I'm definitely not happy with them basically nerfing siphoning strikes, there's no reason to it's the NB's only survival tool. It's going to be a pain to recast that while also managing everything else.

I agree. SA already has the damage reduction while toggled which forces you to cast sap essence or entropy (for my magicka based attacks anyway) just to put my damage back at even. I don't have a pure class heal or good class shield as a NB tank, leave my resource skill alone!

FYI, after morphing the summon shades into the Dark Shades morph, which summons two shades, it seems a little more productive.

Ive been reluctant to run with shades. If I leveled it I was considering the single shade morph since he won't have to chase trash

That would be interesting to know if the shades do proc leeching strikes. Since they only do light attacks then it would, but is not you doing it. Anyone have any info on this?

I`m running a simlar build on my Dark elf Night blade, trying to set him up as an old school EQ Shadowknight.

I went atm S+B and 2H

S+B bar, puncture, sap essence, refreshing path, bone shield, swallow soul veil of blades or soul tether .

2H lotus fan for the aoe snare, concealed, dark cloak, mass hysteria, Impale, Death stroke .

but stuff changes depending what you are doing , can swap in double take, switch ultia, add inner fire etc .

using 4 heavy, 3 light atm since haven`t unlocked undaunted . stat increase yet.

Yup what I posted is mostly what I run in cryodill, and grinding if tanking don't really need impale, mass hysteria can swapnin double take and summon shades for reduced damge and shadow barrier and yup 5 heavy for tanking but just grinding mobs cryodill questing general pvp 4 does ok

Hey Jebuspowers

How are you finding this build since the new update?
Have you had to make any changes?

Also, at some point I'll figure out a good build to tank in pvp. The problem with pvp is your build doesn't matter all that much when you take into consideration the odds of you fighting just 1 player at a time that will stay there and fight you, and champion points can make a serious difference.

In another half vet level I'm going to be trying 5 pieces of Twilight's Embrace and 4 pieces of Armor of the Seducer to stack with my magicka NB tank. I'm hoping the Twilight's bonus of 10% additional healing received stacks nicely with the swallow soul passive of 8% additional healing received for really good sustain. With the max magicka regen and max overall magicka bonuses from Seducer, along with regen food, I don't think I'll ever run out of magicka as long as siphoning attacks stays viable. Who needs to hold block anymore if i can constantly sustain with self heals and damage while dps burns down enemies lol.

Yes I was planning on trying Twilight's before I try Whitestrake. I usually use Tether and Bolstering as my two ultimates in PVE. I substitute Soul Assault as an ultimate in PVP.

I realize that when I say they will hate you that the game actually does not have a threat table. But I'm pretty sure enemies have target priority lists. If you were to think of them as "if/then" statements:

If target x has 5 pieces of medium armor, then attack target x.
If target is healing, then attack target x.
If target casts crowd control abilities, then attack target x.
If target x is within 10 meters, then attack target x.


Then the taunt debuff should trump that stuff. I feel like that is how it works because for anyone who has tanked, especially in veteran Wayrest, stuff will run right past you and attack your party. So use as many abilities that do multiple things for maximum "aggro".That's why I dig soul tether because it does a lot all at once. If you can figure out how to fulfill the enemies' attack priority requirements then you should not need to taunt absolutely everything.

jebuspowers wrote: »

Also, at some point I'll figure out a good build to tank in pvp. The problem with pvp is your build doesn't matter all that much when you take into consideration the odds of you fighting just 1 player at a time that will stay there and fight you, and champion points can make a serious difference.

There's no point in tanking in pvp. You wont kill anyone, wont heal anyone, and a group of people will will likely kill you anyway with enough time.

jebuspowers wrote: »

Yeah, it's hard to kill anyone in pvp unless it's in 2-3 hits.I'm sure there is an effective way to tank it though. I mean tank it as in have very high survivability but still able to do enough damage to kill someone. If you do too much damage too fast they will probably run if they survive. Too little and you won't kill them. Like I said it doesn't really matter because one on one is rare and all you can do against a group is run.

If 1v1 is rare and they are always in a group then why don't you be in a group. 2 people doing as much damage as they can and single targeting a person will kill said person.

And if you do too much damage, kill them. There is no point in saying, "I'm doing too much damage" That will never happen in a video game, unless the objective is to huge people and hand out flowers.

Unfortunately I have been having issues with my isp and have not been able to download the new patch (imperial city). With siphoning attacks no longer on toggle that opens up a slot and I am a little on the fence in which skill I want there, but I think I'm going to roll with cripple. The reasons are:

A. I get a speed buff which is useful for getting around during a fight. As long as cripple is on then I move 40% faster for 8 seconds.
B. Cripple is a very powerful dot and I would like another dot besides path and entropy. From what I have seen, cripple is possibly one of the strongest dots in the game that's not an ultimate and one of the morphs increases damage.
C. This will allow soul siphoner passive to still be up when using either bar and I will gain ultimate with either bar.

I will have to see how much I like it, though I am also considering Grim Focus because

A. The 8% berserk apples to all attacks including siphon which is in keeping with the Blood Knight theme.
B. The spectral bow hits really freaking hard. Like real hard. This makes it useful for pretty much all situations, pvp and pve (solo or grouped).
C. Grim focus has a morph that regenerates stamina, and in places like DSA more regen is better.
D. The patch dropped the required 7 light attacks down to 4 in order to use the bow attack. This is really helpful while solo because solo tanks don't die, but the fights are loooooong. With grim on, just weave in 4 attacks, use ambush and then the spectral bow for big damage (for a tank anyway).