I want to know Night Blade DPS building tactics

AvalonRanger

I want to know Night Blade DPS building tactics.

I start night blade character. And I don't have any of NB knowledge.
If you're NB specialist, I want to know super cut edge NB DPS style method.

tincanman

Sneak up behind your opponent and BEAT THEM REPEATEDLY with a sharp/blunt instrument of choice.

Works almost every time.

/everything_your_ever_wanted_to_know_about_nbs_but_were_afraid_to_ask

/s

El_Borracho

PVP or PVE? PVP is a wide array of builds and tactics. PVE its pretty much keep up Merciless Resolve and pay attention to the timers on your back bar skills, then wail away with your LA-skill rotation.

AvalonRanger

Looks like NB doesn't have much of self protection technique than other class.(damage shield)
Is there any of way to avoid too much glass attacker way?

fred4

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Looks like NB doesn't have much of self protection technique than other class.(damage shield)
Is there any of way to avoid too much glass attacker way?

PvP or PvE?

AvalonRanger

fred4 wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Looks like NB doesn't have much of self protection technique than other class.(damage shield)
Is there any of way to avoid too much glass attacker way?

PvP or PvE?

I want to know both.

El_Borracho

Nightblade has phenomenal self protection and survivability. Swallow Soul or Leeching Strikes/Siphoning Attacks as a spammable is a self-heal along with damage. Cloak, Shade, and Path work well with the Shadow Barrier passive. Mirage is a strong shield. Reaper's Mark, while not as popular as it once was, can be a menace in PVP. Either of the Malevolent Offering morphs are solid heals in PVP as well, though I prefer Shrewd Offering. Or you can stick with Vigor. Finally, for PVP, Power Extraction is brutal for damage, or you can go with Sap Essence for more healing.

fred4

AvalonRanger wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Looks like NB doesn't have much of self protection technique than other class.(damage shield)
Is there any of way to avoid too much glass attacker way?

PvP or PvE?

I want to know both.

Well, for PvP, if you play a light armor magblade, you'll feel squishy because of that armor type. The unbalanced resistances and physical armor penalty are things you will notice, not least because the latter seems to factor into the mitigation formula in a subtractive way that makes you feel squishier than the 5% to 7% physical damage penality would have you believe. Furthermore, you don't have consistent Major Resolve on nightblade, unless you consciously build for that. Unless you wear heavy armor, the uptime from casting Cloak or Refreshing Path is only 5 seconds or so. The most consistent way to get Major Resolve is by using Concealed Weapon or Surprise Attack actively. If you don't do that, you'll feel squishy.

Even in PvE, the self-healing from magblade, e.g. from Swallow Soul and Sap Essence, feels weaker than a magplar spamming Puncturing Sweeps. It's only if you wear Soulcleaver and you use Siphoning Attacks / Leeching Strikes that your healing from damage will feel roughly on par. Personally, as a ranged PvP magblade, my solution is to front bar Soulcleaver, keeping Swallow Soul, Sap Essence, and Healthy Offering all on the front bar, with Siphoning Attacks on the back bar. Furthmore I wear the Esoteric Greaves. Cloaking magblade is one of the few build types that can really make that mythic work, since you can disengage with Shadow Image or Cloak / speed when your stamina falls too low. You'll still want decent stamina sustain, though, e.g. at least 1.1K stam regen, otherwise waiting for your stam to return is just too painful / boring, even when you successfully disengage. The Esoteric Greaves are a bit finnicky, but will protect you against ganks and burst. As a compomise 1-piece item, nothing will make you tankier.

I should mention that ranged magblade is not popular, because the damage is weak. That said, I like playing a universal build that works equally well in Imperial City and Cyrodiil. It's been my playstyle since forever. I particularly like the PvPvE of IC.

Playing a medium armor pure PvP build should be stronger, be it mag or stam. Perhaps even some heavy or a mixture of medium, light and heavy. The heavy pieces will prolong your Major Resolve. Refreshing Path will heal you and keep up that buff. Shadowy Disguise is hard to say no to for the crit on both bars, but Dark Cloak is very powerful, especially if you stand still. It is a tanking skill after all. Using a combination of Dark Cloak instead of Vigor, plus Mirage for the Minor Resolve and Major Evasion would probably make you very tanky, but I have not played that kind of build. Since you're not cloaking in that case, I would at least combine that with Shadow Image, otherwise why be a nightblade.

In terms of PvE, being a glass cannon DD is not wrong in a group with a healer, especially in trials. Swallow Soul is not meta for damage. Elemental Weapon and Force Pulse are better spammables. However, I'm assuming from your question that you are thinking more of solo play and dungeon PUGs.

In general, the combination of Swallow Soul, Sap Essence, and Siphoning Attacks / Leeching Strikes will heal you while doing damage. There is no particular reason why you need shields. Magblade - and you would want to play magblade - is like magplar. You just heal. Bear in mind that Swallow Soul is a heal over time. If you are under pressure, you need to mix up Swallow Soul with Sap Essence, since they stack. In other words, if you are soloing, say, a world boss, you may sometimes use Sap Essence single target for the stacking self heal.

That said, there are a couple of ways to also just build tanky and not sacrifice too much damage. Soulcleaver is one, since it improves your healing (from damage). I use it. It's a good, but not great damage set only because Swallow Soul is a weak base ability in damage terms. It's good for solo play, but not great for organised groups. Hexos Ward is another compromise armor set as it combines crit bonuses with a shield. Just bear in mind that a 6 second shield with a 7 second cooldown isn't the be all and end all of tankiness. It's merely a good compromise. Another option I like having in my inventory is Aetherial Ascension (crafted) if I want to be tanky, whereas False God remains an option for sustain. In all cases, though, I prefer wearing predominantly light armor. It's the best damage for solo play. Because nightblade and templar have crit damage class bonuses, I find it very hard to get away from the crit % bonus that light armor gives. The penetration bonus also tends to be best in solo play, rather than the medium armor bonuses.

If you are playing in groups, on the other hand, the sets you should be looking for include crit sets (Order's Wrath), Whorl of Depths, Pillar of Nirn, Aegis Caller, Sul-Xan, Mech Acuity + Elf Bane + Fire Destro Ult for a burn setup, or possibly Coral Riptide, if you can manage the stamina. In other words the typical glass cannon setups favored by group players.

fred4

El_Borracho wrote: »

Nightblade has phenomenal self protection and survivability.

As a long time magblade, both in PvP and PvE, I'm not happy to concur without qualifications. It may be objectively true, especially nowadays with Siphoning Attacks / Leeching Strikes and Dark Cloak. Nonetheless, nightblade still feels squishy out of the box. You have to work more on your defense than on other classes. Perhaps you need to build more carefully. The Major Resolve passive is a case in point. Unless you specifically build for it by actively using Concealed / Surprise Attack, your resistances fall off rapidly. Take a magplar for comparison. That class gets constant Major Resolve from their sustain skill and typically stronger heals from Puncturing Sweeps. Two skills. The automatic AOE component arguably makes it easier to use and causes templar to heal better by default. As a magblade you have to basically juggle 4 skills to match that: Swallow Soul, Sap Essence, Siphoning Attacks, and a Shadow skill.

El_Borracho

@fred4 Completely agree. When I started playing a magblade, I thought I was doing something wrong because your health bar fluctuates wildly. The rotation is where the sustain and survivability lie. In comparison to a magplar, the magplar is far easier to keep the self-heals and rotation up, because its basically drop all your AOEs on the back bar, Spear and Purifying Light on the front bar, spam Sweeps, rinse repeat until execute phase.

Magblades timers have always been the hardest part of the class. But I think the damage they can put out in comparison to magplars is worth it, definitely in a PVE raid and definitely in PVP. The burst damage in PVP is almost unrivaled. There are also more skill combinations you can use to adapt to your play style. Its an acquired taste, to say the least

fred4

My magblade is normally reserved for PvP, but inspired by this thread I threw together a PvE build. The kind of builds I play won't win you any acclaim in trial groups, but are slightly tanky and good for soloing. I ended up impressed by the healing in the Pyrelord fight, which can catch out some squishy builds. I was outhealing the damage at all times without using the protection rubble and without the Pale Order ring. Even my magplar needed Hexos Ward or Pale Order to feel this comfortable. While I used some exotic gear, the main component was Soulcleaver. The rest could be swapped out, I'm sure, and never mind the traits, since I was reusing some PvP gear. Anyway, here's the build and the vVateshran final boss:

https://youtu.be/_M0EgcGzS78

AvalonRanger

@El_Borracho
@fred4

Thanks for sharing nice information.

Djennku

It's all how you build your toon, really. Over 7 billion possible build combinations out there, and it really just comes down to how you want to play. I have a NB dps that is super tanky and survivable, but also hits hard and can pass every dps check in the game.

I will also say that NB heals can be VERY strong depending on how you build. I have a personal setup that can get 23k+ heal ticks from swallow soul while in a trial group situation with all buffs and bonuses, and can heal myself out of vSS tombs for example.

FoJul

El_Borracho wrote: »

Nightblade has phenomenal self protection and survivability. Swallow Soul or Leeching Strikes/Siphoning Attacks as a spammable is a self-heal along with damage. Cloak, Shade, and Path work well with the Shadow Barrier passive. Mirage is a strong shield. Reaper's Mark, while not as popular as it once was, can be a menace in PVP. Either of the Malevolent Offering morphs are solid heals in PVP as well, though I prefer Shrewd Offering. Or you can stick with Vigor. Finally, for PVP, Power Extraction is brutal for damage, or you can go with Sap Essence for more healing.

i can tell you dont pvp. Not a bad thing but mirage is not a shield. Reapers mark is almost useless ( only a handful of times will anyone use this). Shade has a high skill cap, and acts as a teleport (where you place your shade is where you tele).

For the most part, Cloak will get you out of just about anything. hit a roll dodge/block/cloak. (make sure to have a form of expedition/ and or wild hunt) you'll be zipping around.