Nightblade Nord

Ibibi · September 2017

I have a cp 220 Nord NB.I havent played a while.I have done couple of dungeons with my gf(Healplar).Is the Nord still viable?I thought of using the Gilliamtherouges Bloodletter build.

Asardes · September 2017

Unless you have excellent gear and rotation you won't feel much of a difference between stamina races. Even for top players that difference is only about 3% DPS in PvE. In PvP Nord is quite good due to the 9% max health bonus and 6% damage mitigation.

SoLooney · September 2017

nord is meh for stamina dps. you get more health and damage mitigation, but if you want more damage and sustain, i suggest redguard, orc, or khajiit

Raudgrani · December 2017

Necro'ing topics is a little my thing, apparently.

But for races and picking between these: Yes, there are apparent do's and don'ts here. You don't pick a typical Magicka race such as Altmer for Stamina builds, or Nords for Magicka builds. I guess all can agree on that - even though I am sure some do, with some success. I say so, otherwise someone will tell me.

But if we push the topic a little further, have any of you actually tried this build calculator out? It seems pretty accurate as far as I can see: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor

I did so for a couple of builds. And sure, the effective weapon power (i.e. not weapon damage) had tiny differences between like Redguard, Nord, Khajiit, Bosmer and Orismer, we speak like 13200 vs 13210 or 13400, nothing huge whatsoever - nothing that really matters. Some like Khajiit had several percent more crit, while others had better regen or max stats - but again, nothing really "game changing". What class and abilities/playstyle you go for seems way more important. Being a high crit Khajiit maybe isn't better if all your planned/important attacks still are guaranteed critical hits, and if you are a "runaway ganker" - that slightly higher stamina return maybe doesn't matter that much, if you don't really count on stamina regen or wear Bone Pirate for example. Either you succeed, or you fail and die or run away (as a Nightblade).

Anyway, I'm getting a little tired of people repeating "facts" like that without consideration - just because "everyone knows it". Since we speak really small (often insignificant, I'd say) differences with several other aspects attached to it, the facts doesn't seem like cut into rock.
I was looking at an old Nord Nightblade I made, and was a bit surprised finding out making it a Khajiit, Bosmer or Redguard really wouldn't make that much of a difference in any way. Having a max Stamina of 44k, Stamina regen of 2100, weapon damage of 4200 (buffed alright) is quite ok imho. And running in all Divines armor makes it squishy enough already, I really have to think twice about a race change since doing these build tests. I might try though, and then Redguard would be the only other alternative really. People sometimes consider me crazy or a reeeeal "noob" because of this character, but fact sheets don't really lie. And I'm not put to shame in game either, so I can't see the problem. I would get it if I dealt like 20% more damage (or even 10%), or had a significant regen increase - but this is not the case. :-)

davey1107 · December 2017

@Raudgrani

In general, video game players don’t necessarily like doing a lot of math to play a game, lol. So some of us do the nerd bits, Post our estimates, then thy become “common wisdom,” which sometimes gets inflated or too ingrained.

Anyway...there’s merit to your idea that racial passives aren’t these absolutes that necessitate choosing specific classes/races/builds. However, I think you understate the impact. A Nord’s resistance passives are quite powerful, and so are a khajiit’s Damage passives. In theory, a 8% boost to crit should increase damage by approx. 4%. That isn’t an astronomical difference, but it’s significant. Playstyle can affect the yield on this buff, sure, but there’s an average there somewhere that should be pretty close to the total buff offered.

And the meta has to be taken into account. If the current meta is that everyone runs a few health glyphs or some heavy, then the Nord comes closer to the khajiit because the Nord could pass on some of the resistance and focus on dps buffs. But of the Meta is to utilize every slot for Damage, the khajiit could outperform. A khajiit will always have more damage potential, but at most points in the game’s life cycle it’s been about balancing a character, not maximizing it.

My friend is running his khajiit nightblade as a magblade in pvp right now. The khajiit passives are interesting because I’d call 2/3rds of their total value as translatable to magic builds. My friend wants the stealth radius. As a khajiit he can get right on someone’s rear and they won’t see him.

I also have no idea why I necro’d this.