(Class Guide) In Depth Nightblade Class Guide

Soulstormkj

PRETEXT:
This written guide is from Derendis & Morothar on reddit. I Thought it was really helpful! Just thought I would re-post it here for them! Props to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reA5Kn3YBz4 is a really cool nightblade PvP/PvE Video that showcases the variability of the class.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uH_xllIYr3k&list=PLmvBQd5HUiVaYs-bji0b758tkdj5Ja9Gx is also a really hilarious PvP Video showcasing stealth and small scale pvp.

UPDATED BUILD: This is a video with my live build, Vampire 2hander op
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FVrcTztQ_Ng

Skill Tree for above - Edited May 10th
http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mcszxg0VMpbbmiu8wAv28wABe8jKvQ8IryJ8IrgV8jKEL8GHau8injX8innU8GFts8jKew8DVnZ8L7J68p7JMdBvT6MdBvj6MdBEI6MdBEp6cdBET8T7JcrqLw6MrqAi6MrqAZ6MrqAD8x7Hrsfr6Lsfw6MwGN16MwGAR6MwGAs6MwGAa6MwGAb8g7HLsXy6rsXt6Mippq6MipL46MippV6MipLW6Mippo8C7xLzqa6Lzqu6LzqI8D7brzdM6rzdm6LzdR8F7GIzrJ6Ibuy8Y7srfJu6rfJI6LfJN6zjFYb6zjFYd6zjFYf6MjFYi6MjFYh6MjKBj8zz7pctyrG6ztyfm6ctyfV6ctyfR8zf7ozNbo6qNbk6zDVRE8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

Several people have noted that some of the guide is not perfect in all regards, but out of respect for the original authors I am not going to change it very much. However I have added some minor edits due to corrections and such. Enjoy!

GUIDE SECTION:
This is an extensive guide on the night-blade class when used as an assassin In the classic sense of the word. It is how I designed my character in the last beta sessions, and it worked pretty well.

So let’s get started.

In this guide I will go over the following parts of my assassin build:
Attribute points distribution
Armor
Weapons
Traits and enchantments
Skillpoints distribution
Fighting NPC’s/Exploring
PvP tactics
Combo’s

Attribute points distribution
There are several ways to distribute these points. You will find out that most of the time, you will have a shortage of magicka/stamina in fights. Still, placing a lot of attribute points in magicka/stamina won’t change it that much and it is to your advantage to instead enchant your gear with + to magicka and stamina

The best way to spent your points in my opinion is 1(magicka)/3(health)/1(stamina). Health is much more usefull in a battle than the little extra magicka or stamina. Instead, you should get more of this by enchanting your armor, this gives a much greater buff and you will notice the difference, unlike with attribute points. That being said there are respecs later in the game so have no fear.

Armor
There are several options to go here: heavy, medium or light armor.

Heavy armor: This gives you more survivability which is fine, but do you want that as an assassin? The greatest disadvantage heavy armor brings is the lack of damage passives. I think as an assassin you should be as bursty as possible, so that you can take down your target as fast as possible. So I would not advise heavy armor.

Medium armor: This does give you decent survivability and there are some great passives passives, which can be obtained by putting skill points in medium armor, that give a higher critical strike rate. Though this armor does not make you really tanky, it does allow for greater stamina and crit passives. Critical strike rating and and stamina regen, in my opinion this is the best armor for an assassin.

Light armor: This does give you great magika regen, and with all the attribute points invested in health, this is definitely a valid option to take. As a warning though, Keep an eye on your health bar, because with this armor, it can go down in seconds…Reduce spell cast costs and mana regen are the advantages, the disadvantage is that you're really going to only want to wear this if you plan to be a shadowmage. This guide is about assassins.

Weapons

I would choose to take dual wield, simply because of the increased damage output. As second set of weapons, I would go for a bow, in order to deal damage on range first before you go in with your melee-weapons. A very nice thing about a bow is, it uses mostly stamina as a resource, while the melee skills use magicka. This way you can deal a lot of damage without really burning up your resources.

For melee weapons I prefer daggers, it just looks way more awesome on an assassin. If you manage to control your assassin really well, you can even do basic attacks between your skills, to increase your sustain damage output.

Traits and enchantments
In ESO there are a thousand possibilities here, I do not claim mine is the best, but at least mine works .

Armor/jewelry enchantments:
This greatly depends on your main damage source, melee or ranged.

For melee:
In the early game, you will be in desperate need for magicka. I advise you to take any piece of armor with a magicka enchantment over another piece without it.(Unless you feel the difference is big enough to do without the extra magicka.) Most of it will depend on what you need to have your optimal experience in ESO.

For PvP I do recommend some magicka enchantments, in order to complete your entire combo and get away, you can use the “Increase Physical Harm” and “Crushing” on jewelry, to deal more damage and to crush you opponents armor. You will have to find your own balance in these.

For ranged:
Early in the game, It really doesn’t matter what you take, just take the best you looted or crafted. You will need some stamina, and also a fair bit of magicka, so I would advise to take one or two armor pieces with those resources.

Later in the game, you need to decide what you value more, killing their squishy targets and exposing yourself, or staying safe and killing tanks. If you go for squishy’s I would take “Increase Physical Harm”, you will deal more damage and kill them quicker.

If you want to stay safe and kill their tanks, take “Crushing” which will reduce the targets armor, so they will die faster.

Weapon enchantments:

Deal (x) [Insert; frost, disease, shock, poison, fire or magic] damage. DO NOT TAKE THESE IF YOU GET A CHOICE! Take Unresistable damage and Reduce targets Armor. These will help you kill even faster, because even if they have a little armor, you will still manage to get the kill through these enchantments. On the other hand, if you take a DoT effect, you will need more time killing them, or you leave them with a DoT to die and risk the chance of them being healed, leaving you with nothing. If you have no other weaponry available, take the weapon that deals the most damage in total.

Skillpoint distribution

In this guide I will only touch on active skillpoints. Skillpoints in passives aren’t really that important for a guide I think. You need to decide for yourself what you take in these area’s. For example, if you have a skillpoint and there isn’t a morph or active(which you will use), then you should take a point in a crafting skill or a passive of your choice. Although I would suggest acquiring skill points that give bonus' to crit and stealth.

Melee:

Early in the game, I think the best option to go for here is the assassination/siphoning-trees. This grants you a lot of dps, which in turn makes you able to quickly kill npc’s one by one. I would advise you to at least get strife from the siphoning tree as it provides great self healing.
The skills I advise you to use the following skills(actives):

Death Stroke(Ultimate) > morph into Soul Harvest
Assassin’s Blade > morph into Killer’s Blade
Teleport Strike > morph into Ambush
Shadow Cloak > morph into Shadowy Disguise
Mark Target > morph into Reapers Mark
Veiled Strike > morph into Surprise Attack

Ranged:
Consuming Darkness (Ultimate) > morph into Veil of Blades
Strife > morph into Swallow Soul
Veiled Strike > morph into Concealed Weapon
Poison Arrow > morph into Poison Injection
Scatter Shot > morph into Magnum Shot
Snipe > morph into Lethal Arrow

As you see, it is all focussed on single target damage. The reason for this will be made clear later in the guide.

Besides of that, you can see that the morph for Veiled Strike in the ranged skill line differs from the morph in the melee skill line. If you prefer the ranged assassin, you should go for the Concealed Weapon, so you have that movement speed buff to quickly get away. If you prefer the throat slitting kinda guy, you may want to morph your Veiled Strike into Surprise Attack, so your enemy has less armor to rely on.

Fighting NPC’s/exploring
When fighting NPC’s you will almost every time be in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation. Knowing that fact, you can tell that the single target spells are a great advantage in this situation.

The tactics you will most likely use here is simple:
Use your bow and the stamina-skills to kill one NPC.
Use your daggers and the magicka-skills to kill the other, or the next NPC.

Fighting NPC’s shouldn’t really be a problem using this build and I will not spent more pixels on this matter.

The exploring part is also not very important. I think you should stick to quests and if you are a crafter, you should definitely explore and get those raw materials.

PvP tactics

Since this is mostly, if not only, single target damage your main goal is to assassinate an enemy here. There are various target you can go for, depending on the situation.

There are two types of battles in Cyrodiil, first you have the massive PvP battle(100 vs 100), and second there is the skirmish (2v2 at least till 10v10 as max). There are of course other forms of battle, but these are rare and I won’t discuss them.

First, the big ones:

There are a lot of different classes and build in ESO, and in a great battle, you will encounter all of them.

As melee:
There are only a few valid targets for you to engage upon. The person you want to kill will need to be squishy enough to do it quickly, so no tanks, but healer and archers are the characters you are looking for.

There are of course a few things you need to consider before you decide to engage for a kill.

Are there any other enemy players nearby who could lock you down?

How long will you take in killing this enemy player?

In what time will the enemy army react?

Can I get out?

Is it worth it?

Lockdown?

If there is a nearby dragonknight, be aware of the fiery reach(that annoying chain) he might use is on you and you will most certainly die. If you see him use it, or if he is spamming skills, feel free to go in on a healer or backline dps character. He will most likely not target you, sometimes not even see you and you should be fine. The most important thing is that you should know the skills each class has available(just the dangerous ones).

Time used

How long will it take to assassinate the target? If the target is tanky, then it’s gonna take a while, so you better don’t go in. If you can kill the target in under 5 seconds, it’s a go! Of course you will have to use your own insight, and the still execute the correct combo and hope you can get out.

Enemy reactions

This is the biggest chance factor in the calculation. If there are enemies nearby who use spells and skills like maniacs, go in after a short while, because they will be out of resource(magicka/stamina). On the other hand, if there are players who use there skills wisely(seeing this requires knowledge about each class) you’d better pick another moment to go in. Just use your own wits to predict whether you’ll get out.

Getting out

These subjects are all linked very closely. I’ll just add, that you should know if you will have resources(stamina/magicka) available after the kill. If you will use only magicka and you stamina bar is full, you can roll out cleanly. If you are low on stamina(sprinting) and you have enough magicka for a kill, keep in mind you will need some extra magicka to stealth away after the kill. If you are low on stamina and you just have enough magicka to go in and kill someone, decide if you are willing to sacrifice yourself for that kill, or if you will just wait for another opportunity.

Worth?

Is the kill worth it? If you risk everything to kill one of the ten healers, it’s definitely not worth it. On the other hand, if you can kill their leader(don’t know if that’s visible) or one of the two healers they have, go in! Even if you die, its most likely worth it. This is also depending greatly on you judging the situation correctly.
As ranged: Shoot as you see fit, you are safe in the backlines, target the enemies closest to you. If you see a squishy target go to close to the frontlines, use ‘tab’ to focus on him, and burst him down with your poison and critical stealth attacks.

The skirmishes

As melee:

In these little groups there is most likely only one healer or one backline dps character as assassin you will want to engage on them as soon as you can. Destroy them and their group will lose the skirmish.

As ranged:

Either you go in from the side and try to kill their healer(s) quickly. Or you stand in the middle of your group, dealing damage on a safe distance and leave the tanks to take damage and die, as long as you survive till the end, the battle is most likely won. When you have to run away, don’t be brave.

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH: REMEMBER THE PIRATE CODE, IF SOMEONE FALLS BEHIND, LEAVE THEM!!!!

You will most likely not be able to save someone, so run for your own live, and live to fight another day.

If you see an opportunity to cast your ultimate, do it. It might give some of your fellow warriors a change to take advantage of the snare, which will apply to your enemy and it’ll give your allies the chance to go in stealth, which may be lifesaving. The pirate code is still relevant, if someone falls behind, you can’t do a thing for him. Pray the Divines he will hold op your pursuers long enough so you and the others can get away.

Combo’s

Melee:
Your abilities:
Death Stroke(Ultimate) > morph into Soul Harvest (1)
Assassin’s Blade* > morph into Killer’s Blade (2)
Teleport Strike > morph into Ambush (3)
Shadow Cloak > morph into Shadowy Disguise (4)
Mark Target > morph into Reapers Mark (5)
Veiled Strike > morph into Suprise Attack (6)

Use your skills in the following order(if you are on a distance):

3 (you teleported next to the target) > 5 > 4 (you are now stealth and next to the marked target) > 6 (target is stunned) > 1 (target should be at least half death).

A: If target is low on health > use 2 for the 300% damage to finish him.

B: if target is not really low on health > use another 6(or more) until you can finish with a final 2 with 300% damage.

Use your skills in the following order(if you are close):
5(marked) > 4(stealthed) > 6(stunned) > 1(half death) > 6(to get him low enough) > 2(to finish the kill).

Ranged:

Consuming Darkness (Ultimate) > morph into Veil of Blades (1)
Strife > morph into Swallow Soul (2)
Veiled Strike > morph into Concealed Weapon (3)
Poison Arrow > morph into Poison Injection (4)
Scatter Shot > morph into Magnum Shot (5)
Snipe > morph into Lethal Arrow (6)

As a ranger you don’t have that many offensive combos. You want to fill your enemies with arrows, and to do so, you need to stay out of trouble. As you can see there are two abilities for damaging your enemy. Start with your Lethal Arrow (6) to reduce the healing your enemy might get. Follow with your Poison Injection (4) for a nice DoT. It will especially scare them to death if they are low on HP, because your Poison Injection will do more damage if your enemy is below 35% health.

Besides that, you can use your swallow soul for extra burst or if you need some health regen.

Most important are the combo’s to get rid of overconfident melee guys who see you as an easy target. If an enemy get’s too close to you, you can make some distance between you both by using your Magnum shot (5). This will knock you both away of each other. Try to get away by swapping back to your melee weapon and stealth using shadowy disguise.

If this isn’t enough and your enemy is still on your tail, get in your Shadowy Disguise (2) again. If you feel this won’t give you enough time and mobility to get in a safe spot, cast your ultimate, Veil of Blades (1) to snare your pursuer and grant yourself the stealth to get that so much needed movement speed. While your pursuer is snared he will get some nice damage, if you see a chance to burst him down with your melee skills, take it, kill him…

May the Shadow guide you,
Derendis & Morothar

For more GUIDES Check out theelderarmory.com/

Edits by Soulstorm*

Soulstormkj

Let me know what you all think!

morvegil

IM going to try an 2H assassins build. Massive damage on the inital few shots.

Soulstormkj

morvegil wrote: »

IM going to try an 2H assassins build. Massive damage on the inital few shots.

Yeah I am doing that right now, its really fun!

Stautmeister

+ Magicka AND Stamina execute. Combine for rediculous >30% health burst dmg.

silent88b14_ESO

Have to start somewhere, right? And while I'm feeling pithy: 'Well begun is half done'. .

Soulstormkj

silent88b14_ESO wrote: »

Have to start somewhere, right? And while I'm feeling pithy: 'Well begun is half done'. .

Why start somewhere when you can start everywhere!

BaldursMate

Nice guide,thanks!

Jack_krowser

Not very comprehensive atm since it only covers a few points . But the main build you wrote about sounds perfect for pvp

Soulstormkj

Jack_krowser wrote: »

Not very comprehensive atm since it only covers a few points . But the main build you wrote about sounds perfect for pvp

I stated it as comprehensive for the nightblade as an assassin. There are just too many different builds to do one simple guide lol.

Soulstormkj

BaldursMate wrote: »

Nice guide,thanks!

Np man! Let me know if you have any questions!

Zhakim

What the hell happened to sneak attack damage? It was in a good place in beta, now it's ridiculously useless.

KidKablam

Great post, @Soulstormkj

Soulstormkj

KidKablam wrote: »

Great post, @Soulstormkj

Thanks I appreciate it!

merfpmerfinton

So all slotted skills are class skills. Is it worth speccing into the weapon line actives? Since a lot of our class skills are based of melee attributes do they gain any benefit from weapon line passives?

Soulstormkj

merfpmerfinton wrote: »

So all slotted skills are class skills. Is it worth speccing into the weapon line actives? Since a lot of our class skills are based of melee attributes do they gain any benefit from weapon line passives?

The class skills are actually based off of magic damage. Where as the Weapons skills are based off of physical damage. I prefer to do an even combination of both in order to make the most of both of my resource pools

merfpmerfinton

Soulstormkj wrote: »

The class skills are actually based off of magic damage. Where as the Weapons skills are based off of physical damage. I prefer to do an even combination of both in order to make the most of both of my resource pools

I've read that certain abilities like veiled strike, teleport and assassins blade are magic damage, but are mitigated by armor and benefit from our melee crit chance. In regards the the DW passives, I was thinking of slaughter and ruffian in particular and if their bonuses applied.

Soulstormkj

Zhakim wrote: »

What the hell happened to sneak attack damage? It was in a good place in beta, now it's ridiculously useless.

It was bugged in beta, now you need a full charge to do maximum damage. I can still one shot some mobs with snipe.

Knootewoot

Nice guide. Almost the same build i had in beta but slightly different for ranged. I didn't put anything in Magicka but did 3 health 2 stamina. I almost never run out of stamine when i was lvl 15 there. Could spam specials most of the time.

Don't know if i would do it different now. I might now only use shadow from nightblade because i hardly used any of the other skills/passives. I will use the bow skills and maybe one-handed/shield just for the fun.

Soulstormkj

Knootewoot wrote: »

Nice guide. Almost the same build i had in beta but slightly different for ranged. I didn't put anything in Magicka but did 3 health 2 stamina. I almost never run out of stamine when i was lvl 15 there. Could spam specials most of the time.

Don't know if i would do it different now. I might now only use shadow from nightblade because i hardly used any of the other skills/passives. I will use the bow skills and maybe one-handed/shield just for the fun.

1 Handed and shield + the Siphoning tree and some defensive passives could make you a pretty mean life steal tank.

morvegil

What i love about my 2H Nord Nightblade(In DC!), is i can teleport attack a mob, start killing him and do CLEAVE and widdle his friends down..stealth out..and come back and do it again. I can take on 3 mobs with this tactic.

Knootewoot

Soulstormkj wrote: »

1 Handed and shield + the Siphoning tree and some defensive passives could make you a pretty mean life steal tank.

Hmm might try that out. So many ways to play hehe. Bow will be my main but using sword/shield will be usefull i think. Thanks for the tip.

thoraya

Soulstormkj wrote: »

merfpmerfinton wrote: »

So all slotted skills are class skills. Is it worth speccing into the weapon line actives? Since a lot of our class skills are based of melee attributes do they gain any benefit from weapon line passives?

The class skills are actually based off of magic damage. Where as the Weapons skills are based off of physical damage. I prefer to do an even combination of both in order to make the most of both of my resource pools

You think 1:2:1 attributes and just class skills would work together? I'm just level 8 for now, and did most points into health, using the 2h build, with just critical charge from weapon skills set, and I ran out of magicka very quickly (stealth, veiled strike, strife) and assasionation blade for the execute

If I would play with dual wield, I need teleporting strike for the gap closer, cuz I dont have ciritcal charge anymore... I dont know what I should play
second skill set will be bow 100% but the meele set...

Your help would make me happy

Soulstormkj

thoraya wrote: »

Soulstormkj wrote: »

merfpmerfinton wrote: »

So all slotted skills are class skills. Is it worth speccing into the weapon line actives? Since a lot of our class skills are based of melee attributes do they gain any benefit from weapon line passives?

The class skills are actually based off of magic damage. Where as the Weapons skills are based off of physical damage. I prefer to do an even combination of both in order to make the most of both of my resource pools

You think 1:2:1 attributes and just class skills would work together? I'm just level 8 for now, and did most points into health, using the 2h build, with just critical charge from weapon skills set, and I ran out of magicka very quickly (stealth, veiled strike, strife) and assasionation blade for the execute

If I would play with dual wield, I need teleporting strike for the gap closer, cuz I dont have ciritcal charge anymore... I dont know what I should play
second skill set will be bow 100% but the meele set...

Your help would make me happy

Since your level 8 it is hard for you to know, but later in the game you will be getting your hard cap for magika from armor enchants so its not an issue anymore. The medium armor you wear will give you the stamina and regen you need. So whats left is the health as it is the only thing that you will need to stat in as everythign else can be aquired from passives/enchants.

Wear a full set of max magika gear asap and you should see what I mean.

thoraya

Thanks for the answer you advice playing dual wield or 2h?

Kaijyn

Soulstormkj wrote: »

Since your level 8 it is hard for you to know, but later in the game you will be getting your hard cap for magika from armor enchants so its not an issue anymore. The medium armor you wear will give you the stamina and regen you need. So whats left is the health as it is the only thing that you will need to stat in as everythign else can be aquired from passives/enchants.

Wear a full set of max magika gear asap and you should see what I mean.

Does raising magika increase your damage from skills like ambush?

Soulstormkj

Kaijyn wrote: »

Soulstormkj wrote: »

Since your level 8 it is hard for you to know, but later in the game you will be getting your hard cap for magika from armor enchants so its not an issue anymore. The medium armor you wear will give you the stamina and regen you need. So whats left is the health as it is the only thing that you will need to stat in as everythign else can be aquired from passives/enchants.

Wear a full set of max magika gear asap and you should see what I mean.

Does raising magika increase your damage from skills like ambush?

I do not think so, but I am really not sure. I do know that with more magika you are able to cast it more. That being said there is a magika soft and hard cap so you cant stack it forever.

Grymdael

Extremely useful, thankyou for sharing.

Soulstormkj

Grymdael wrote: »

Extremely useful, thankyou for sharing.

No problem! Glad I could help!

Soulstormkj

thoraya wrote: »

Thanks for the answer you advice playing dual wield or 2h?

I am playing 2h, its just way too much fun dashing in.

Tuchaka

not to be a noodge but did you change your mind about dual wield as the better choice or is it just a ...it's more to use 2H so is personal preference really ?