Help with Dad

pikapp515_ESO

My father, 60, has played Ultima Online and WoW for years but is now trying to jump into ESO with my suggestion. He's created a Nightblade, got it to lvl 12 and has only been using a bow... I mean only using a bow.. no skill use.. only light attacks. We're solving that.. :b

My request of you folks is can you think of a Nightblade Build that uses the bow and is relatively forgiving. What should be his second weapon? Would you recomend Stamina or Magika build? Do you have particular skill selection/rotation suggestions for a beginning player trying to adjust to the ESO playstyle?

I'm about to craft him some medium armor and weapon set so he can stop dying so often.. but I need your thoughts on weapon and initial build style as I've not played much in the last 6 months and was always a casual since launch anyway.

Thank you so much!

JamieAubrey

pikapp515_ESO wrote: »

He's created a Nightblade, got it to lvl 12 and has only been using a bow... I mean only using a bow.. no skill use.. only light attacks.

I need to try that, 1-50 0 skills only using light and heavy attacks

pikapp515_ESO wrote: »

My request of you folks is can you think of a Nightblade Build that uses the bow and is relatively forgiving. What should be his second weapon? Would you recomend Stamina or Magika build? Do you have particular skill selection/rotation suggestions for a beginning player trying to adjust to the ESO playstyle?

If he is going to use a bow its best to have a race that is suited for stamina as all the bow skills use Stamina, Redguard/Khajiit/Bosmer


I don't play my StamBlade so I'm not the best for advice but this is just a starter

susmitds

Stamina Nightblades are as a class rather unforgiving to play due to their lack of healing and survival skills. A Stamina Sorcerer will be much better.

pikapp515_ESO

agreed.. I facepalmed when he told me he'd chosen Nightblade. But he tends to stick with things and it's not like we're ever going to be high level dungeon diving or serious PvP players. Just dopey casuals.

I think he chose Redguard. That helps.

LadyNalcarya

I think for a solo player magicka build would be easier (yeah, redguard isnt the best race for this, but for casual playstyle itll still work). As a nb, he will have constant hp regen and very good sustain.
And yeah, if he wants to play a stamina build, stamsorc would be the easiest.

RaddlemanNumber7

I’ve just spent the last few weeks levelling a Bosmer NB archer.

While levelling 1 – 50 I tend not to bother too much with stam/mag specialisation. With no passives and a small skill set, I find staying alive is the main issue. I keep putting every other attribute point into health until I stop feeling too squishy.

I had bow on one bar, dual wield on the other. I kept at least one skill from each of the class skill lines slotted on each bar, even if I wasn’t going to use them, just to keep the skill line levels moving up. The rest of the slots were filled with weapon skills.

Bow bar – I used cloak and agony a lot combined with 2 or 3 of the bow skills I had, settling on draining shot, acid spray and snipe once I had them. Added Mark Target when it was available.

D/W bar – teleport strike, blood craze and booldthirst were constants. Swallow Soul was used for when I ran out of stamina. Refreshing Path and then Drain Power were added once available.

I used Soul Tether for Ultimate. I decided not to slot any fighters guild skills.

Mages guild jewelry with recovery glyphs. Tri-pots. Blue Health/Stam food.

I equipped him with 5 Hvy/2 Med armour. 5 Whitestrakes when on the dual wield bar, 5 NMG when on the bow bar. He’s a sneaky character, and tried to start all his fights by shooting someone in the back from fairly close range – pulled a heavy attack and released it with either poison arrow, scatter shot or arrow spray. I found heavy/medium weaving very easy with the bow, far more so than with other weapons.

I’m about the same age as your dad. I’m a bit slow to react and have somewhat limited manual dexterity. The point of this build was to have an archer who didn’t need to dodge or run backwards at all, ever. Teleport Strike provided nearly all my mobility in combat, and I only used the W key in dire emergency. I was able to open combat from a distance and then swap bars once to continue the fight toe-to-toe if needed. It worked. He was a real boss killer from the beginning. I successfully solo’d just about everything in the base game zones apart from the group dungeons. The only world boss I couldn’t beat at my own level was that group of necro’s in Auridon.

When he hit level 50, as was my plan, I rebuilt the character as a pure Stam DD archer with 7 Med armour, bow on both bars, camo hunter and all the rest of it, and then introduced him to the joys of Lycanthropy. He still kills all the bosses, but now he eats them as well.

ZOS_JohanaB

We've moved this thread to Combat & Character Mechanics

Farmerr

Put almost everything into stam for bow and dual wield then maybe a little, just a little into magicka for the class skills - especially siphoning skills, fear, blur, as these will keep you alive or give breathing room.

If you use your resources right with siphoning strikes and building your CP later on, you'll have plenty of ways to heal, but just starting out might be a little bit of a challenge. Vigor from assault skill line in PvP runs on stam and heals fairly well.

^Soul tether and teleport strike are useful and both run mag too.

The only drawback to any NB build is healing during crunchtime. If you know what you're doing you can avoid it. However, once you get into trouble, it's hard to get out.

Get all the skyshards you can! It's a chore but pays off later. Use gamemapscout or maybe UESPs eso online map to find out where they are.

Tandor

If he needs to keep it simple then stick to just the bow, no real need for a second weapon bar if he's solo PvEing. My nightblade archer has dual wield set up as a second weapon but barely uses it. He's stamina based but I can't recall his build, will check it out later.

Elmour0Fudd

Hi Am similar to your Dad and only started back in June but primary is Breton Sorc. with DM, dadric summon and storm as class and now at CP240,
still running storylines at moment but to the point'
am using one hand & shield and both stave type and yep problem is dying to damn fast lol
with clannfear active I find the ability to heal very useful plus it's a good target magnet after the initial strike, also if matriarch is active another source of healing in combat.
Am sure there are far better setup's but learning curve is steep and with bad arthritis even a spastic mouse could react faster lol
I tried PVP and was slaughtered, so will stick to PVE and solo stuff for a while yet, till I can make 8-9 trait stuff on all lines.
At 5-6 traits and a few up to 8, but as was said earlier skyshards are a must to open up passives, without them it'll be a rather slow and painful growth, which I do admit is a royal pain but worth it in the long run.
anyway that's my 2 penny's worth hope it helps

RavenSworn

What the other posters has said is true, the biggest problem with night blade is staying alive. With that being said though, let me go through how I dealt with levelling with my bosmer nb, which is my main coincidentally.

I had this on my main bar

Draining shot
Piercing mark
Mass hysteria
Lethal arrow
Poison injection

The idea is to start with lethal arrow from afar, injection when low health, and Piercing mark on main targets. Draining shot on other adds. Mass hysteria for multiple mobs. Nb need to prioritise their targets. Kill the squishies and hold off the big guys. You can also use Volley or Venom Spray for aoe but it's a bit risky u less you have something to root them down eg sorcerer or dragon knight but night blade do not have that luxury.

Given that your dad has reached 12(or higher) you might want to consider going stealth mode and use these:

Shadowy cloak
Debilitate
Poison injection
Draining shot
Utility skill

The thing about night blades, they dont start strong, a lot of the abilities they have in their arsenal really shines in the later levels when you have access to things like mirage or Piercing mark or SAP essence.

Your dad would need to have a melee weapon for a secondary, IMHO the two hander really goes well with the bursty nature of nb. A cloaked buffed wrecking blow can hit like a truck and one shot an armored mob. It's basically killing a primary target while reducing the npc numbers.

Dual wield is fun as well and a teleport strike > whirlwind > cloak > surprise attack / killers blade usually can help with group mobs, rather than the carve ability for two handers. It really depends on your dad and what you can bring to the table to complement his dps.

Hope this helps! And tell your dad welcome to the Elder Scrolls Online.

TheFamousMockingbird

Also think about crafting him an armor set that compliments his preference for light/heavy attacks, such as Gladiator set. Big boost to weapon attacks on low health targets.

Waffennacht

Real quick, that is freakin awesome! It's so cool to hear you hanging out with your pa.

Awesome!

CasNation

Try using draining shot and Killers Blade for early stam heals. I would go dual wield back back. Both of the first two skills have healing morphs. Also, while strife will be bad later on for a stam build, you can use it early for some extra heals.

Ashtaris

If your father would like to join a guild for older/mature gamers, we would love to have him join our guild, Greybeards & Gals. I'm 63 myself and have been around in the game since the beginning. I'm sure many of us can give him a hand in improving his build. You can visit our web site at:

forum.greybeardsandgals.com

Hempyre

NB is a bad choice for a first toon. I did the same when I started. On paper it sounds great, all the boxes checked for what I like in a toon, but in reality a new player doesn't have the understanding of the game machanics for an NB.

I highly recommend he play a magplar to start. Very forgiving and short of mobility they do it all, ranged, melee, heal, AOE, CC, debuf, its all there. Very forgiving first toon and a pve/grinding god.

I started this long road on UO myself.

KingYogi415

Stamblade is the worst character to start on.

You need to PvP 100k or get 2hander to 42 to get even a single heal.

Farduumkharis

Craft him a set of Whitestrake's armor!!
Raddleman mentioned this among other great tips, but it's worth repeating.

When an enemy deals you a killing blow, the Whitestrake's set will give you a second chance plus give you a shield to help you get out of harm's way. i've been playing this for over two years & i Still use it as my main set, it's Saved My Life too many times to count

i *think* it's a 4-trait set, so if you can't craft it yet, email me & i'll set you guys up. i think it's Awesome that youre playing together!

2ndcovenant_ESO

I play with my grandson so it's cool that you both can hang out and have fun here too. If he is going to stick to NB and the bow, redguard actually is a great race because they are primarily a stamina based race which is what you need for weapon skills. So good choice there. One thing that I didn't see anyone mention is an ability called Agony from the siphoning line. It doesn't seem like a home run skill at first so a lot of people ignore it But when going up against two mobs or more, you can it on the boss to basically take it out of the battle for 30 seconds as long as you don't accidentally hit it. Most battles don't last 30 seconds so you can kill the trash mobs, heal up, then attack the boss at your liesure. I do that all the time. I think that it's funny. Also, remember, the more abilities of a skill line on your skill bars, the faster you will learn new skills from that skill line. So if you want to learn Lethal Arrow fastest, load at least two, maybe three, bow skills onto your bar. I suggest Endless Hail and Poison Injection. I also Highly suggest getting sneaky with your first attack. From a distance, crouch and pull back your bow and hold the mouse button for 3 seconds (from when you start the pull animation) and when you fire the heavy attack it will do bonus crouching (stealth attack) damage And quite often will stun your target for at least one whole second. That gives you time for an extra attack But there is an even better trick with that. Crouch into sneak, pull back your bow for three seconds as mentioned, but instead of releasing the mouse button to release the arrow, While Holding the Mouse Button (don't release), press your keyboard button assigned to your Poison Injection. That will fire both your PI arrow And your Stealthed Heavy attack arrow at the exact same time. 9 times out of 10 that will kill any trash mob around your level in one blow. Period, gone, dead. Also if someone in your guild is in a zone that had some place that you want to get to, you don't have to ask, just right click on their name in the guild roster and choose teleport to player. this can get you into hot water sometimes but usually not and can get you to the Thief stone specifically a lot faster to gain that extra crit chance or the Warrior stone (in the same zone as Thief) which gives a flat weapon damage increase per attack. Also, as a side note, becoming a werewolf can be fun for stamina based players and it is levelled per mob killed (their level compared to yours doesn't matter). At level 50 plus or even level 3, if you can survive the Goblin Cave in Auridon (if you are Dominion), the gobbies spawn so fast that your can reach max level as a WW there in a couple of hours. If you choose the Pack Leader WW ultimate morph, you become a white WW with two wolf pets who respawn after 10 seconds if they die. I like.

AtmaDarkwolf

2ndcovenant_ESO wrote: »

WALL-OF-TEXT!

Please do not take this the wrong way, because the info you give is mostly quite helpful for solo overland play, but sir, you really should use some punctuation and line breaks.

That was pretty mean read, and I found myself repeating lines simply because the eyes don't know where the next line starts (Because the eye has nothing to anchor to to judge where the next line starts)

Breaking that into 2-3 paragraphs (with no other punctuation, if one chooses to be lazy) would have made it a LOT easier to read.

Tabbycat

If your dad wants to play with a bow, I'd recommend Sorc. You can set him up with the two pets, the Clannfear and the Winged Twilight.