Need help with my magicka nightblade, PvE

Folkbandit

Hey gang,

I’m new to The Elder Scrolls Online but also new to MMOs. I just happen to love the Elder Scrolls series and decided to chance it with ESO. I’m having a lot of fun but I’m struggling with my class which is magicka nightblade.

One day, I’d love to try PvP but for right now, I’m sticking to PvE. I’m level 22 and I’ve faintly been following Deltia’s umbra build/guide but honestly, I’m not sure how to play this class properly or what kind of armor I need, how often it should be upgraded, what to do in dungeons, or what main skills I should really be sticking with right now. I could really use some help.

Deltia’s 11-25 video says to use sword and shield, and I did for a while. I grabbed some skills from it but I went back to destruction staff because his guide says that should be the main weapon. It threw me off a bit.

But I’ve using Lotus Fan I, Concealed Weapon II, Swallow Soul II, and Impale II. I’ve learned about weaving but haven’t mastered it whatsoever. These abilities get me by, but I’m also spamming them, perhaps not in the right order, or not sneaking before Concealed Weapon and I feel like I’m not really getting the hang of playing a magicka nightblade.

In dungeons, I tend to die often and that’s happened more with Lotus Fan I think. As great of an ability I think it is, it teleports me to various different targets and sometimes the boss, where I shouldn’t be. Dungeons are chaotic and I’d like to know more what role the mightblade should play in one besides DPS.

If you want to see my stats, I run ESO-Database’s addon and this is my character page: https://eso-database.com/en/character/jothaire/13083070/

Any help/tips would be appreciated!

Thank you.

Lagerfueled

My main character for a long time is a Vampire Argonian Nightblade. I will tell you how I play the class and I will hope that some of this information will help you enjoy the class more.

First off I feel like the build you are copying is old and outdated. It also plays more like a melee class with magicka abilities which is not what I wanted when I decided to make my Nightblade. When I made my Nightblade I had the theme of a Warlock, or Blood Mage in mind and set out to create a character that resembled that theme.

When leveling, I used a Flame Destruction Staff as my main bar weapon, and a Restoration Staff as my secondary weapon. I built my main bar around attacks I used very frequently in combat and my back bar around buffs and heals.

For your main bar, in the lower levels you will have access to Strife, which will be your main spammable DPS skill. This is not only a low magicka cost, but it deals decent damage and applies a heal over time to you. You can choose either morph of this skill, but I chose Funnel Health since it not only heals me but one other person, so it comes in handy in groups. You want to level Assassin's Blade and morph it to Impale. This is your ranged Execute and you want to use it on high health mobs once they drop below 25% health, Impale allows you to execute from range, safely outside of melee distance. You will want to take Wall of Elements from Destruction Staff and morph it to Elemental Blockade for the increased size and duration. You will pretty much always be using Blockade on even single target fights as it offers insane damage. Get Mage Light from the Mage's Guild and slot it, once you can morph it take Inner Light. It passively increases your magicka, by up to 5% when fully leveled. For ultimate use Death Stroke, morphed into Soul Harvest. You mainly use this ultimate to increase the rate at which you gain ultimate. You then use the accumulated ultimate to use the ultimate ability on your back bar. That leaves you with a flex spot for skill 4. In lower levels you can use Crippling grasp, the higher dps morph of cripple or Refreshing Path, the healing morph of Path of Darkness. When you gain access to Essence Drain you will want to slot it on this bar, trading crippling grasp/refreshing path to the back bar.

For Back Bar, slot Regeneration and morph it to Rapid Regeneration. You will make sure this is always cast on you before each fight, adding a nice HOT to keep you healed. In lower levels and while leveling trade other resto staff skills in and out to keep them leveled too. Slot Cripple or Refreshing path on here if they aren't on your front bar, you want to level Siphoning Strikes as well, and morph it to Siphoning Attacks. Once you get Grim Focus put it on this bar too and eventually morph it to Merciless Resolve. Once You have Merciless resolve morphed, switch this skills over to front bar and move impale to the back bar. Keep Inner Light slotted on the back bar as well so you don't lose the Magicka bonus. For ultimate use Soul Shred, morphed into Soul Tether for a good damage and healing ultimate.

That was a lot of information so I am going to visually show you what your bars will look like.

Before you gain access to Merciless Resolve and Sap Essence your bars would resemble this:



Pre Level 50 and Champion Levels you want to get gear that increases Magicka and Magicka Regen as much as possible. Put 1 point into Health for every 5 points in Magicka in these levels.

Try to get 5 Seducers and 3 Magnus if possible.

After gaining access to Merciless Resolve and Sap Essence Your bars would look like this:

http://eso-skills.com/skill/?z=PDB1ftWV@DTc79cP%DSk1XJR@DRkvmPX&j=t

You will want to use dual destruction staff once you get sap essence, but always carry a restoration staff with you for tough solo encounters.

This should take you all the way through until you hit level 50 and Champion levels and even beyond.

For single target normal health mobs, buff up with Merciless Resolve, charge a heavy attack, drop Blockade of fire, spam Funnel Health until it dies.

For multiple normal health mobs, buff up with Merciless Resolve, charge a heavy attack, drop blockade of fire, spam Sap Essence until they die.

When you get to running Undaunted Pledges and Vet Dungeons you will need to switch your build up a bit. This requires level 10 in Mage's Guild.

For your end-game gear you want as much spell damage as possible. A good starting set without access to Undaunted Monster Sets would be 5x Julianos and 3x Torug Pact with Will Power Jewelry.

You will want to respec your attribute points at some point and put as much of your attributes into Magicka as you can and still stay above 17k health.

Here is your dungeon running skill bars:

http://eso-skills.com/skill/?z=PDB1ftWV@DTc79cP%DSk1V6K@DRkvkwD&j=t

For dungeons ensure you always have merciless resolve up, and that you use the proc (fires an arrow that does massive dps) when it is ready, and then immediately rebuff.

For trash mobs, drop blockade of fire, and then spam sap essence until they are all dead.

For dungeon Bosses you will Buff with Merciless Resolve , charge a heavy attack, apply cripple, medium attack, flame clench, medium attack, Shooting Star, weapon swap, medium attack, blockade of fire, medium attack, funnel health x 3, weapon swap, repeat. when you proc merciless resolve use the proc, then immediately rebuff. Use meteor off cooldown. ALSO instead of refreshing path/twisting path it is actually a DPS increase to instead use flame clench for the Damage over time it applies. If you do this, you will simply rotate through your weapon bars appying damage over time effects, and using merciless resolve and rebuffing it, and using shooting star on cooldown. You would usually not have much time to spam funnel health with this rotation.

Hope this helps, please feel free to drop me a message @Lagerfueled if you have any further questions or if you need some gear crafted on PC-NA server.

Folkbandit

Lagerfueled wrote: »

My main character for a long time is a Vampire Argonian Nightblade. I will tell you how I play the class and I will hope that some of this information will help you enjoy the class more.

First off I feel like the build you are copying is old and outdated. It also plays more like a melee class with magicka abilities which is not what I wanted when I decided to make my Nightblade. When I made my Nightblade I had the theme of a Warlock, or Blood Mage in mind and set out to create a character that resembled that theme.

When leveling, I used a Flame Destruction Staff as my main bar weapon, and a Restoration Staff as my secondary weapon. I built my main bar around attacks I used very frequently in combat and my back bar around buffs and heals.

For your main bar, in the lower levels you will have access to Strife, which will be your main spammable DPS skill. This is not only a low magicka cost, but it deals decent damage and applies a heal over time to you. You can choose either morph of this skill, but I chose Funnel Health since it not only heals me but one other person, so it comes in handy in groups. You want to level Assassin's Blade and morph it to Impale. This is your ranged Execute and you want to use it on high health mobs once they drop below 25% health, Impale allows you to execute from range, safely outside of melee distance. You will want to take Wall of Elements from Destruction Staff and morph it to Elemental Blockade for the increased size and duration. You will pretty much always be using Blockade on even single target fights as it offers insane damage. Get Mage Light from the Mage's Guild and slot it, once you can morph it take Inner Light. It passively increases your magicka, by up to 5% when fully leveled. For ultimate use Death Stroke, morphed into Soul Harvest. You mainly use this ultimate to increase the rate at which you gain ultimate. You then use the accumulated ultimate to use the ultimate ability on your back bar. That leaves you with a flex spot for skill 4. In lower levels you can use Crippling grasp, the higher dps morph of cripple or Refreshing Path, the healing morph of Path of Darkness. When you gain access to Essence Drain you will want to slot it on this bar, trading crippling grasp/refreshing path to the back bar.

For Back Bar, slot Regeneration and morph it to Rapid Regeneration. You will make sure this is always cast on you before each fight, adding a nice HOT to keep you healed. In lower levels and while leveling trade other resto staff skills in and out to keep them leveled too. Slot Cripple or Refreshing path on here if they aren't on your front bar, you want to level Siphoning Strikes as well, and morph it to Siphoning Attacks. Once you get Grim Focus put it on this bar too and eventually morph it to Merciless Resolve. Once You have Merciless resolve morphed, switch this skills over to front bar and move impale to the back bar. Keep Inner Light slotted on the back bar as well so you don't lose the Magicka bonus. For ultimate use Soul Shred, morphed into Soul Tether for a good damage and healing ultimate.

That was a lot of information so I am going to visually show you what your bars will look like.

Before you gain access to Merciless Resolve and Sap Essence your bars would resemble this:



Pre Level 50 and Champion Levels you want to get gear that increases Magicka and Magicka Regen as much as possible. Put 1 point into Health for every 5 points in Magicka in these levels.

Try to get 5 Seducers and 3 Magnus if possible.

After gaining access to Merciless Resolve and Sap Essence Your bars would look like this:

http://eso-skills.com/skill/?z=PDB1ftWV@DTc79cP%DSk1XJR@DRkvmPX&j=t

You will want to use dual destruction staff once you get sap essence, but always carry a restoration staff with you for tough solo encounters.

This should take you all the way through until you hit level 50 and Champion levels and even beyond.

For single target normal health mobs, buff up with Merciless Resolve, charge a heavy attack, drop Blockade of fire, spam Funnel Health until it dies.

For multiple normal health mobs, buff up with Merciless Resolve, charge a heavy attack, drop blockade of fire, spam Sap Essence until they die.

When you get to running Undaunted Pledges and Vet Dungeons you will need to switch your build up a bit. This requires level 10 in Mage's Guild.

For your end-game gear you want as much spell damage as possible. A good starting set without access to Undaunted Monster Sets would be 5x Julianos and 3x Torug Pact with Will Power Jewelry.

You will want to respec your attribute points at some point and put as much of your attributes into Magicka as you can and still stay above 17k health.

Here is your dungeon running skill bars:

http://eso-skills.com/skill/?z=PDB1ftWV@DTc79cP%DSk1V6K@DRkvkwD&j=t

For dungeons ensure you always have merciless resolve up, and that you use the proc (fires an arrow that does massive dps) when it is ready, and then immediately rebuff.

For trash mobs, drop blockade of fire, and then spam sap essence until they are all dead.

For dungeon Bosses you will Buff with Merciless Resolve , charge a heavy attack, apply cripple, medium attack, flame clench, medium attack, Shooting Star, weapon swap, medium attack, blockade of fire, medium attack, funnel health x 3, weapon swap, repeat. when you proc merciless resolve use the proc, then immediately rebuff. Use meteor off cooldown. ALSO instead of refreshing path/twisting path it is actually a DPS increase to instead use flame clench for the Damage over time it applies. If you do this, you will simply rotate through your weapon bars appying damage over time effects, and using merciless resolve and rebuffing it, and using shooting star on cooldown. You would usually not have much time to spam funnel health with this rotation.

Hope this helps, please feel free to drop me a message @Lagerfueled if you have any further questions or if you need some gear crafted on PC-NA server.

Wow, thank you for taking the time to wrote all of this out. I will read it tomorrow and let you know if I have questions.

Drevick

He gives some good advice. If you want to talk anything out in game, message me anytime I'm online and I'll help as much as I can.