Nightblade: Some questions concerning more or less anything in build

ValkyriesWolf

So, like the title suggests, I'm completely unsure what to do. Since all the changes in skills and the nerfs of others I can't play my first NB, my Main and First Character, like I used to in the very beginning of my adventure in eso. Like the newby I was I just put points all three things, stamina, health and magicka evenly. For a time it was all good with my siphoning and dual wield. After lv 50 and all the changes that happened that wasn't really working anymore, so I tried to change my whatever nb to a mag nb since I made a stam blade in the meantime and didn't want another one, because of diversity and stuff.
So, I tried the mag blade. Soon I realised I'm no good with destro staves on nb, I manage with the healing one though I think. So now my question is, can I do a healer and or tank with it, it's an Argonian NB, and still do good in solo pve? Or perhaps a hybrid build? I don't know enough about builds and that stuff as a purely casual player to answer that question myself, so I hope for a bit of help from you guys.

ValkyriesWolf

Really? No answer so far at all? Not even a post with saying to look for myself or a link or stuff like that? I thoughy this was the player helping playet category, so someone could help me, but not one person?!
I hope with this sort of revival and the change in name, perhaps now someone is willing to help me.....

Azurya

Hello Valkyries!
Since your NB is an argonian, I suggest that you try the build I post the link here:

http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-nightblade-tank-build/

It is a build from Gilliam the Rogue, a player with tons of experience!
I play this build myself with some little twinks for my personal needs but it is great fun to play it.
NB healer I don´t play, there are other classes better doing that, imho.
Otherwise if you like a magblade as dmg dealer there is this build, which is really awesome to play too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjlYy2JOSA4&index=28&t=379s&list=LLVBLUGFy9Mjdkb60zOvBSsg

I love this one very much, it functions actually very well in both PvP as in PVE.

Hope I could lend you a hand this way! Good luck with the best class in ESO!

ValkyriesWolf

Thank you very much for your answer, @Azurya.
I'll have a look at both builds.
And perhaps someone else has a healer build, because even if others are better in that department, I want to evaluate all possible options, before making a lasting decision. ^^

exeeter702

Azurya wrote: »

Hello Valkyries!
Since your NB is an argonian, I suggest that you try the build I post the link here:

http://deltiasgaming.com/eso-nightblade-tank-build/

It is a build from Gilliam the Rogue, a player with tons of experience!
I play this build myself with some little twinks for my personal needs but it is great fun to play it.
NB healer I don´t play, there are other classes better doing that, imho.
Otherwise if you like a magblade as dmg dealer there is this build, which is really awesome to play too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjlYy2JOSA4&index=28&t=379s&list=LLVBLUGFy9Mjdkb60zOvBSsg

I love this one very much, it functions actually very well in both PvP as in PVE.

Hope I could lend you a hand this way! Good luck with the best class in ESO!

No actually, nightbalde healers are objectively far superior to tanks when you get into harder end game content.

exeeter702

ValkyriesWolf wrote: »

Thank you very much for your answer, @Azurya.
I'll have a look at both builds.
And perhaps someone else has a healer build, because even if others are better in that department, I want to evaluate all possible options, before making a lasting decision. ^^

Dont get too caught up on it. You should know that argonian nb healers are exceptional. If you have any questions just ask. Here is a basic ability bar setup for nb healers i made a while back in another thread.

ValkyriesWolf

Ah that's cool, I'll have a look at that as well.
Thank you as well^^

davey1107

Sorry you didn’t get an answer in December. I always try to answer all nightblade posts...so do a couple of others. It must have gotten buried during the holiday breaks or something.

I think the info you got about setting him up as a healer is great. My friend recently started running his magblade in PvP with me, and man do his heals help, lol. I’d also consider having a dps setup on hand because you might want it for running around and doing 95% of the pve content. A good basic start is alcast’s azure build at alcasthq.com.

In regards to your specific comments about staves...I’m kinda with you in that I don’t particularly care for Destro abilities. But magblades have a great class tool box, and they can get by with few weapon skills. You have a couple of options, which work with varying results depending on content.

1. Destro offense bar with few Destro skills. Pro: the Destro passives, you get to use the ultimate. This is basically a strategy of sticking with the staff but reducing its use so that it isn’t as annoying for you.
2. Dual sword offense bar. Pro: you get the same attack boost from the passives. You can bring in a monster helm set...which can be pretty powerful. Consider your benefits of a 5/5/2. Con: no Destro ultimate, light and heavy attacks become useless on offense bar. This doesn’t work great in end game content, but it’s fine for world questing and stuff like that.

Hybrids

You mention being a hybrid build before. If you haven’t, I recommend respec on attributes. I advise all in magic for a magblade...then hone health with enchantments as you need. Get your magic up to the 35k+ range, and you’ll hit like a truck.

Armor

Magblades have enough resource management tools that they can give up 1-2 pieces of light armor for heavy. If you’ve worked up your undaunted, 1 heavy and 1 medium works.

Traits

PvP is brutal right now, lol. You will almost certainly want an alternate armor set that invests in impenetrable if you want to PvP. There’s just no way of getting out of trading some power for protection unless you want to play super-ranged and can always escape. I play a stamblade, and when I hit an impen magblade my opening attack does maybe 8k. If I hit someone with no impen and I Crit, I hit for like 16k. That’s how important it is right now.

On weapons the current thinking is nirnhoned on offense, and infused on the back weapon. Honestly, sharp and precise work almost as good as nirn. I do like infused...it’s pretty powerful.

Merciless resolve

As wonky as this skill can be, it’s a core skill for blades. If you can learn to use the spectral proc effectively, it does insane damage. In case you didn’t see the changes, it’s now a set cast time with the bow proc every five light attacks. You can proc the bow multiple times per cast of merciless resolve if you get that many might attacks in (which is hard to do). I don’t feel like it works as intended, but if you practice it gets somewhat consistently usable.

Grothdarr

If you go for a monster helm, this is one that I love on my magblade and one that terrifies me in PvP. It’s an aoe nightmare. Valkyn provides better single target dps.


Have fun! If you have any questions, use @davey1107 in your post so I get a notice. Again, sorry the blade community missed your post before. We were likely all out slaughtering templars.

Loc2262

@ValkyriesWolf: You already got some good replies there. My two main chars are a stamblade and a magblade, so I'll gladly give you some advice too.

Magblade is fantastic for solo PvE. You have great sustain, you have your magicka (light armor) shield, and your main damage skills (Sap Essence for AoE and Swallow Soul for single target) heal you and nearby allies in the process. Also you have the stealth skill which you can spam for a long time due to large magicka pool.

Nightblade healers and tanks are certainly possible, but not optimal and harder to play (efficiently) than the BiS classes (Dragonknight for tanks and Templar for healer). If you already have experience as tank/healer, go for Nightblade there! Otherwise, my recommendation would be playing as a damage dealer first. Due to their strong self-sustain, you can do most group content without a healer.

EDIT: An additional hint about Grothdarr vs. Skoria: The latter gives you Max Health on the one-piece, so you can run the Witchmother's Brew buff food to get magicka regen. With that, you can for the most part sustain a full light attack rotation. With Grothdarr, you need the blue max health/magicka food, otherwise your health is too low. With the lower magicka regen, you need to do way more heavy attacks on the front bar. Thus your overall DPS is likely to be lower, even though your max magicka is higher.

It surely is also a matter of personal preference and play style. I personally like light attack rotation on magicka chars, since the heavy attacks take so long with a staff. On stamina it's a different story. Heavy attacks with dual wield are much faster than with any other weapon, so it doesn't feel as clunky there.

ValkyriesWolf

@exeeter702 , @davey1107 and @Loc2262 :
Thank you for the advices here as well. I'll have a look at all of them and decide which suits my playstyle best.
And for the PvP questions, I'm doing no PvP, since my internet connection is pretty slow, it is ok for the pve content, but with pvp I made the experiance that my inferior connection makes me way slower than my enemy in PvP and I sometimes see an attack coming I want to block or dogde and I have already been hit with it since it already happened, but I couldn't see this due to having a damn slow connection. So pvp is out of the question for me, as long as we don't get better internet around here.
But, to come to another question that's been bothering me, can you explain the cp distribution of your suggestions to me as well? I have like 400 at the moment but I don't really use them since I have no real clue as to where to put them. I heard about those jump points, but hey, I have no idea beyond that as to what is better than another cp skill.........
Would be very helpful if you could help me there. For my other characters I'm using the build cp distribution, so that would be useful here as well. ^^

Loc2262

For a magicka DD, the important champion point stars are in the blue constellation, namely Thaumaturge, Master-at-Arms, Elemental Expert, Elfborn, Spell Erosion. Alcast (see link below) has CP suggestions for max CP and 300 CP for most of his builds.

The red tree is about defence, you usually do an equal distribution of your available points in Hardy, Elemental Defender, Thick Skinned there, with some points in Ironclad and Spell Shield.

The green tree is about resource management. Arcanist and Tenacity is important there.

https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-nightblade-build-pve/

Azurya

exeeter702 wrote: »

ValkyriesWolf wrote: »

Thank you very much for your answer, @Azurya.
I'll have a look at both builds.
And perhaps someone else has a healer build, because even if others are better in that department, I want to evaluate all possible options, before making a lasting decision. ^^

Dont get too caught up on it. You should know that argonian nb healers are exceptional. If you have any questions just ask. Here is a basic ability bar setup for nb healers i made a while back in another thread.

@exeeter702 is it possible to tell a little more about a NB healer?
what gear? How do I set CP? Mundus?
Still have a argonian NB waiting for a task, pls tell me more!!
Thanks in advance!

exeeter702

Azurya wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

ValkyriesWolf wrote: »

Thank you very much for your answer, @Azurya.
I'll have a look at both builds.
And perhaps someone else has a healer build, because even if others are better in that department, I want to evaluate all possible options, before making a lasting decision. ^^

Dont get too caught up on it. You should know that argonian nb healers are exceptional. If you have any questions just ask. Here is a basic ability bar setup for nb healers i made a while back in another thread.

@exeeter702 is it possible to tell a little more about a NB healer?
what gear? How do I set CP? Mundus?
Still have a argonian NB waiting for a task, pls tell me more!!
Thanks in advance!

As far as gearing is concerned it is relatively the same accross the board for any healer regardless of class. Spc is basically a must, then you have a few different choices depending on group.

Cp is pretty much the same, you want a decent amount of crit, pen and direct damage. Honestly, new players get far too worked up over precise cp allocation. Same with mundus.. none of these things are cut and dry, you need to see where you are at and then glyph accordingly and take the appropriate mundus. Argonian sustain is farily good so keep that in mind. A good benchmark i like to set is having your funnel health damage crit for 14k self buffed on a major breached target. If you can average that, then your offensive stats are in a good spot and you can start looking at shifting focus towards healing done (blessed) cp and sustain glyphs or mundus.

As far as playstyle goes. You really just need to learn how to trust your hots. Most people will scoff at hots as not really being a strong independent source of healing but more as a cushion, but those players are often looking at it from a templar perspective. I cant stress this enough - when properly played, NB hots are more than capable as a primary healing source. The hard part is managing their uptime in both trials and 4 man content.

davey1107

Yeah...PvP is HORRIBLE with a slow connection. Stay out of that hot mess, lol. I’m looking over my assault/support skills to see if a magblade would miss out by never unlocking them. Nah...nothing here is that fantastic. Magic detonation is kinda fun...not vital...if you ever want those skills, go into your stinky internet PvP and just follow your faction to take keeps. Do this every one in a while amd you’ll unlock them. Again, not necessary.

Anyway, let’s talk CP. if you look at alcasthq.com, he has a 300 point config for all builds. That might help. But I’ll make some broad notes. There’s no right or wrong here...it’s mostly about homing to best suit your play style. If you never bash, there’s or reason to spend on reducing bash costs.

So a broad look:

Greens (resource management)

“A grade” passives

Recovery is king in this whole section. You want to focus heavily on magic recovery at first. At max cp I stop at 75 in arcanist. Here you get 14% recovery. Spending another 25 points slowly raises this to 15%...I don’t think it’s worth it. You can round out with some health and stam recovery...they help.

B grade

Tumbling is probsbly the best b grade passive...dodge roll is important and expensive. Some in tenacity is good. Warlord to make break free easier. Shadow ward if you block a lot. These all depend on your play style. Shade reduces sneak cost, but before thinking about this one invest in legerdemain and reducing sneak through that skill point passive.

Reds (defense)

A grade

Hardy and elemental defend do the same thing, one for physical damage and one for magic. Focus early points here, ultimately working toward 50-65 in each. Ironclad reduces all direct damage of both types...here too. These three lines can be used for most early red cps

B grade

Spell resistance is ok to toss a few into. Thick skinned to reduce DoT damage.

Most others you can ignore. Don’t be drawn to armor passives or healing...the benefit is usually less than just buffing the other passives I’ve mentioned.

Blue (ka-pow)

A grade

Elemental expert buffs all your magic damage. This is the first and most important passive. Work toward 50-65 here.

Elfborn adds an additional buff to your magic hits that CRIT. As a magblade, you should be critting, amd so this is another essential passive. Work toward 60-65 here. Early cps can all go into these two.

Master at Arms: kinda confusing, it buffs direct damage. What is direct damage? Everything that isn’t a DoT or AOE. Look at your tool tip for lotus fan. You hit an enemy for 5000 damage, reduce their speed, then do 4000 more damage over 8 seconds. The first amount is direct damage...this is buffed by Master at Arms. Alcast doesn’t use this passive...I disagree with that for how pull be using your character. 25-50 points here will really amp your power as a pve blade.

B grade

Thaumaturge: the more DoT skills you use, the better this is. Alcast sets himself up for trials...for your blade you might consider a few points here, probably more like 25 at max cp.

Spell erosion: penetration is good. Buy a few of these here and there to ultimately have 10-25 or so in this.

Ignore most of the others. Don’t be lured by weapon passives...just because someone uses staffs doesn’t make staff expert a good choice. In blue you want to prioritize the passives that are used more frequently. Something that boosts damage on all magic attacks is way, way more useful than one that boosts damage on light attacks.


Hope that helps. If you mostly focus on the passives I’ve listed, most any combination of them will work well.

ValkyriesWolf

Thank you very much for that detailed guide to mag blade cp , @davey1107
I never really understood cp, but your writing here helps a lot in that department.

Azurya

@exeeter702 what is the skill on place4 on the front bar??? The one before Funnel Health???

THX in advance! And yes you were right: NB-Healing is great fun!!!

Azurya

already found it, wall of elements, true?

Azurya

already found it, wall of elements, true?

exeeter702

Azurya wrote: »

already found it, wall of elements, true?

Yes it is. Not sure if it will still be as important though next patch, with the changes to off balance.