Ha yeah. I think I found what my problem was. I was always thinking Surprise Attack was just used to apply a debuff on the target. . Didn't really read that the spell would be regular use in my rotation to hit like a truck.

I have a Bow/DW NB and am loving it. Honestly haven't even leveled DW yet, just been using bow exclusively, but plan on going with double daggers for the critical bonuses.

DW does serious damage, especially once you unlock the AoE Steel Tornado (Whirlwind morph). Rapid Strikes (Flurry morph) is also a good spammable ability that you unlock early on. Surprise Attack is an NB favorite; I'd keep it on your bar. Same with Killer's Blade.

You can't compare yourself to a Templar tank. Your leveling experience is different, your abilities are different. DW feels a bit slow in the beginning, but once you reach Whirlwind, you'll be able to do some AoE and you'll feel more comfortable taking out mobs. A lot of NB skills are single-target (as are the early DW skills), so as a lower level NB you have to focus on one enemy at a time. It can get a bit redundant. Be patient.

Bow-wise, some skills and morphs you'll want to acquire and use (if you decide to spend the skill points) :

Poison Arrow, morph to Venom Arrow-- the ranged interrupt is invaluable in every situation, switched from Poison Injection and never looked back. The extra DPS from Injection is hard to pass up though.

Volley, morph to Scorched Earth-- fire over radius, IMO. Don't use it anymore now that I'm nearly maxed in the skill tree, kinda situational (requires enemies don't move around too much or kiting of enemies that do)

Scatter Shot, morph to Magnum Shot-- love this skill. The morph knocks you away, great way to put distance in between you and mobs

Arrow Spray, morph to Bombard-- the other morph is poision damage and poision dot, but I like Bombard's immobilization effect for its ultility.

Snipe (takes a while to get)-- Not sure which morph. Lethal Arrow for PvP definitely, but the other morph sounds enticing for everything else.

Expert Hunter-- Fighters Guild skill tree, rank 6. Bonuses to Weapon Critical.

For both DW and Bow, you're going to want to stack weapon critical rating and chance. Find the Warrior, Thief, or Shadow mundus stone and have one of them active. Warrior = +weapon dmg, Thief = +crit chance, Shadow = +crit dmg

The only thing you're doing "wrong" is comparing your DPS output as a level 17 NB to another player's with a different class/setup. Enjoy the early content, get comfortable with your abilities, find your play style. And no, you're not bad! Keep leveling and keep learning what works best for you.

Sandshark95 wrote: »

I have a Bow/DW NB and am loving it. Honestly haven't even leveled DW yet, just been using bow exclusively, but plan on going with double daggers for the critical bonuses.

DW does serious damage, especially once you unlock the AoE Steel Tornado (Whirlwind morph). Rapid Strikes (Flurry morph) is also a good spammable ability that you unlock early on. Surprise Attack is an NB favorite; I'd keep it on your bar. Same with Killer's Blade.

You can't compare yourself to a Templar tank. Your leveling experience is different, your abilities are different. DW feels a bit slow in the beginning, but once you reach Whirlwind, you'll be able to do some AoE and you'll feel more comfortable taking out mobs. A lot of NB skills are single-target (as are the early DW skills), so as a lower level NB you have to focus on one enemy at a time. It can get a bit redundant. Be patient.

Bow-wise, some skills and morphs you'll want to acquire and use (if you decide to spend the skill points) :

Poison Arrow, morph to Venom Arrow-- the ranged interrupt is invaluable in every situation, switched from Poison Injection and never looked back. The extra DPS from Injection is hard to pass up though.

Volley, morph to Scorched Earth-- fire over radius, IMO. Don't use it anymore now that I'm nearly maxed in the skill tree, kinda situational (requires enemies don't move around too much or kiting of enemies that do)

Scatter Shot, morph to Magnum Shot-- love this skill. The morph knocks you away, great way to put distance in between you and mobs

Arrow Spray, morph to Bombard-- the other morph is poision damage and poision dot, but I like Bombard's immobilization effect for its ultility.

Snipe (takes a while to get)-- Not sure which morph. Lethal Arrow for PvP definitely, but the other morph sounds enticing for everything else.

Expert Hunter-- Fighters Guild skill tree, rank 6. Bonuses to Weapon Critical.

For both DW and Bow, you're going to want to stack weapon critical rating and chance. Find the Warrior, Thief, or Shadow mundus stone and have one of them active. Warrior = +weapon dmg, Thief = +crit chance, Shadow = +crit dmg

The only thing you're doing "wrong" is comparing your DPS output as a level 17 NB to another player's with a different class/setup. Enjoy the early content, get comfortable with your abilities, find your play style. And no, you're not bad! Keep leveling and keep learning what works best for you.

I'm quite envious that you are enjoying the bow. That's the set up I was going to use, but I ended up not liking the bow.

NB Khajiit DW, and bow as backup weapon.

I put most of my focus on DW because I felt the bow is a bit underpowered, and fires far too slowly, especially for bosses.

When I restarted another character, I focused only one one DW skill (Rapid Strikes) and Assassination. Between these two, the bow is rarely used, except when I need to kite.

I only have Poison Arrow unlocked for my bow, as the kite + poison over time nicks them for a bit before my blades finish the job.

It comes down to personal preference, so try a few things out and see what you like. Don't sweat your skill points. Save about 10k in gold and you can reset them (you won't lose the leveling behind them) so you can focus on what you want if certain skills don't pan out.

For the record: you do not need to unlock each skill to open the next. If you don't want Volley, wait until you get exp in bows to get the next unlock, if that's one you prefer.

I didn't know this, so I thought I'd share. :P

mr_plow_30b16_ESO wrote: »

Hey. I'm new to the game, and got it maybe two days ago. I'm leveling up a Nightblade, DW/Bow combo because I like being a Rogue type player, only level 17 now.
- Are 2x Daggers any good, or should I be looking at the best 1hander//Dagger available and use it?. When I'm leveling with friends I noticed out tank who's Templar does way more damage than me and easily kills mobs no problem. I put all my stats into Stamina.
- Skills I bought
-DW: Killer's blade, Shadowy Disguise, Surprise Attack, Swallow Soul
- Bow: Venom and Volley (Just started using bow last hour or so)

What I'll do is basicaly; Shadowy Disguise>>Surprise Attack>>Heavy Attack 1x >>Killer's Blade.....dead. Sometimes I don't even need Killer's Blade. Am I doing this right?

Off-topic: Is a Ranged Sorc any good?. I do enjoy visual effects and want to make a main Melee DPS (NB) and a ranged in Sorc. Anyone have a good Sorc build?

My only advice il give you is respec till you find what works for you, I respected like 9 times and I will still respec again ... I love my current set up up but I do get bored.

I went assasin and dual wield down one skill and syphon and bow down another

I'm at VR2 and I'm now looking to swith to sword and board and staff so I'm leting them rank up as I go by having one active of each in my current line up.


As long as you're having fun and enjoying the game you're not doing wrong or being bad