Speedy quester nightblade gear advice

Megamatch

Hey guys,

I returned to the game like 2months ago and due to limited playtime I'm still stuck farming for skill points to be able to do all the things I want ingame. I have atm 2 characters I regularly play, both are nightblades of course. At the moment both are vamps, mostly to *** off vampbite sellers once a week by giving it for free.

Atm I'm working on doing the cadwells silver + skydsshards + public dungeons in each zone. I really enjoy the main story but I want to make it faster. I read every quest (only picking up main quests, found this addon that makes it easy to spot) BUT I want to be faster. I know killing mobs is good exp, but I really just wanna rush the objectives of the quest, get back into the story part. I found those are enough to get my enlightenment capped.

Was looking into the speedy sneaker builds everyone used for heists etc but then they said it got nerfed with morrowind and all the info I find seems to be from before morrowind. I need help to find some sets or skills to move fast through delves, maps and public dungeons to skip trashmobs while focusing on the bosses and skyshards.
I got alot of traits researched on one char for medium armors (7-8 in most parts) but I'm low on gold and materials thus want info before commiting to make something expensive.

Anyone know what works now? What stacks? Is there something I should avoid?

IcyDeadPeople

If magicka, just stack regen / magicka cost reduction gear and you can speed through any dungeon with major expedition + perma invis. Make sure to put concealed weapon on same bar as cloak.

davey1107

I run both a stam and magblade, and I love doing the heists. I used to regularly run the Dark Bro daily, a thieves guild repeatable steal quest, then a heist. I could make 150-200k/week per blade doing those with all the incoming motifs.

Anyway, what got "nerfed" was a glitch allowing toons to stack multiple sets ignoring movement speed penalties in sneak...so they were running faster than intended. This was fixed, but it only affects the rare toons who were exploiting this setup. You can still stack a bunch of speed buffs and fly through quests. Here's where you get speed currently:

Set one, no sneak speed penalty: night Silence for stam, shadow dance for magic. Ignores speed penalty in sneak.

Major expedition, +30%: IMO, the best way to get this is to slot retreating maneuvers. You can spare a slot in this type of play, but there is a set that offers permanent major expedition...I find that a waste.

Concealed weapon, +25%: this works when slotted and in stealth. It's a magic morph, so a natural choice for magblades. However, there have been plenty of phases in my stamblade's life where it makes sense to temporarily give up surprise attack and take the concealed weapon morph to get speed. For the questing you're describing, the $3kish gold is worth the cost to move to concealed and back again later ifmypure running a stamblade.

Minor expedition +10%: this will stack with major. You can get this via vamp skill accelerating drain. For non-vamps, or if you want it activated permanently, the only other route to it for blades is a second set called Jailbreaker. It'd be fine for magic users...it offers a lot of stam recovery.

Windrunning +2%: weeeeeee, 2%! I always though this should be 5%, but whatever. You get it by spending 120 Champion Points in The Lover. This is the recovery tree, so the 120 is worth it. Under the Morrowind changes, I find the max in the recovery passives to be 75 points. At 75 you get 14% health/stam/mag recovery...another 25 only nets another 1% recovery. So I tend to go 75 in my fighting resource, then spread the points around in the other 3 passives to get to 120.

Fjord's Legacy: there's a set that reduces sprint cost. This has to do with speed, but doesn't apply to the type of play you're describing.

DON'T NEGLECT LEGERDEMAIN! No self respecting sneakblade would pass up the 40% reduction in sneak cost you can get in this line. Leveling also improves the value of items you steal. Let's quickly cover how to grind this fast...it can be done in 10 short 20 min sessions.

First, spend a point in trafficker to allow 220 fence transactions per day. This is optional...if you pass on it, it'll take 20 fencing days instead of 10. Second, once per day run a thieving route. You'll want about 100 inventory slots open. My preferred choices are the Inn complex in Orsinium or the boats in Daggerfall. Neither have many NPCs, and these routes net 120-160 items per trip. Launder all the mats and cheap items, sell the valuables. You get to Legerdemain level 16 in about ten days...this allows you to max the stam reduction passives.


So far as I know, these include all the current ways to make your blade a speed quester. If you have questions feel free to reply using @davey1107 in your post and I'll see them to respond. And if the info was helpful, feel free to up vote the post.

Megamatch

@davey1107 wow man amazing response exactly what I was looking for! Definately upvote, just wish I could do it more times.

I do however have a few small questions.

- You mention Night Silence and shadow dance sets for no speed penalty with sneak. Are these not kinda abundant if I'm vampire on both my nightblades?

- I read on the heists posts (cant for the life of me find it again) there was some mention to reduce the distance to get detected while in stealth or something like that. Perhaps this is a set or ability I can use? Or is this just the shadow cloak skill being invis > stealth?

If it helps my blades are nord (stam) and dunmer (mag). I know not the best races but I think they are cool looking and want to play those.

Can mention though after seeing your response I was hyped to try it out, so just with concealed weapon and major expedition and man I was fast. In towns not open world I was too fast for my computer actually... so I rush somewhere to turn in a Q and stood there waiting for the NPC to show up. Didn't see that one coming.

Definitely gonna start doing those thieves guild missions. I'm ESO+ so I think that the DLC is incorporated in that.

davey1107

1. Yes, if you remain vampire stage 4 you get the sneak speed penalty reduction and don't need night Silence or shadow dancer. I kinda overlooked that...it's what happens when you write posts while making writ equipment, lol.

2. Your detect radius is important in heists and comes into play. A little less so because the main challenge is avoiding lantern guards, and when you step into their lantern circle you stand up...in which case the detect radius doesn't matter. But it's helpful for the other NPCs. There is a set called Night Terror. Wearing 3 pieces offers a detect radius buff, as well as add'l reduced sneak cost. My friend loves this in Cyrodiil. He does a 5/3/3 bow setup. For your build it means you can wear jailbreaker (if needed) then 3 pieces night terror and another 3 piece set. Also, remember that medium armor helps by the piece, so probably a speedster wants more medium.


Ha...yes, when you speed up a character you will be fast. Watch the slow NPC loads. And when you run through an undaunted enclave during heavy traffic, you might end up doing a scooby doo run in place maneuver for several minutes, ha.