Tired of Nightblade

R0M2K

Im a VR1 NB and im getting tired too.

----My build: classical rogue

Khajit

DW daggers / Full Medium armor

Flurry (dps+off balance)
Leeching strikes (recover hp,sp & mp)
Swallow Soul (heal + dmg)
Killer Blade (finisher+heal)
Surprise weapon (stun+armor debuff)

Ult: Veil of blades (AoE dps + dmg reduction)

6/34/7 stats

And i must say:

- 2/3 mobs are ok
- 4+ mobs without Ultimate = 80% chance to die
- cant solo any dungeon/world boss

I see DKs/Sorcs/templars jumping into 4+ Mob packs destroying them without beeing even close to danger....

Meros

I don't think we'll know the full potential of the NB until the Thieves\Dark Brotherhood Guilds become available.

I am going to keep playing my NB and hop over to my alt when I get tired/bored until we find out what abilities/combos/passives the new skill lines give us.

aresdestructorub17_ESO1

Meros wrote: »

I don't think we'll know the full potential of the NB until the Thieves\Dark Brotherhood Guilds become available.

I am going to keep playing my NB and hop over to my alt when I get tired/bored until we find out what abilities/combos/passives the new skill lines give us.

Has anything even been said about if/when they're coming?

GreasedLizard

Leveling staves, Mages Guild, Fighters guild and properly using weapon swaps makes u a menace... ijs

Volcanic Rune is pretty OP, so are Silver Shards / Evil Hunter vs proper foes.

Pulse for Destro, or using Resto passive for +10% damage with class skills

DW for Siphoning Strikes, Haste, Power Extraction = fun. Whirling Blades can crit for over 600 as a AoE finisher with all passives etc at L45.

Swallow Soul + Dual Strike HoTs are quite nice stacked for HP regen in-combat.

Grim13

Yeah, I'm about done with my NB. I'm a VR3 almost exclusively playing PvP now... and it's getting pretty disappointing watching Sorcerers and Dk have all the fun.

Muizer

I'm actually not sure you can play the NB as the typical "rogue" character in this game. A NB cannot sustain stealth activity indefinitely and it doesn't get particular agility bonuses to avoid damage. I like the assassination and shadow abilities (don't forget the passive ones!), but as I don't expect to be able to rely on them I have combined dual wield with heavy armour skills.

Beeftips

Im_So_Tanked wrote: »

zamiel wrote: »

I have a destro staff NB. It was painful in the beginning, now at 35 it's getting awesome. Unstoppable+refreshing path+fire blocade+drain strength spam and everything dies easily. Probably NB deals the best AoE of all classes and are great for higher levels. 3 mobs or 8? Doesn't matter as long as you can control incoming damage.

Lol.

Dat Trolling...

ArRashid

I've abandoned my former NB main at VR1 and started exping a pyromancer.

NB is just WEIRD and NOT WORKING class.

- spells cost too much magicka - for a class based on weapon critting, when your damage ability drains a third of your magicka pool, you're screwed - especially when VR mobs have 10x more HP and damage than you.

- spells cost too much magicka - so you try to go for light armor.. but hell, your class spells use Weapon crit instead of Spell crit. Without full medium you're gimping yourself

- most spells are made for melee range. Makes making an effective archer just a wild dream, since the only 2 abilities you can use with a bow are doing either zero damage (Strife, Cripple), or are only really usable at last 25% HP (Impale) - till then you only have mosquito stings like Poison Arrow or Arrow Spray, that deal damage equal to light attack at best.. now try to "burst" down enemy mage before he fries you with a single spell..

I guess the only NB build that is barely working is Shadowknight - a tank. Great survival skills, but absence of CC (other than morph of Fire Rune from guild) is making him sub-par to standard (CC) tanking.

ahspear37

I'm pretty early into the game, but so far I love my NB. I definitely don't play him classically though, and I'm sure when I actually do reach VR that it'll be tough as hell, but it seems tough for every class. I'm still really enjoying how he plays, but I might look into a DK next just to see how it works. I tried to make a Sorc/Templar and it seriously pooped the bed. I guess I just have a lot of fun with my Nightblade, even if I do get my ass handed to me now and then.

Mucera78

Hexcaliber wrote: »

I feel the same way about nighblade right now, it is a mess, many of the class skills use magic, while the bulk of passives and medium armour grant stamina regen. Wearing cloth armour to "FIX" bad design is a cop out, the class skills are predominately melee, players should not have to sacrifice their defence because the devs right hand has no clue what their left is doing.

I could not agree less with you on that. Where does it say that Nightblade has to use medium or light armor ?
Any class can specifically wear and use anything. I run a NB in all heavy with 2h sword to maximize damage of non crit normal swings. I use half magicka based and half stamina based abilities with cost reduction enchants and i am having a blast. Primarily Siphon skills.
I also used medium armor (granted, that char never made it to veteran) and it worked very well by maximizing burst and using on hit abilities with dual daggers and bow.
For that its best to branch out to guild skills as well but if you limit yourself to only class skills it will obviously be limited in performance.

Hexcaliber wrote: »

Nightblades skills should all have revolved around stamina use, all of them; passive and active, requiring the player to build around managing that resource. If I want to use a staff to heal or cast fireballs, well frankly I would have picked another class, but inspite of that, I should expect magicka to be the resources I would need for those respective skill lines.

Why should they revolve around stamina ? NB is the best aoe mage in the game, again, its just a frame that you built on.

Hexcaliber wrote: »

There are reasons why most Nightblades in PVP are now switching to bow, and forgetting their melee skills entirely.

Range is / was king in almost all pvp environments that had CC. Bow is easier for soloers or zerg runners in pvp as well. A different topic is organized small group pvp.

Hexcaliber wrote: »

I am also willing to bet the majority happy with nighblade PVE have not tried running a great deal of stuff solo.

Plenty of people run NB solo and are doing fine. Guildies, youtubers and the forum show that.

Hexcaliber wrote: »

Frankly I believe, their decision of having class skills all use magicka is going to come back and bite them in the ass

I think it was a great decision as it means you have to balance or really think your build through instead of just putting all points in health and gearing up for stam only, maximizing all class and weapon skills with one stat.

Gisgo

Lanatireb17_ESO wrote: »

i have medium armor maxed out with every perk. i still die all the time. this class is useless.

Im sorry but how did i (and many others) got to veteran levels with a useless class?
Some bosses are HARD, ill give you that.
Learn to kite, and i dont mean it in a bad way, flying blade is your friend.

Cepeza

Yankee wrote: »

I have soloed my Nightblade to 46 so far. I find it easier than my DK or Templar was to level (took them higher during beta). I have died less on this NB than either of those. Mannimarco even went down first try. You can lock down and kill most stuff before it even hits you.

For questing, 3 packs even 3 levels above are easy. I dual wield, have a bow also but hardly use it. I have only quest gear. The only dual wield skill I use is Blood Craze.

I have a pretty even split between mag/health/stam. I eat magicka food. I have all of the medium armor passives.

The first mob of a 3 pack goes down in a one shot from stealth. Immediately I Shadow cloak, lock down the second mob with veiled strike (concealed weapon) and kill it in a few blows. The third mob usually only gets a couple hits on me. Even when I lose the stealth opener I still usually survive. On long fights I swap back and forth between bow (stam stuff) and my dual wield bar (almost all magicka stuff).

Keep your Siphon and blood craze ticking and you might be suprised how much you are healed.

I took all the medium armor and wood elf stealth skills. If I do not feel like killing I can stealth up and then shadow cloak right through groups without being seen. Even through doorways with mobs guarding it. It is a tricky but exciting way to solo fetch skyshards from public dungeons.

It has very nice single target burst (if specced for it). My morphed veiled strike from stealth hits normal mobs for over 1350.

For me, for solo questing, the Nightblade is the easiest class of all.

It is odd how the OP's experience is so different from what I have found.

Exactly that is how I play, too. Sure I am killed from time to time by one or another main quest boss, but just because I get used to the easy mode NB allows me all the rest of the play time. For such I need to stop think twice and adapt tactics to individual boss mechanics. Shadow cloak combined with bow and stun abilities = easy going. 3 mobs, or 8 mobs just doesn't matter when you evade, they'll stop. PvP is a different story though.

Skaald

I should be dinging VR5 on my NB today, and have enjoyed the class so far with little difficulty. However, I think the key is to look at your class as a limiting factor since you cannot use the other class skill lines, but outside of that you have so many other skill lines to play with and should. With that said, IMHO some of the NB skills have a huge potential to be an end-game fotm skill, but I won't list them for fear of nerf.

My recommendation is to try-out as many skill lines as you can. Then respec and try out the other morphs, etc. In short, respec as needed; its really not that much gold and it would be a shame not to have tested & unlocked the full potential of most of the available skills while you level up.

Another tip: wear a mix of armor (as long as you look good) along the way. Then you will have them all maxed at 50 by the time you hit max level. Personally, heavy armor has been my go to when I hit a tough fight or for pvp.

unseenbrawn_ESO

If you are Dual Wielding and your not using Haste... I feel bad for you son...
PvE - Stealth,haste,leeching strikes,whirlwind, *open* Ult - DeathStroke (with shadow gear)
- A lot of NB complain about having trouble with groups of mobs.. You have AoE's at your disposal use them... Also as you level up you need to learn to block it becomes extremely important later in the game.
If you see other successful nightblades around you then learn from them ask questions. Most of the community in this game is pretty open and willing to give advice.

Vangrave

Well, Nightblades definitely are not as good as other classes, there's no question about that for *anyone* who's actually played more than one class. But if you're having issues soloing then the problem is not the class, it's the way you're playing it. I'm literally using random skills, gear, and abilities in vet content and I'm doing fine solo, and I was able to solo the non-bugged portions of the public dungeons in the V1 and V2 zones.

Nightblades are functional as casters or as tanky types, but are pretty terrible for what most people would make a nightblade for: stealthy medium armor DPS. I think this is mostly a flaw with the weapon skills rather than nightblades. A lot of weapon skills aren't very good, and because a lot of the nightblade's skills are based around boosting your weapon skills you end up with a class that's mediocre since it's based around boosting bad skills. Of course the other part of the reason is because the nightblade damage skills themselves are pretty terrible when compared with other class abilities.

chrisub17_ESO104

I would really really like to see a video of a NB in Veteran content just casually plowing through packs of 3-4 mobs. I'm a VR 6 DK, and every time I see a NB taking on 3 or more they have a really rough time of it. I can't count the number of times I see a NB in a public dungeon, waiting for someone else to come along because they can't solo it. While DK's, sorcerers, and even to some extent templars finish up public dungeons solo with no issues.

I'm not saying an exceptional NB player can't do it. But an average NB player from what I have seen cannot complete with other classes when it comes to ease of soloing. Not without being a vamp, or having exceptional gear or skills.

merfpmerfinton

chrisub17_ESO104 wrote: »

I would really really like to see a video of a NB in Veteran content just casually plowing through packs of 3-4 mobs. I'm a VR 6 DK, and every time I see a NB taking on 3 or more they have a really rough time of it. I can't count the number of times I see a NB in a public dungeon, waiting for someone else to come along because they can't solo it. While DK's, sorcerers, and even to some extent templars finish up public dungeons solo with no issues.

I'm not saying an exceptional NB player can't do it. But an average NB player from what I have seen cannot complete with other classes when it comes to ease of soloing. Not without being a vamp, or having exceptional gear or skills.

You're absolutely right and that's one one the reasons I'm considering shelving my NB as well.
Even players that are exceptional are really just getting by and if you think your not, try soloing a resource node...

I have a decent 2h aoe build now that will allow me to solo the 5+ VR packs in public dungeons, but I wouldn't say I'm plowing through them.

The lack of solid resource return skills/passives is one of the biggest problems.

We have a lot of hp return, but little else.
Executioner passive only procs on kill from 2 abilities and only returns like 168 magicka over 6sec. That's such a *** poor amount over a long time, especially when your spending 250+ to get it.

Refreshing shadows passive is stamina regen,
Focused attacks gives stamina regen.
If your wearing full medium armor you already have stamina regen close to cap. One of these abilities makes the other redundant.

Some people swear by siphoning attacks, but the fact is you're reducing your power by 24% in order to get a 10% proc. Sure it's 15% magicka and stamina if it procs, but bad streaks happen and then your left with nothing but reduced damage and empty resource pools...

deviousthevile

Nightblade VR1, not limited to one class, but strictly use bows. Skills are set up 1. Ambush, Assassin Skill. 2. Invigorating Drain, Vamp Skill. 3. Soul Swallow, Siphoning Skill. 4. Magnum Shot, Bow Skill 5. Shadow Disguise, Shadow Skill. I know you said you are a DW NB, but I never experimented. All you need is a knockback skill from your DW tree and its the exact same skill set up. Now for armor, purely medium, crafted 2 of the 3 sets myself. 3 pieces of Werewolf Hide set for 5% Crit Strike rate, 3 pieces of Torug's Pact for an additional 100 armor, and 3 pieces of Whitestrake's Retribution for a damage shield when my health gets too low, and then I just fill in 1 slot with whatever. All my crafted pieces all carry IMPENETRABLE trait and are glyphed with Health for pieces that only recieve 1/2 of glpyh, and Magicka on the rest, because I run out of Magicka more often then Stamina. Because I'm a Vampire, I also have a 1k Fire Resist necklace. Now, to say im never die would be a lie, now that im in vet rank areas, things are tougher, but I know before here, I rarely died, even against groups of mobs. Even in PvP, I need to be decently outnumber or outclassed to die. I hope something, anything on here helps you to see the great potential this option has.

MasterLanz

I'm having none of the OP's problems with my 45 Nightblade. 3 enemies are nothing, 5 runs the risk of dying if I'm playing sloppy. Can take down bosses fairly trivially.

I will say, however, that it's getting a bit boring to play, but I can't justify the 12k price tag to respec (thanks for nothing Zenimax). I ended up just dropping 6 of my points into dual wield for a change of pace and will just leave 2h untouched for now and see how that goes. So far it kills stuff faster, so that's a plus.

I will also say I'm 'tired of nightblade', but it's really more that I'm just tired of my nightblade, and I would change things up a bit to breathe life into the character if Zenimax didn't create such an awful respec system.

edit: As for the build...

I'm invested into medium armor and heavy armor (I wear 5 parts heavy, 2 parts medium), sword and shield, two-hander, dual wield, fighter's guild, fully-invested into werewolf, and heavily-invested into woodworking, tailoring, and blacksmithing.

My old skill bar for 2h used to be Critical Charge, Carve (for ww ult), Power Drain, Leeching Strikes, and Funnel Health. In Dungeons I'd drop critical charge for ring of preservation.

My new 'dps' bar for DW is Blood Craze, Flurry, Whirlwind (morphed for generating stamina, can't remember what it's called), Power Drain, and Funnel Health.

My DW bar replaced my 2H bar. My secondary bar is my tanking bar: Ransack, Absorb Magic, Funnel Health, Leeching Strikes, Ring of Preservation.

(edit: Sometimes I swap up the above bars to include Silver Shards if I'm fighting a lot of daedra/undead.)

That tanking bar can easily solo most quest bosses due to the combination of sheer armor, lots of self-healing, and deadly bashes for DPS.

I'm not going to give any specific numbers because it's not optimized and you can fill in the blanks yourself. One thing I will mention, however, is that as a heavily-invested crafter, I'm crafting a full suit of new armor every 2 levels, so part of my build's stability is that it always has current-level gear.

Siluen

I play a recently dinged veteran rank 9 nightblade and have soloed pretty much all of the content. I found that a build based on a lot of sustain of your attributes fares really well and can solo basically every dungeon that is meant for soloing. Take a look into Siphoning Attacks, it is great for keeping up your magic resources so you can shadowcloak + concealed weapon to stun enemies. You will have to use a lot of CC, so it's best to make sure you can always use it. I also have the vampire drain on my bar and a bow for kiting when you meet those pesky mobs that are "too powerful for this effect". My biggest danger currently is magnum shotting myself into another group of mobs. Also, when you encounter a group of say, three mobs, you will have a much easier time when you elliminate one of them fast with a sneak attack and some burst, leaving just two to deal with.

Also, stealth is your friend, I hate taking on Harvesters due to the lack of AoE I have in my build (and the fact they're also immune to most of my effects), so I tend to... just avoid them a lot. No need to get super frustrated over trying to kill something that is just super frustrating for your build to kill.

I am still having fun with my Nightblade, even though some of the skills are said to function in a somewhat dodgey manner... But I find it a nice pat on the back when I'm tackling a world boss with a little group, see them getting squished like flies because they never really learned how to avoid anything whilst I'm still happily bouncing around with my bow. ^^

Spectrasoul

I started off DW / Assasination main, Bow offspec, got to level 20 and was having similar problems. I was really starting to wish I rolled templar instead. I picked Nightblade with the intention of being the traditional stealthy rogue thief type hero, it was awful to be honest.

Instead of just giving up and deciding I hate the class, I paid for a respec which was all my gold at the time. I ditched dual wield & ditched assasination. I made bow my main hand and went for 2h offspec (really hard choice between that and resto staff, might eventually swap to that end game.)

Most importantly: I took Siphoning to compliment my bow, with some points in shadow as well for Shadowy Disguise and to go with 2h.

My new spec is amazing. It's awesome fun, great all round play. I focus a lot on single target and group support with my bow / siphoning. And with my 2h + med armor dodge skill I can happily get in amongst enemies and cleave them down, then pop my siphoning ulti.

It's not at all what I had in mind when I started but it feels a hell of a lot more natural and synergised than the build I was originally going for.

I haven't done much PvP but I don't see why there would need to be any drastic changes.

http://tinyurl.com/nbxldty

Not perfect I am sure but it works well for me. I did it in 2m and don't focus on the passives I missed a few out, mainly use for the slotted abilities.

remraub16_ESO

I'm a VR3 Nightblade, and I've respeced 8 times (started respecing at level 40).
I've tried Assassin type, "duelist" type, Mage type, Siphon-Tank style and Restoration style.

Assassin type works best in PvP 1v1, and is a good addition in Dungeon runs for boss DPS. Deals very poorly with packs of mobs however, or 1v1 with bosses as you rely on spike damage.

Duelist (dualwield stamina fighter + lifegain) Is the most average setup I've tried. It's decent 1v1, can deal decently with packs and does decent in PvP. No real downsides, but no real upsides to it either.

Mage type - I tried 2 different versions, one that focused more on Destro staff and that worked great for PvE farming, and one more focused on Shadow/Siphoning skills (using resto staff) which was great for support but slow for solo PvE. For PvP however I found the Shadow/Siphoning build to be better than the Destro staff build.

Siphon-Tank. (This is my current build) This and the Assassin build are probably the two most valid builds at the moment. Unlike the Assassin build however this build can deal with almost anything, but it takes time. So, for normal PvE questing, this is very very slow (but safe) For PvP I use Bow mostly in sieges, and so far the only thing that beats me are Vamps (but I'm now starting to use Fighters Guild skills to combat them, we'll see how that goes)

Restoration. Works as well as you would expect. You mainly use the restoration staff spells + Siphoning attacks. Works like a charm.

Anyway, I feel like I've tried most things with the class by now, and I can't help but feel that it is subpar to the other classes *shrug*

I'm sticking to it however, my experience with MMO's are that all classes has their ups and downs. (Unlike all other Nightblades in my guild that has rerolled Dragon Knights)

Oh and PS: Always have some good food with you, it helps ALOT. If you don't skill Provisioning yourself, find another player that can sell you some, it's not that expensive. I take between 50-100g/serving depending on what food you want.

remraub16_ESO

Lanatireb17_ESO wrote: »

I now spent 15k gold for a respec of skillpoints and attributes. now. show me some USEFUL builds, people. And please, no THEORETICAL builds. i wanna see builds that are in use, and working.

Pft 15k, I've spent roughly 8 times as much (see my above post).

If you want specific build suggestions, send me a PM

Lanatireb17_ESO

Ok, thanks to all the suggestions and all, i tried a few of them, some worked ok, some didnt work at all. The input i got from all of you was really nice, and it was good to see that i wasnt the only one that had problems with this class.

I eventually played my NB up to VR3, but totally lost all motivation to play already more than a week ago, due to several reasons that dont belong in this thread mostly. I canceled my account and maybe will come back in a few months when the biggest issues this game has are solved (very unbalanced strength of character classes surely being one of them).

Until then, you can keep discussing here, and i will check in now and then to see whats going on, but i dont need any more advice or build suggestions. Thanks all.

Drachenfier

chrisub17_ESO104 wrote: »

I would really really like to see a video of a NB in Veteran content just casually plowing through packs of 3-4 mobs. I'm a VR 6 DK, and every time I see a NB taking on 3 or more they have a really rough time of it. I can't count the number of times I see a NB in a public dungeon, waiting for someone else to come along because they can't solo it. While DK's, sorcerers, and even to some extent templars finish up public dungeons solo with no issues.

I'm not saying an exceptional NB player can't do it. But an average NB player from what I have seen cannot complete with other classes when it comes to ease of soloing. Not without being a vamp, or having exceptional gear or skills.

Sword and board heavy armor NB with refreshing path and veil of blades should have no problems clearing packs of mobs in veteran content.

Thevenin

Sword and board OPness makes it acceptable to level as a NB through veteran content.
I'm glad I'll be VR10 by the time they nerf deadly bash. (and I'm still impressed they managed to leave a "counterspell" ability on the tank skill line doing more single target DPS for a ridiculously low cost while blocking than any glass canon ability out there).

GreasedLizard

Short of Morph changes, I don't see why you guys need to respec so much.

Build up weapon skill lines, passives, guild skills ... I have almost all I need at L46 for skill pts. Few Morphs and passives to go, and perhaps a foray into another weapon (have Destro/Resto/DW) - Only Cycle of Life and Impulse, will flesh a few out when in Cold Harbour

Whirling Blades when buffed via Ambush + PE can be very badass for AoE. I don't have Craze beyond Rank I, but I hear it's better than I thought.

NB is fun for assassinating one mob. Really none of its class-lines assist in anything else. Have to rely on Guild/Weapon, which everyone has access to ... >.<

Drachenfier

Thevenin wrote: »

Sword and board OPness

Sword and board is not OP. Bash is not OP. Glyphing your entire gear set toward bash damage, on the other hand, is, and that's being adjusted.

GreasedLizard

U don't even need S&B for bash per-se. Its just as good to weave interrupts/extra damage into any weapon line.

Always doing it with Staves more than DW, although ST regen is huge for NB and you may have extra in DW to interrupt.

Sanguisaevum

Blood craze
Siphoning strikes
Surprise attack
Shadowy disguise
Sparks
Shadow passives that cap armour and spell resist when exiting stealth.
Full medium

If you cant figure out the synergy with the above... Nightblade isnt for you.

I regularly take on overwhelming odds and win.

The NB is a class that requires a good skill cap, lateral thinking, and a good grasp of the games mechanics.

You cannot faceroll a nb like you can with other classes.