Advice for a bosmer nightblade?

Glivii

So I'm kinda new to ESO and find myself dying a lot when it comes to PvP and bosses (especially in Cyrodiil). I need advice on how to build my nightblade to make it stronger, whether it be changing my tactics, skills, weapons, or anything really.

Level: Champion 170

Skills:
Assassin 50
-Impale IV

Shadow 39
-Shadowy disguise IV

Dual wield
- rending slashes IV
- Bloodthirst IV

Vampire
-Invigorating drain IV

Main questions:

HEALING:
Are there ANY good nightblade healing skills? All of the ones I see heal over time, and in PvP, I die before I can get healed at all. I've turned to vampirism because I find the healing ability in that skill line better than swallow soul and the siphoning tree (not by much).
I've also heard of using a restoration staff for duel wield (I currently have a bow). Is that the only solution?

STEALTH:
Obviously, nightblades are based on stealth. I use shadowy disguise, but it only keeps me hidden for 2 seconds at a time, and I find my magicka running out when I continually use it. I see other nightblades that seem to stay invisible for much longer, and the particles surrounding them makes it almost seem like a different skill. Is there a stealth skill I'm missing here?

ARMOR:
I use heavy armor (bad, right?) because when I first started out and didn't know anything about the game, I just thought the strength was the only thing that mattered. Should I switch to medium armor? I've been trying it out, and I just seem to die so much more easily than when I use heavy armor. I know lighter armor helps with stealth, but is it even worth it when you die in 5 hits?

Any advice would be appreciated!

blkjag

The skill you're referring to is suffle under the medium armor skill line.
So far as armor goes if your stam go with medium armor if your magicka go with light.
If you're on PS4 na I can help in game. Just let me know

shack80

Assuming you are stamina based:

For sure you need vigor to stay alive. It's the best healing for stamina based chars.

I also have my main as bosmer nightblade. This is my set for PVE:

CP 597.
All attributes on Stamina.

5x VO, 5X Nightmother, 2x Kragh

Skills
1st bar. Steel tornado, surprise attack, resolving vigor, rearming trap, blood craze - Flawless Dawnbreaker
2st bar. Arrow Barrage, Caltrops, Siphoning attacks, Poison arrow, Relentless focus - Rent
I might change blood craze to Killers Blade and Rent on Veil of blades, or Ballista depenting on the situation.

With this setup I hit 31k on dps test on 3m dummy. I can easily do almost all pve content with this.

I'm not so familiar with PVP, but for that you want skills like ambush, Shadow Cloak, Mass Hysteria... etc.

Feel free to contact for more precise info and if on EU servers maybe some practicing together.

davey1107

My main is a stamblade...definitely my favorite. I can think of a lot of tips for you. It seems like your character has a lot of little things going on that might make him a third as powerful.

Skill line levels

Get those skill lines leveled! As a vet, you should be hitting 50 on all class skills, medium armor, heavy armor, dual, bow, 2h. You should be getting legerdemain to 16 (discussed below). As a vet you get daily enlightenment. This super charged xp is good for leveling skill lines and abilities too. Make turn in bars with things you need to level and run some quests, like world boss dailies. Things will level quickly.


Passives

Your comment about cloak lasting 2 seconds makes me wonder if you're investing in all the passives (one extends the length of cloak to 4 seconds). You should be buying every passive that makes you stronger...all in class skills, all in weapons you use, all in medium, first three in heavy. Several in fighters and mages.

One passive that many ignore is in legerdemain. At leger level 16 you can spend up to 4 points to reduce sneak cost by 40%. This is ESSENTIAL for a nightblade who likes to Pvp. It's a bit of a grind, but not horrible. I spend one point in the leger passive that allows more fence interactions, which increases your daily allowance from 100 to 220...but it's not necessary. Then I run a "steal route". The inn complex in orsinium is best...few npcs, 175 items per run. If you don't have that dlc, the two ships in glenumbra. Steal, relog, steal. Fence items, laundering mats and selling treasure/garbage. Do this occasionally, and in ten trips you're there.

If you have unlocked passives you haven't spent in, get a map and hunt the shards to open them.


Armor weight

Based on your post, gear is killing your performance. You need to be in at least 5 pieces medium. You can go up to two heavy...choose chest, legs or boots for these pieces. There are ways to mitigate the loss in armor through traits and CPs, discussed below.


Armor sets

You're over 160 champion points, so you can start building some nice permanent gear sets. Being successful in ESO is largely about equipping properly. You have 12 slots when dual wielding. Your most powerful builds will be 5/5/2 with two complete sets and a monster set, or 5/4/3 with agility jewelry.

I like to use a craft set as my base...I use Hundings Rage. As a second set you can go vipers sting. I really like Briar hearts for its damage and heal. Red Mountain is also good. Any of these can be bought in guild stores for $$$$. Another set that is ignored, but is great for CP grinding, is Baharas Curse. It will throw you back a ton of health. With the Hew's event going, maybe pick up a robust jewelry set and two piece of gear in the stores...they should be like $1000 gold per.

Adding to your two sets can be a monster helm set - any stamina dps set is good, velidreth, Valkyn. Engine guardian is great for pve. The easiest way to get these is to buy the mask at the weekend vendor and then grind for the shoulders in normal level dungeons. 2-3 pieces of agility jewelry work almost as good, just less fun.


Armor traits

For pvp, impenetrable will MASSIVELY help with your squishiness. On my stamblade, I actually have two sets of Hundings...one with impen for pvp. For other times, divines is the standard...sometimes infused on large pieces.


Armor quality

Now that you're cp160, you can start investing in higher quality gear. Once you know the sets you like, you should be in purple everything at minimum. Then start slowly investing in gold pieces one at a time. Especially weapons...the upgrade from purple is significant.


Enchantments

Stamina mostly on armor...maybe a few health if you feel squishy. On jewelry, as you get more experienced you want to move from stam recovery to weapon damage. NBs have siphoning attacks for recovery...it's more efficient to use this buff and have more damage.


Champion points

Here's where people really unintentionally nerf themselves. Piling into basic things you use all the time is far more powerful than spreading around all over the place. These passives are simply better than others.

Green: stamina recovery and reduce stamina cost. Don't be tempted to overspend in health recover...it's not as useful as it sounds. An end game cp600 NB should look something like 100 stam recover, 15 health, 5 magic, 80 reduce stam cost. I spent in recovery first when I earned my CPs...experts like Alcast now suggest reduce cost first.

Blue: mighty is your friend. This increases the effectiveness of any stam attack. It far outweighs any other point in the tree. You should take mighty straight to 90, then start spreading some into thaumaturge and precise strikes. Those three are all you need.

Red: elemental defender and hardy. One mitigates incoming stamina attacks, one mitigates magic. Split your points between these and ignore everything else. End game is 100/100 in these two lines. The exception is if this is primarily a pvp character, in which case you can also bring in some crit mitigation from that passive (although it's easier to use impenetrable armor to help here).


That's a lot of info...hopefully it helps. Don't expect any one thing from above to be a miracle cure...but all of those things add up. With a few adjustments here and there, you'll probably be twice as strong. I'd start with champion points...when I first leveled them and went from my first approach to the one above it made a huge difference.

Glivii

blkjag wrote: »

The skill you're referring to is suffle under the medium armor skill line.
So far as armor goes if your stam go with medium armor if your magicka go with light.
If you're on PS4 na I can help in game. Just let me know

Thank you for replying so quickly I'll be sure to try to focus more on Medium armor as I do tend to use stamina abilities more often!

Glivii

shack80 wrote: »

Assuming you are stamina based:

For sure you need vigor to stay alive. It's the best healing for stamina based chars.

I also have my main as bosmer nightblade. This is my set for PVE:

CP 597.
All attributes on Stamina.

5x VO, 5X Nightmother, 2x Kragh

Skills
1st bar. Steel tornado, surprise attack, resolving vigor, rearming trap, blood craze - Flawless Dawnbreaker
2st bar. Arrow Barrage, Caltrops, Siphoning attacks, Poison arrow, Relentless focus - Rent
I might change blood craze to Killers Blade and Rent on Veil of blades, or Ballista depenting on the situation.

With this setup I hit 31k on dps test on 3m dummy. I can easily do almost all pve content with this.

I'm not so familiar with PVP, but for that you want skills like ambush, Shadow Cloak, Mass Hysteria... etc.

Feel free to contact for more precise info and if on EU servers maybe some practicing together.

thanks for all this info ^^ I'll definitely look into the skills you mentioned, and try to focus more on stamina (right now I'm pretty evenly split between magicka and stam, but tend to rely on stamina more anyway). I'll also try to use medium armor since that's better for stamina based.

thanks for all this info ^^

shack80

Glivii wrote: »

shack80 wrote: »

Assuming you are stamina based:

For sure you need vigor to stay alive. It's the best healing for stamina based chars.

I also have my main as bosmer nightblade. This is my set for PVE:

CP 597.
All attributes on Stamina.

5x VO, 5X Nightmother, 2x Kragh

Skills
1st bar. Steel tornado, surprise attack, resolving vigor, rearming trap, blood craze - Flawless Dawnbreaker
2st bar. Arrow Barrage, Caltrops, Siphoning attacks, Poison arrow, Relentless focus - Rent
I might change blood craze to Killers Blade and Rent on Veil of blades, or Ballista depenting on the situation.

With this setup I hit 31k on dps test on 3m dummy. I can easily do almost all pve content with this.

I'm not so familiar with PVP, but for that you want skills like ambush, Shadow Cloak, Mass Hysteria... etc.

Feel free to contact for more precise info and if on EU servers maybe some practicing together.

thanks for all this info ^^ I'll definitely look into the skills you mentioned, and try to focus more on stamina (right now I'm pretty evenly split between magicka and stam, but tend to rely on stamina more anyway). I'll also try to use medium armor since that's better for stamina based.

thanks for all this info ^^

You're welcome. And remember to upgrade your weapons to legendary. That really builds your DMG. Also Dawnbreaker and rearming trap are quite essential for max dps possible.

Glivii

davey1107 wrote: »

My main is a stamblade...definitely my favorite. I can think of a lot of tips for you. It seems like your character has a lot of little things going on that might make him a third as powerful.

Skill line levels

Get those skill lines leveled! As a vet, you should be hitting 50 on all class skills, medium armor, heavy armor, dual, bow, 2h. You should be getting legerdemain to 16 (discussed below). As a vet you get daily enlightenment. This super charged xp is good for leveling skill lines and abilities too. Make turn in bars with things you need to level and run some quests, like world boss dailies. Things will level quickly.


Passives

Your comment about cloak lasting 2 seconds makes me wonder if you're investing in all the passives (one extends the length of cloak to 4 seconds). You should be buying every passive that makes you stronger...all in class skills, all in weapons you use, all in medium, first three in heavy. Several in fighters and mages.

One passive that many ignore is in legerdemain. At leger level 16 you can spend up to 4 points to reduce sneak cost by 40%. This is ESSENTIAL for a nightblade who likes to Pvp. It's a bit of a grind, but not horrible. I spend one point in the leger passive that allows more fence interactions, which increases your daily allowance from 100 to 220...but it's not necessary. Then I run a "steal route". The inn complex in orsinium is best...few npcs, 175 items per run. If you don't have that dlc, the two ships in glenumbra. Steal, relog, steal. Fence items, laundering mats and selling treasure/garbage. Do this occasionally, and in ten trips you're there.

If you have unlocked passives you haven't spent in, get a map and hunt the shards to open them.


Armor weight

Based on your post, gear is killing your performance. You need to be in at least 5 pieces medium. You can go up to two heavy...choose chest, legs or boots for these pieces. There are ways to mitigate the loss in armor through traits and CPs, discussed below.


Armor sets

You're over 160 champion points, so you can start building some nice permanent gear sets. Being successful in ESO is largely about equipping properly. You have 12 slots when dual wielding. Your most powerful builds will be 5/5/2 with two complete sets and a monster set, or 5/4/3 with agility jewelry.

I like to use a craft set as my base...I use Hundings Rage. As a second set you can go vipers sting. I really like Briar hearts for its damage and heal. Red Mountain is also good. Any of these can be bought in guild stores for $$$$. Another set that is ignored, but is great for CP grinding, is Baharas Curse. It will throw you back a ton of health. With the Hew's event going, maybe pick up a robust jewelry set and two piece of gear in the stores...they should be like $1000 gold per.

Adding to your two sets can be a monster helm set - any stamina dps set is good, velidreth, Valkyn. Engine guardian is great for pve. The easiest way to get these is to buy the mask at the weekend vendor and then grind for the shoulders in normal level dungeons. 2-3 pieces of agility jewelry work almost as good, just less fun.


Armor traits

For pvp, impenetrable will MASSIVELY help with your squishiness. On my stamblade, I actually have two sets of Hundings...one with impen for pvp. For other times, divines is the standard...sometimes infused on large pieces.


Armor quality

Now that you're cp160, you can start investing in higher quality gear. Once you know the sets you like, you should be in purple everything at minimum. Then start slowly investing in gold pieces one at a time. Especially weapons...the upgrade from purple is significant.


Enchantments

Stamina mostly on armor...maybe a few health if you feel squishy. On jewelry, as you get more experienced you want to move from stam recovery to weapon damage. NBs have siphoning attacks for recovery...it's more efficient to use this buff and have more damage.


Champion points

Here's where people really unintentionally nerf themselves. Piling into basic things you use all the time is far more powerful than spreading around all over the place. These passives are simply better than others.

Green: stamina recovery and reduce stamina cost. Don't be tempted to overspend in health recover...it's not as useful as it sounds. An end game cp600 NB should look something like 100 stam recover, 15 health, 5 magic, 80 reduce stam cost. I spent in recovery first when I earned my CPs...experts like Alcast now suggest reduce cost first.

Blue: mighty is your friend. This increases the effectiveness of any stam attack. It far outweighs any other point in the tree. You should take mighty straight to 90, then start spreading some into thaumaturge and precise strikes. Those three are all you need.

Red: elemental defender and hardy. One mitigates incoming stamina attacks, one mitigates magic. Split your points between these and ignore everything else. End game is 100/100 in these two lines. The exception is if this is primarily a pvp character, in which case you can also bring in some crit mitigation from that passive (although it's easier to use impenetrable armor to help here).


That's a lot of info...hopefully it helps. Don't expect any one thing from above to be a miracle cure...but all of those things add up. With a few adjustments here and there, you'll probably be twice as strong. I'd start with champion points...when I first leveled them and went from my first approach to the one above it made a huge difference.

Wowwww, I haven't checked this in a while, but I'm really glad I did because I think this answer will help loads.

Thanks a lot for putting so much time into this response!! I'll definitely be trying out everything to become stronger

MetnickGr66

Can someone please explain to me which "parts" count as armor sets slots? Because i read that we have 12 slots if we dual wield or 11 with two-handed weapon but i count less.

Thank you very much for you time and sorry for asking something like this.

Narvuntien

Leeching Strikes (siphoning strike) and Rally from the 2h skill line also heal.

There is three jewellery slots, two weapon slots and 7 armor slots. which is 12 total.

davey1107

@metnickgr

Welcome to the forums and the game. May your life be long and your sword bloody. Lol.

No question is a bad question...that’s what the forums are here for. There are a ton of experts in here...ask any question, and we will answer or point you to other online resources.

However, two quick tips. First, I’d recommend posting a new topic on questions like that. If you bury a question in a post about something else, it usually wont get noticed.

However, If you’re asking a question about something someone else wrote, there are two good ways to draw their attention. Either put their statement in a quote using the tool bar above, or even easier send them a ding notification by using @username. Like I did to you. Either option flags the person so they know to come back to the thread and respond.

Again, welcome to the game.

MetnickGr66

@davey1107 ah thank you very much my friend! I started ESO the day it game out but after a month i stopped playing. Now i will play as long as it is alive!

Thank you very much for the response!