I actually have a hybrid NB, dps in PvP and tank in PvE.

Both magicka and stamina are pretty good now actually, though the stamina NB seems to be bit more popular with the DW for PvE.

Pick whichever you think is the most fun. You can always change if you change your mind.

I have two VR14 nightblades: a magicka DD and a tank. First thing: open up the whole class skill tree. All three lines are important for both magicka and stamina. Learn multiple weapons while leveling. Build really matter only in group dungeons and bosses and at late VR levels. Up to VR2..3 you should concentrate to opening new skills.

Switching between magicka and stamina is easy. Try both. Look at tamrielfoundry.com, forums, nightblade. That site has good builds to look at. Currently stamina builds have higher DPS than magicka. But if you add inherent healing capability from magicka, they are roughly equal in usefulness.

Common:
All builds currently maximize magicka/stamina pool and damage and jewlry has reduce cost. Then comes health, crit% and pool regeneration. Look carefully class passives! Slotting of skills is very important.
- Every nightblade build should always consider Siphoning Attacks. It gives effectively limitless resources while reducing damage somewhat. It is not always used because cost reduction/regen can replace it. But it is the one skill that is really unique compared to other classes.
- Double take is always useful because of increased dodge chance and speed buff.
- Cloak is controversial. It is actually only useful in farming and in PvP (has issues there). Nightblades are not really a "stealthy" class. Never ever fall into this trap of sneaking past mobs. Kill everything and twice if possible.
- Mark Target, either morph is good. Mark a mob to get healing and mark a boss for debuff.
- Fear (Mass Hysteria) is great. If mobs are winning: Fear, Double Take, make some distance, heal, dive back in.
- Grom Focus is another controverial skill. Look at the passives and use it as a buff. You may even use it as damage skill, if you are willing to learn it's clunkety-clunk use.
- Veil of Blades ultimate cuts 30% of enemy damage. This has saved my groups countless times.

Stamina:
Use any combination of 2h, DW, bow. 2h is hard to bypass because it has survivability. Rally is the only reliable healing source available for stamina NB and Brawler has damage shield. DW makes potentially highest damage. Try them with Ambush, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade. Steel Tornado is very effective AoE burst. Bow is rather weak but offers great mobility.

AoE: has many alternatives. Bow and Bombard gives easy mode for mob packs. They never reach you. If you can't keep the distance, use 2h and Brawler. If you are in group, use Steel Tornado.

Single target: Ambush gets you close and stuns. Surprise Attack gives high damage and is spammable. Killer's Blade is used under 25% mob health. Some bosses are easy with bow and Magnum Shot because it knocks you back. But watch for ledges and walls... 2h is also viable.

Magicka:
Start with destro/resto staff combination. Advanced builds can use DW. There is also a Saptank variation. Builds use a lot from siphoning tree. Magicka NBs are also great healers and they heal the group even when they are not healers - just by doing damage.

AoE: Sap Essence with Siphoning Attacks.

Single target: The core is Cripple DoT and Funnel Health spam. Use Impale below 25% mob health.

Oh dear, so detailed questions from level 30. This might not be the answer you are looking for...

Let's try one build. Look at skill names and morphs from e.g. http://esohead.com/skills . I have many vr toons and i still mix up the skill names! For stamina builds those that cost stamina on morph are top choices, that is Ambush, Surprise Attack and Killer's Blade - opener, spam and finisher. Use dw for highest damage. Add Steel Tornado from dw for AoE. We might run out of resources so if available, put Siphoning Attacks (SA) to last slot. If not, try dw Rapid Strikes and the other morph of Steel Tornado. You will run out of stamina anyway. Weave heavy attaks then.
Other weapon could be bow or 2h
bow: Venom Arrow, Magnum Shot, Bombard, Reaper's Mark, SA. Why? VA shuts casters, MS for boss fights, B for mob control, RA for heals, SA for resources.
2h: Rally, Brawler, Wrecking Blow, Double Take, SA. R buff and heals, B for AoE fun, WB for giggles, DT survival, SA for resources.
If you don't yet have these skill, well, learn all skills and put something you have meanwhile. If you find something wrong with these, good. We are at different levels, have different preferences and builds change on situation. The point is that everybody finds something wrong in other's builds, and build debates never end.

This is the build i actually use during leveling alts:
Stamina gear: 5 Hunding Rage 3 or 4 Ashen Grip, stamina glyphs. Chest heavy, belt light, others medium. Chest, belt, weapons training, hands divine, boots exploration, others infused. Stamina jewelry with cost reduction glyphs. All improved to blue with blue glyphs. Gear made to level 4, 16, 26, 36, vr1, 4, 7, 10. Use regen drinks and looted potions under vr and crafted potions above. Weapon learning order: bow, dw, 2h, s&b
Magicka gear: 5 Seducer, 3 or 4 Torug, magicka glyphs. Chest heavy, head medium, others light. Magicka jewelry with cost reduction. otherwise like stamina. Weapon learning order: destro, resto, dw, s&b
Weapon1: whatever leveling up
Bar1: killing skill, wepon skill, class tree 1 skill, class tree 2 skill, class tree 3 skill, some ultimate
Weapon2: whatever i will level up after weapon 1
Bar2: wpn skill 1, wpn skill 2, guild or world skill, skill from tree lagging behind, skill i hate, another ultimate
When returning quests i temporarily swap to bar 2.
Killing skill is the one i use. It is probably Bombard, Steel Tornado, Sap Essence on magicka nb, Biting Jabs on Templar or Brawler - whatever kills mobs. Rest is purely for leveling the skills. I do use the skills currently on bar to get familiar with them. When they get morphable i replace them with next in tree. The build changes all the time. Somewhere after vr10 it all finish up and i start to think what to do with the toon and what build i could make.

@helediron thanks for that amazing answer! I love stamina builds so I will probably go with that. So I take it siphoning is useless to go into for a stamina build? Just because there are no stamina morphs. What would a Magika NB build look like? Like which skills? I imagine a lot of siphoning would be involved.

dps = stamina NB
tanky survivability = magika NB

I was a Stamblade leveling up for the first time (PS4) and just about a week ago i decided to respec and try Magblade. I loved it! I was a dest/resto Funnel spam build and i felt like i contributed more to groups then as a Stamina NB. I just recently went back to Stamina to take advantage of Werewof stam regen passive before it changes but i already miss being Magicka based. Cannot wait to go back, maybe try DW/Resto this time.

Anyways throughout all of this i have done alot of research and found two guides that, with a little tweaking, i found to be a great source of information!

Stamina: http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/nb-dual-wieldbow-pve-dps-build-1-6-6/

Magicka: http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/1-6-pve-correct-magicka-nightblade-dps-amstelx/

If you come across a stronger player then you more dps and can out heal your dps you're out off luck as a stamblade as you're about burst

But with a magblade you have more ways to bring down the power of the enemy player or at the very least stay alive for back up

I have both magicka and stamina NB. While I consider the Stam a nuker who can deliver high dmg with 2 or 3 attacks, I have most of the fun with my stickman mag NB, since it is pretty challenging. He uses a lot light and heavy attacks to regain resources (blessed leeching strikes).

Mark target(grim focus)/Leeching strikes/Lotus/Flame clench/Impale (concealed weapon) --> U Clouding swarm (I'm plannig to stop being a vamp)

Mark the mob (or increase your attack) --> full heavy attack+lotus --> Clench --> Full heavy + impale or light attacks while walking towards enemy + CW (Assasin's will if you can)

For second bar nothing is as fun as the first one. I've tried AoE, buff, healing bar etc, but always I end up using only the first bar.

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Ive tried stamina NB but it bored me after a few hours of playing.

With magicka you can cloak whenever you want, use shade which is a lot of fun and you have pretty easy sustain with harness magicka and healing ward. The burst damage is low in pvp until you unlock prox deto and use max spell damage build.

I've been looking forward to getting proximity detonation on my magicka NB. I saw some videos of someone using it and it looked like amazing amounts of fun!

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

dancing.in.the.webeb17_ESO wrote: »

dps = stamina NB
tanky survivability = magika NB

I wouldn't say Magicka Nb is tanky. Just elusive with cloak spam. Unless your talking about a Sap Magicka NB tank.

So many possibility's with either resource you can't just say Magicka nb is tanky. You can build for 100% glass cannon magicka det + cloak or a debuff magicka nb, etc.

You could also build a stamina nb tank.

I wrote about the most effective variants. As stamina dps buld is stronger then magika DPS build for NB, so magika dps build is ineffective. You can do one, but it will not be as good as stamina build.
But NB has pretty strong magika tanky build and it's more effective then stamina tanky build as it combines good DPS and heal. You can go stamina tank NB, but magika tank will be anyway better.

Wrong thread.

NpcOnStrike wrote: »

Stay Stamina .. I play Dual Wield + Bow and for pve its amazing
This is what i came up with
For me it was a lot of fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhXza8KXPzo

I will make full build vid in couple of days

You're so making that more complicated for yourself. All you really having to do is just use bombard, the fear and weapon swap to use steel tornado are redundant imo.