Silver Bolts, or Hidden Blade?

Contrabardus · April 2014

I've got a bow/dual wield NB and I can't figure out which would be best for my build.

It would go in my dual wield bar along with Cripple [drain speed], Blood Craze [drain health], Funnel Health, and Teleport strike [also snare]. I want to have at least one ranged attack, but I'm not sure which one between these two skills would work best.

I'm also crafting and spending a lot of points in that, so taking both isn't really an option. I only want to have enough skills to fill my two bars and use the rest for buffs and crafting. I can get every crafting skill to maximum quality production and still get a decent combat character by ignoring the hireling, keen eye, and research time reduction skills. I'm patient enough to wait on the research, I don't have trouble finding mats, and I can get my own.

Hidden blades would give me a ranged snare attack. It's a nice PvP skill as I've found it really annoying to be on the receiving end of it.

Silver bolts can be morphed to hit multiple enemies and is very effective against Daedra and Undead, the knockdown is very useful. It also doesn't do bad damage in PvP and can really be useful for tagging multiple targets to meet bounty quotas. It also has a slower rate of fire and uses slightly more stamina.

I've also got my bow skill bar for ranged as well. I'm using funnel health, cripple, scatter shot [magnum shot], arrow spray [will morph into root], and poison arrow [for magic interrupt].

So what do you guys think? Silver bolts, or Hidden blade? Which would be the most useful between the two for my build?

Zerl · April 2014

You already have a snare with cripple, so perhaps you may want to go for silver leash.

As an alternative, it may be worth considering keeping your ranged attacks to your bow loadout nd have something like heated blades (which I think is a great debuff against melee).

My loadout for a DW skills are:

ambush - surprise attack - killers blade - heated blades - shadowy disguise - flawless dawnbreaker

I'm using my bow loadout for the snares, etc:

venom arrow - draining shot - focused aim - crippling grasp - leeching strikes - flawless dawnbreaker

I should add, that my loadout is based on my playstyle, and I'm a PvP orientated player.

Contrabardus · April 2014

I like to keep two stamina based abilities and two magicka based. So that's something to consider as well. That way I can draw from both pools and do constant damage.

I do like that Silver Leash is a draw like the DK chain move as well as a ranged attack. That will give me two draw in moves, one that pulls them to me and one that sends me to them.

Still not sure yet about what I'm going to put there. I'm level 21 and planning on using my next level for an Ultimate Move, which I haven't actually bothered with yet. So, the slot is still open.

I'm open to suggestions about what would work in that slot, only restriction would be that I'd like a stamina based ability and not one that relies on Magicka.

I might do both and drop cripple from my melee build. Not sure yet, but the more I think about it the better the idea sounds to me.

Snare isn't as useful for a direct melee char so Silver Leash and Heated Blade might actually be better.

Plus I'll still have a snare move in Lotus Fan, which I find more useful than Ambush because it's AoE.

I generally use it to get the jump on small groups of mobs.

It's also more useful in PvP groups as it can snag multiple enemies and make them easier targets for my group. I've not found solo PvPing to be very effective, and the snare is good enough that it works as an ambush opener even though it doesn't have the damage boost. Plus, Ambush doesn't snare.

The range of the AoE is terrible, but I can reliably get groups of two or three enemies caught in it's effect by not trying to spam it, picking my target mob carefully, and waiting for the right moment. Sometimes I can get four or five mobs with it if they're grouped right.

I'm definitely keeping Funnel Health as it's a decent heal and does pretty good damage on top of that.

I'll be getting both the Syphoning and Assassin Ultimates. Syphoning Ultimate will go on my ranged bar, and Assassin will go on melee. I'm just starting out with one and will get the other after I get this sorted out. After that, most of my points will be going into crafting, with the occasional passive buff as I unlock them.