (to taunt bosses, mobs, ... to keep them away from your teammates)
- Funnel Health (i'm not using swallow soul cause I sometimes switch to pure healer on this char, if you wanna focus only on tanking on your char, swallow soul is a better morph I think)
- Refreshing path (for major guard and major resolves (from passive of the skill tree), some HoT and DoT)
- Absorb Magic (for the passive effect)
- Siphoning Attacks (for ressource sustain)
Ulti : Veil of blade (for dps and damage mitigation)

2nd Bar (Sword and Shield too) :
- Inner Rage (to taunt from distance)
- Sap essence (for trash mobs, good AoE, and good healing tools)
- Proxi Deto (for AoE damage)
- Shadowy Image (for minor maim, major guard and major resolves (from passive from the skill tree))
- Double Take (for Major Evasion, I think if you play with a healer that has gossamer set you can remove this one from your PvE bar)
Ulti : Aggressive Warhorn (for buff)

For leveling phase, I suggest you to craft some basic tanking gear such as Tava (good crafted set for NB tanking), Alessia, Hist Bark, Song of Lamae, this kind of stuff. You want to get the good gear at 160 CP, before that, crafted set are good.

But you'll need to know that with this tank build you can have decent amount of damage (for a tank), but you won't have the damage of a DPS. Not at all.

Thanks... I was in doubt about what skills to use. But I will have to tweak a little your sugestions to work PvP too. Really thanks!

Nichts

Even with all the nice tweaks there will come the point where you have to decide:
- Do I want to do damage as DD or do I want to tank a trial?

A DD that has to do a lot of damage can't do that while using heavy armor.
Still as a magicka NB you will be able to tank a lot - even in light armor if you want to do that.
The more damage you inflict the more (self-)heal you get.
But, there are some boss monsters, that are incredible hard to tank in light armor, eg 1st boss vICP or Molag Kena in vWGT.

But if you decide that you want to be the tank of your 12 man group in a trial, you won't be able to do more than 5k dps.
Often you have to be standing in block most of the time, and can't do anything else but buffing yourself.

(As comparison, a DD can deal >30k dps)

This holds true for PvE.

For PvP the bounds between DD and Tank get more loose.
There are so many variations in play-style to choose from - and you can build your own as well.
They don't have to be optimized in tankability or damage output - and they often work as good as the other.

In PvP it depends on your choice if you want to play as a glass cannon, that can kill several players instantly with good timing, or as full-tank that can deal with several people attacking him, while the team mates will deal with these.
Or something in between. Or something completely different.
You also can decide, if you would like to play the magicka NB melee or range. With or without heal/support abilitys.


(I have 2 Magicka NBs - one PvE and one PvP, and a Tank-NB [more magicka focused, but with some stamina as well]. )

PS4_ZeColmeia

Ive recently moved from light armor to heavy armor on my mageblade. It requires some very specific sets to pull off. Also you have to go dw to up your damage to counter the loss of la traits.

Gabrielzavadski

The Nightblade that I want to build is one that has an balance between everything: damage done and damage resistance, and be able to go both PvE and PvP, without having to change characters or sets. One character and one set of weapon and armor.
But I also wanted to use heavy armor and a melee weapon for the main, and a ranged weapon for secondary; Focusing in magicka use, while having a good amount of health, and using stamina only for things like dodge, sprinting or break free.

(Or a build that is close as this as possible )

Acsvf

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

The Nightblade that I want to build is one that has an balance between everything: damage done and damage resistance, and be able to go both PvE and PvP, without having to change characters or sets. One character and one set of weapon and armor.

Let me be honest with you- that's not really possible in this game. PVE and PVP equipment don't really mix particularly well.

HumanNinja

I would like to say, don't worry about which skills people say are trashy. That is their own opinion.

That's the beauty of a game like this, every skill can be utilized in some way or another. Every skill can be incorporated into a build.

Don't worry so much about what all the people say, or what all the build guides say. People's opinions are based around what works for them. You'll even see a lot of the build guides say that specific parts/skills/armor/etc. are for their personal preference, and to change things around to suit your play style.

If you want to play for fun, then pick whichever skills work for you and build your character however you like. If you don't like a skill after using it for a while, or if you decide another skill is more effective, then you can always go to the shrine and reset your points.

CreepyPahuska

HumanNinja wrote: »

I would like to say, don't worry about which skills people say are trashy. That is their own opinion.

That's the beauty of a game like this, every skill can be utilized in some way or another. Every skill can be incorporated into a build.

Don't worry so much about what all the people say, or what all the build guides say. People's opinions are based around what works for them. You'll even see a lot of the build guides say that specific parts/skills/armor/etc. are for their personal preference, and to change things around to suit your play style.

If you want to play for fun, then pick whichever skills work for you and build your character however you like. If you don't like a skill after using it for a while, or if you decide another skill is more effective, then you can always go to the shrine and reset your points.

You live in a beautiful world mate, unfortunately it isn't the world of TESO.
He's right to worry about which skills people say are trashy, and he's totally right to come here on the forum and look for help and informations. People's opinion are, for the most part (especially on this topic), based on their own experience, and if it works for them, it'll work for anyone (since we're playing the same game... as far as I know...). The builds evoked here have been tested and tweaked again and again by many players.
I agree that pretty much everyskill can be utilized, but not in any way you want, if you want to be efficient. For example, you simply don't use a bow on a magicka build with only magicka abilities, it makes no sense. You only have 10 skills slots and 2 ultimate slots, so you can't just tell "use whatever you want". You need to make the right choices because you can't waste a single slot.
I'm just gonna drop an example to explain why "do whatever you want" is not an option in TESO :
Few days ago I went to vICP with my girlfriend with 2 PU DDs. We know the dungeon like the back of our hands. We've done it countless times before the DB nerf to farm achievements and gear. Guess what ? We struggled like never before on the first boss, even if the whole dungeon has been nerfed, and gave up right after because we couldn't kill the first flesh atronach before he enrages. Why ? because the two DDs were playing with such a f***ed up build that they were barely able to pull out respectively 12k and 8k AoE DPS. So no, you can't just do whatever you like if you want to be efficient, or you'll just have to play solo content till you get bored, cause in a 4man or 12man group, you can't afford having someone playing a non-efficient build just because he likes to, especially for the "hard" content.

Gabrielzavadski

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

HumanNinja wrote: »

I would like to say, don't worry about which skills people say are trashy. That is their own opinion.

That's the beauty of a game like this, every skill can be utilized in some way or another. Every skill can be incorporated into a build.

Don't worry so much about what all the people say, or what all the build guides say. People's opinions are based around what works for them. You'll even see a lot of the build guides say that specific parts/skills/armor/etc. are for their personal preference, and to change things around to suit your play style.

If you want to play for fun, then pick whichever skills work for you and build your character however you like. If you don't like a skill after using it for a while, or if you decide another skill is more effective, then you can always go to the shrine and reset your points.

You live in a beautiful world mate, unfortunately it isn't the world of TESO.
He's right to worry about which skills people say are trashy, and he's totally right to come here on the forum and look for help and informations. People's opinion are, for the most part (especially on this topic), based on their own experience, and if it works for them, it'll work for anyone (since we're playing the same game... as far as I know...). The builds evoked here have been tested and tweaked again and again by many players.
I agree that pretty much everyskill can be utilized, but not in any way you want, if you want to be efficient. For example, you simply don't use a bow on a magicka build with only magicka abilities, it makes no sense. You only have 10 skills slots and 2 ultimate slots, so you can't just tell "use whatever you want". You need to make the right choices because you can't waste a single slot.
I'm just gonna drop an example to explain why "do whatever you want" is not an option in TESO :
Few days ago I went to vICP with my girlfriend with 2 PU DDs. We know the dungeon like the back of our hands. We've done it countless times before the DB nerf to farm achievements and gear. Guess what ? We struggled like never before on the first boss, even if the whole dungeon has been nerfed, and gave up right after because we couldn't kill the first flesh atronach before he enrages. Why ? because the two DDs were playing with such a f***ed up build that they were barely able to pull out respectively 12k and 8k AoE DPS. So no, you can't just do whatever you like if you want to be efficient, or you'll just have to play solo content till you get bored, cause in a 4man or 12man group, you can't afford having someone playing a non-efficient build just because he likes to, especially for the "hard" content.

Yes... every build has to follow some logic, like stamina build and stamina skills;

Right now I'm using full heavy armor and dual wield and class skills fully focusing on magicka, I have a good magicka pool and magicka regeneration and I'm able already to solo all world bosses and Fungal Grotto.

Shaiba

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

I'm able already to solo all world bosses and Fungal Grotto.

Sorry but these are not hard content You said you're lvl 19 so I suppose it was normal Fungal Grotto, normal dungeons are soloable by anyone. You'll encounter more difficulty on veteran dungeons (even if some of them are easy and soloable too ). I think (correct me if I'm wrong) CreepyPahuska was talking about "hard" group content such as veteran Imperial City Prison/veteran White Gold Tower and trials and I think what he said works for "hard" solo content too (veteran Maelstrom Arena). In those you'll need a solid build, you'll need to be efficient, or it'll be a pain for you and/or your group.

And solo build are really different than party build too. In a group, if you're are a tank, you have to primarily focus on that role (and you can do something else while doing so such as buffing your teammates, CC, add a little bit of damage or whatever you want without interfering with your primary role). And like I said earlier, NB is a good class to add DPS while tanking (5-7k for a tank in endgame content is pretty good). In a group it doesn't matter if you're doing "low" DPS (even if it's pretty decent for a tank, it's still really low), you have teammates that will focus on that.

As a NB tank in endgame content, i'm doing 5-7k DPS (depending of the content ), as a NB DPS I can go 25k (and i'm pretty bad at DPSing cause my main and fav roles in this game are healer and tank, decent DDs will do more than me ). For harder content you'll have to choose what will be your "main" role, you can't be good enough to be efficient if you choose to do both (DPSing in heavy armor and Sword and shield is kinda meh, you'll lose tons of DPS and won't be efficient (for harder content you'll have to be efficient) Tanking focusing on your DPS won't work too (same as previously for hard content), tanking isn't only about wearing a heavy armor).

I'm not talking about min/maxing build (you'll use that for leaderboards), only efficient ones (that allow you to accomplish these contents). Your build will change depending on what you're doing (tanking ? DPSing ? 4 man dungeon ? Solo play ? Trials ? vMA ? solo PvP ? Group PvP ?).

People's opinion are, for the most part (especially on this topic), based on their own experience

Yeah, I didn't think I had to tell but yeah I have played my magicka NB tank in endgame content. My build was tested in harder content (not the 2 new dungeons of SoH I must admitt), modified to be efficient (I have tried different combination of gear/skill). I think the guy who wrote Bloodletter build has tested it in endame content too (we can see a video in vWGT pre-nerf).

Few days ago I went to vICP with my girlfriend with 2 PU DDs. We know the dungeon like the back of our hands. We've done it countless times before the DB nerf to farm achievements and gear. Guess what ? We struggled like never before on the first boss, even if the whole dungeon has been nerfed, and gave up right after because we couldn't kill the first flesh atronach before he enrages. Why ? because the two DDs were playing with such a f***ed up build that they were barely able to pull out respectively 12k and 8k AoE DPS.

Ah ah this one was the badest run we have ever did in vICP Even with my NB healer (which have decent DPS) i couldn't compensate their low DPS, sadly.

So no, you can't just do whatever you like if you want to be efficient, or you'll just have to play solo content till you get bored, cause in a 4man or 12man group, you can't afford having someone playing a non-efficient build just because he likes to, especially for the "hard" content.

Sadly this is true. You'll have to be efficient enough to pass those content.

Gabrielzavadski

Hmm... now I don't know if I make damage dealer or tank, just wanted to use heavy armor.

PS4_ZeColmeia

Ok so personally you are building your nightblade like mine. What I will tell you is I have 1 character so I literally do everything on this character. I have 308sp. You need 138 or so if you don't do any crafting.

Passives are going to be your friend. I will say stay made or stam until you get in the neighborhood of that many sp as it is hard.

You also need leeching strikes, your sustain will suck, but that will make it manageable.

psychotic13

Sounds like you're trying to make a 'sap tank' do a YouTube search and you should find plenty of videos for reference

Gabrielzavadski

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Ok so personally you are building your nightblade like mine. What I will tell you is I have 1 character so I literally do everything on this character. I have 308sp. You need 138 or so if you don't do any crafting.

Passives are going to be your friend. I will say stay made or stam until you get in the neighborhood of that many sp as it is hard.

You also need leeching strikes, your sustain will suck, but that will make it manageable.

Sorry for the newbie question, but I don't understand when you say "I have '308sp'. You need 138 or so if you don't do any crafting."... What is this "sp"?

Again, I don't understand what you said "I will say 'stay made or stam' until you get in the neighborhood of that many sp as it is hard.".

Can you explain me, please?

BruhItsOver9000

Gabrielzavadski wrote: »

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

Ok so personally you are building your nightblade like mine. What I will tell you is I have 1 character so I literally do everything on this character. I have 308sp. You need 138 or so if you don't do any crafting.

Passives are going to be your friend. I will say stay made or stam until you get in the neighborhood of that many sp as it is hard.

You also need leeching strikes, your sustain will suck, but that will make it manageable.

Sorry for the newbie question, but I don't understand when you say "I have '308sp'. You need 138 or so if you don't do any crafting."... What is this "sp"?

Again, I don't understand what you said "I will say 'stay made or stam' until you get in the neighborhood of that many sp as it is hard.".

Can you explain me, please?

Sp means skill points. Also the video that i showed you, just copy it for pvp and pve.