How to sufficiently regenerate mana in combat as Nightblade?

rofflemywafflez · April 2014

So I'm a lvl 18 Khajit Nightblade in-game and I'm wondering if anyone has a build they could share on how to sufficiently regenerate your mana pool high whilst in combat?

I wish I could use killer's-blade to regenerate mana rather than health, but alas, the game is not "that" flexible yet

I like to go invisible in combat and stun many times while I pick enemies off one by one, and it works pretty well... but when taking on HUGE mobs, the kinds that just keep coming, or taking on a single boss solo, the burst-damage becomes a short-sprint, and I want more endurance.

I have almost all my points in magicka which helps... but I want to last longer.

Thanks for any tips.

Noth · April 2014

More gear with magicka regen, or just learn to manage it better to spread it out instead of blowing it all at once.

rofflemywafflez · April 2014

Well, that makes perfect sense, and I've been doing that too (I use flurry strikes as my stamina attack, lots of good damage), but I don't use anything from the siphoning tree and I'm wondering if there is something I could potentially use (or morph into) there. I'm thinking about things in the big picture, mage guild passives/abilities, vampire passives/abilities, etc.

Which leads me into my next thought: I'm also thinking about becoming a vampire. There seems to be some really sweet synergy there

eNumbra · April 2014

Use light armor.

The first two skills;
-Evocation: Reduces the magicka cost of spells by 3% per piece of light armor equipped at rank 3

-Recovery: Increases magicka regeneration by 4% per piece of light armor equipped at rank 3

The first will mitigate(should, I have assumed that anything using magicka is for the games purposes considered a "spell") the cost of those abilities and the second will actively add to your recovery. Stack on provisioning soups(max magicka) or wines(Recovery) as well as some jewelry and you should be decent.

I doubt you'd be able to use them even near-endlessly though, I'd love to be able to just chain Ambush and Surprise Attack but "overcharge" exists pretty much to ensure that people have to balance stamina and magicka to some degree.

Though you've given me an idea, since the Altmer have Spellcharge and Gift of Magnus, they might make for a decent class skill bases NB build. My main concern in all of it though is that ESO makes the distinction in skill descriptions between Recovery and Combat Recovery, I believe it's the latter that you truly need.

rofflemywafflez · April 2014

Yeah, I think I'm learning that it's important to think outside the box. Like, you wouldn't think a NB should uses light armor, but in situations like this, it might be one of the best things possible and make for a really strong build.

Also, choosing an Altmer might have been a really good idea.

Sleepwalker · April 2014

Try your hand at a resto staff. The heavy attack returns mana, and one of it's passives grants mana when you block a spell attack (though I'm not sure how good this one is as I haven't tried it.)

Lynx7386 · April 2014

Siphoning strikes will allow you to regenerate 4% mana and stamina per light/basic attack when toggled on, at the cost of causing you to deal less damage with weapons and spells. You can morph it to also restore 4% health per hit (though at the moment it's bugged and only restores like 2% per hit) to keep you alive as well.

There's a passive in the assassination tree that restores X magicka over 6 seconds after killing an enemy with an assassination ability, too, and that works well with impale.

Teloran · April 2014

Remember that you loose out on a lot of crit by going light instead of medium (yes, your melee skills do use physical crit) . I'm afraid that as a Nightblade you need to choose between having frequent casts or big hits until you unlock Siphoning Strikes, and even that reduces the damage of your abilities by about 10%.

GwaynLoki · April 2014

I recommend getting Siphoning Strikes and morphing it to Siphoning Attacks. I am currently level 44 and with this - and 5 medium and 2 light armor, dual wielding - I am able to stealth quite a lot with Shadow Cloak/Shadowy Disguise and then deal some nice dmg with Veiled Strike/Surprise Attack. Put most of my attribute points into magicka.
I leave Siphoning Attacks switched on all the while and together with cloaking, I can easily take down 3 enemies without losing more than 15% health, if any at all. If you micro manage Siphoning Attacks you can gain even better dmg output.
Together with Sparks, it's easy to solo even high health bosses.

rofflemywafflez · April 2014

GwaynLoki wrote: »

I recommend getting Siphoning Strikes and morphing it to Siphoning Attacks. I am currently level 44 and with this - and 5 medium and 2 light armor, dual wielding - I am able to stealth quite a lot with Shadow Cloak/Shadowy Disguise and then deal some nice dmg with Veiled Strike/Surprise Attack. Put most of my attribute points into magicka.
I leave Siphoning Attacks switched on all the while and together with cloaking, I can easily take down 3 enemies without losing more than 15% health, if any at all. If you micro manage Siphoning Attacks you can gain even better dmg output.
Together with Sparks, it's easy to solo even high health bosses.

This.

I think this is specifically the kind of information I was looking for. Your abilities seem to match a lot of my own play-style, and the "Siphoning Attacks" morph is just friggin' sweet.

I think I have a problem though.... I don't use any of my Siphoning abilities with my current skillset, so my Siphoning abilities are only at 14 or 15? I'm guessing it's going to take me quite a while to build it up. I'm not sure what Siphoning Ability I should use to level up Siphoning either.

apterous · April 2014

more points to magicka than any other, use light armor.

Rilyharytoze · April 2014

Use Strife...up until about lvl 39 strife (swallow soul) never came off my bar..get some decent self healing and it's useable from range

GwaynLoki · April 2014

You could also use your current set up and just change over to a bar that contains only one or more siphoning ability/ies for earning the quest rewards. That's how I did level some of my skills. Otherwise Rilyharytoze makes a good point about strife. Nice thing to have on the second skill bar.

apterous · April 2014

strife does pretty good damage too