Best Answers

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  ArpamiesFin

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  looks pretty good, just do some pvp to unlock vigor, its pretty essential for healing

  #2

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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  Oreyn_Bearclaw

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  You are on the right track. At your level, I would focus more on rounding out your skills. You are going to feel pretty weak until you are at least at the CP gear cap (160). I wouldnt spend anything on gear until CP 160. As stated, a little PVP for vigor will definitely help. You also really want Caltrops from PVP as well for the damage.
  
  I will make a few suggestions on your skills. I realize you might not have some of them yet. The entire NB class is really designed around the skill grim focus, which a stam player will morph to relentless focus. This should be on your front bar, and the obvious skill to drop is rapid strikes. Rapid Strikes is redundant with Surprise Attack, no real reason to run both, and SA is better.
  
  Your back bar has a few magic skills, that really wont serve you well once you get to higher levels. As a general rule, you only want to run utility skills that cost magic. Damage skills that cost magic wont scale with your build. Lots of people dont realize this, but as a general rule: If your skill costs magic, it scales of spell damage AND max magic. If your skill costs stamina, it scales off weapon damage AND max stamina. Increasing either of the inputs will make the tool tip value for the skill increase. This is why most players pick one attribte, (stamina or magic) and dump all their points there. You simply hit harder. Increasing your stamina by 10.5 points, is roughly the same as increasing your weapon damage by 1 point.
  
  In other words, as a stamina player, all your damage skills should be stamina based. Your back bar has some redundancies and useless skills. Swallow soul and drain essence dont do much for a stam player (i realize they might be what you need to heal at low level). Mark Target is good for a bow/bow player, or a 2H/bow player, but the real reason you run mark target is for major fracture. Well, surprise attack already gives that to you. Mirage is a utility (defensive) skill. Probably good at low levels, but you will likely find its not needed. Vigor is a better defensive tool.
  
  

  #3

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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  Oreyn_Bearclaw

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  JoShadow wrote: »

  Thanks a lot for this small guide, it's going to help me a lot!

  
  Haha, sure thing. Also, your other two class Ultimates both have merit. One is essentially an AOE bomb (soul shred), and one is really nice for damage mitigation in those oh crap moments (consuming darkness). You prob wont run them at end game, but no reason not to play with them in the mean time. Pay attention to your fighters guild skill line, you will want Dawnbreaker ultimate (and trap beast) at some point. It levels by killing undead, so it will max out eventually. You can do a zombie or Dolmen grind to power level it. Other than that, your front bar is surprisingly meta for damage.

  #4

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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  Colecovision

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  I see bow is level 13. That makes sense since you are probably killing things with killer blade of on the front bar.
  
  I’m case you don’t know, the weapon and skills that are slotted when you get xp are what the xp applies to. It has nothing to do with actually using the skill. So if you ever do a dolmen xp run, just use the bow. Also switch to bow before turning in quests or crafting writs. Be sure there is a vamp skill in your bar for that stuff as well. You could also leave a vamp skill on the front bar until you unlock the passives and just get that out of the way.
  
  Also, be sure to change the settings so that you you can see all the buffs and damage numbers on screen. Read the passives for each skill line closely. Surprise attack can be an important defensive skill, but you need to pay attention to those descriptions and follow what buffs are up to understand why.

  #5

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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  Oreyn_Bearclaw

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  Colecovision wrote: »

  I see bow is level 13. That makes sense since you are probably killing things with killer blade of on the front bar.
  
  I’m case you don’t know, the weapon and skills that are slotted when you get xp are what the xp applies to. It has nothing to do with actually using the skill. So if you ever do a dolmen xp run, just use the bow. Also switch to bow before turning in quests or crafting writs. Be sure there is a vamp skill in your bar for that stuff as well. You could also leave a vamp skill on the front bar until you unlock the passives and just get that out of the way.
  
  Also, be sure to change the settings so that you you can see all the buffs and damage numbers on screen. Read the passives for each skill line closely. Surprise attack can be an important defensive skill, but you need to pay attention to those descriptions and follow what buffs are up to understand why.

  
  You dont need a vamp skill slotted to level the vamp line. The Vamp line is leveled purely on experience, which happens on its own really quick. What you said about the bow is true. It doesnt matter if you use the skills or not. When you gain experience, any skill on your active bar will always get XP, as will the resulting skill line (with a few exceptions, Undaunted, Vamp, Mages, fighters guild, Alliance, WW, etc). In fact you dont even need to use a bow to level the bow line. Simply slot a Bow skill on your front bar and earn XP. You wont be able to use the skill, but it will level, as will the associated skill line.
  
  For example, when I have a stam toon that needs something like 1H or Sword/Shield leveled for PVP, I simply run a DW setup. On the front bar I slot steel tornado and as many 1H skills as I have available, then I load my back bar with all the buffs/Dots I need to grind. You can level a skill line to 50 in like an hour.
  
  When I level a new toon, I always keep at least one skill from each class skill line on my bar at all times, until they hit 50. I also keep at least one skill from my back bar weapon (usually a bow or Resto staff), so that those level as well. If you want to take it one step further, make sure you always have at least 1 piece of each armor type so those level. If you really want to go all out, I recommend a turn in bar. basically every time you turn in a quest, you equip a secondary weapon, and stack all the skills/lines you want to level. On PC, its easy to do with an addon.

  Edited by Oreyn_Bearclaw on May 9, 2018 6:51PM

  #6

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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  jlb1705

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  I would choose one or the other between Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst and Surprise Attack. I remember relying pretty heavily on Bloodthirst at low levels because of the healing returned. Surprise Attack is the superior skill, but its potential is really unlocked after you've fully invested in the Shadow passives. If you don't have enough skill points to max those out yet, then using Bloodthirst to stay alive might be a better option for the time being. You need to get Grim Focus (morph to Relentless Focus) on your front bar in place of whichever one you take off once you get your Assassination skill up to 42.
  
  You're not far from maxing our your Dual Wield skill. Once you do that, you can slot that ultimate (Lacerate - morph to Rend) - it has a decent healing return with it.
  
  As for the back bar - make sure you're on this bar when you turn in quests or when you're discovering new locations. You'll level those skills a little faster, so you can unlock new options and passives.
  
  I don't see anything wrong with having Mark Target slotted. Mark Target does have the same de-buff as Surprise attack, so you don't necessarily want to use them together. If you use Mark Target well though, it returns a decent chunk of health and can keep you alive. I cut right through a lot of enemies using a combo of Mark Target and Bloodthirsty back when I was at your level.
  
  Don't ditch Swallow Soul yet. You need it slotted at least until you reach 30 in the Siphoning skill line so you can unlock Siphoning Strikes, which will morph to Leeching Strikes. Leeching Strikes is the only useful stamina skill in the Siphoning line, but you have to level it enough to unlock it, which means slotting a Magicka skill for a while. It doesn't hurt to use Swallow Soul as long as you have it slotted though. I used it at low levels because it returned healing provided a ranged attack, and helped with managing resources since it allowed me to attack/heal without exhausting my limited (at the time) stamina pool.

  #7

  May 2018

  Answer ✓

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