The dilemma of Nightblades - What am I?! -Nighblade and dual wield problem and suggestions

Weaken · April 2014

I started a nightblade. (I am vet5 currently)

I thought I will be a stealthy assasin who have tons of cc abilities and insane single target burst damage and lot of utilities, at the cost of medium defense and low aoe dmg.
But what am I really? (I dont answer it, because I dont know the answer)

My bigges utility is stealth(sneak). Its a very very useful "ability" this give a big bonus damage multiplier, but since every class can use this, it not give me real advantage. Nightblade passive abilities not really improve it. (-Why?!)
So there is invisibility for a LOT OF magicka for 2,5sec. But it not give bonus damage multiplier. But I can use Veiled strike for stun, but it cost a lot of magicka again, and really? thats my only spamable stun ability?! ( we only have +1 from utlimate)

Ok then I need magicka and problem is solved.
Then lets try light armor.

light armor:
-reduce magicka cost of abilities - Oh nice! I really want it! I need it!
-increase magicka regen - Since all my class abilies cost mana, its awesome!
-magic resistance -ok
-spellcrit - Sounds good, BUT its not work with most of my abilies since they need critical from medium armor. So its useless for me.
-very low armor -Its bad, I need armor, Iam a melee fighter
oh and really an assasin in skirt -.-"?!

Then lets try medium armor: -Yes, yes I want this! Medium armor for assasins! What else?!

medium armor
-critical damage with phisical abilities and melee spells -Nice! best for me!
-improve and reduce cost of stealth, sprint, roll dodge -Excelent for me!
-medium defense - Its right, assasins dont have heavy armor.
-stamina regen - Oh wait?! I need magicka! I need magicka regen!

Well no problem, then I try use stamina abilities. And then I dont use veiled strike.+invisibility. So I need weapon skills:
Dual daggers for sure!

dual wield
-no big burst damage for engage from stealth - so I no longer can oneshot or 2shot anyone from stealth.
-no cc, only spark, but it works only against melee attacks, but since all class abilities are magic, this dont defend me agains stuns etc.
-no utility
-poor aoe
Passive give me very nice bonus damage agains immobile/stunned/knocked/silence enemy. Its really nice BUT now I dont have stun or any cc. (I have fear but tooltip not talk about fear).

So dual is bad, let try: 2h

2handed weapons:
-nice stun and uppercut oneshot enemies from stealth!! awesome!
-nice execute ability
-better aoe
But assasin with a 2handed mace?!
With teleport strike animation... err.. I donk know.. Its so weird.
Then maybe I should pick heavy armor?... but I dont want.. then I should make a DK or Templar? I want to be an assasin!

Bows:
Bow are nice! Assasin with bow? Its fine, but I want to be a melee assasin. Cut throat, backstab enemies, poison them and then vanish away.
But lets try:
-I dont have any ranged stun ability, only scatter shot but its not a stun its just a disorient and it have a very poor range!
-enemy run away! Ok lets sprint after him..wait! Im out of stamina, I cant use abilities --> stamina give very poor bonus damage to basic attacks so I must spam abilities: silvershot or poison arrow.
Snipe is fun but useless in pve, and you cant catch fleeing enemies in pvp, becaus it have 3 sec cast time, and slow me down while casting.
If he run too fast-> attack fails
If 1 hit not kill the target-> he escape

I dont want destro staff, that for mages.

So what am I?
What should I choose?
What sorcerers choose? Light armor & destro staff!
Its simple and nice! They use pure mana and its fine.

But for nightblades: There is no clear good way!!!
We have options, but all options are broken a bit.

My suggestion is:
-Make some of the nightblade abilities stamina based!
Improve sneak for nightblades and reduce effectiveness for other classes -especially for heavy armored players.
In this game currently every class is an assasin :O In Cyrodiil everyone sneaking. Well its ok but, a heavy armored orc dragon knight with a 2h mace shouldnt be as good as a medium armored wood elf with small daggers. They should be barely visible from 30meter. Or when they are moving.

Some new ability,morf, rework, improvement suggestions for nighblades:
(For real assasins)

Assasination
-teleport strike morf: "Cut throat" - deal damage and silence enemy
-teleport strike basically should teleport BEHIND enemy
-Blure - rework -> "Parry" Parry all incoming melee attacks -> morf:"Counter attack" deal damage back equal your basic attack damage for each parry. (reduced effectiveness with heavy armor - because tanks would be op and with heavy armor nobody tha agile

)

Shadow

-"Backstab" - high damage burst ability, only usable from behind enemies
-Consuming darkness - Give invisibility to caster too!!!!!!! (Should work like vanish in wow or like smoke screen in wow)
-aspect of terror rework -> "Blind" -> blind all nearby target (let fear for fearsome warriors, assasins not fear their target they throw dirt in the eyes)
veiled strike morph - stun not require stealth but stun less long
-summon shade -> rework: "Dark persuade" - Targeted enemy npc will fight for you for a few sec
-"Distract" - ranged aoe ability - Distract and offbalance noncombat npc-s. Does not remove stealh or cause threat. (This wold make stealth attack from behind easyer)

passive: reduce aoe dmg taken while stealthed
passive: increase stealth movement speed
passive: faster stealth activation (like on vampires)

Siphon:
-"Exhaust" - target magicka/stamina or reduce their manaregen or stamina regen for a few sec
-Agony -> new name and effect -> "Sleeping dart"
-"Magic refresh": transfers magicka into stamina

*passive: increase potion and POISON effectiveness (would work fine with my Poisoned blades* ,venom arrow, etc.)

Dual wield:
-"Weapon master"- melee basic attack deal dmg to +1 nearby enemy for a few sec
-"Kick" - interrup casting/heavy attacks and offbalance target , even blocking targets!
-Twin slash ->"Poisoned blade" - deal poison damage over time, stacking up, reduce healing effectiveness 10%/stack , maximum 5stack (because bleed not affects most targets and we need more healing reduce)

passive: -bonus dmg from stealth AND INVISIBILITY

Medium armor:
rework active: increase running speed, decrease stamina cost of abilites, doubles dodge chanse from passive*

passive: give 2% dodge chanse/medium armor equipped (max 7*2=14% with active=28%)
passive: enable sprint whiles stealthed, but with reduced speed
passive: enable roll dodge while stealthed

Cyrodiil Stealth/Combat(bug?):
Sometimes I cant go to stealth (after I kill someone) for 20-40sec even when Iam far far far away from everyone. And a nightblade alone without stealth -> dead.
I usually die because of this problem.
So stealth should be improved!! We should able to go to stealth even in combat, if we not receive any damage for 6sec.

Thanks for read and sorry because of my english.
If you like this post please support with "agree" for a better Nighblade class.

Gisgo · April 2014

Im a VR7 full stamina dual wield NB and the only thing i agree with is the "enhance poison" thing.

I suggest you to gear your character for magicka regen (that can be converted to stamina by using shadow skills) and stamina pool (not stamina regen) for the damage.

I will elaborate better later, not its almost dinner time.

Dinner is crucial for an NB.

edit. oh when you cant stealth often its because another stealther (or an npc) is looking at you.

Weaken · April 2014

Gisgo wrote: »

*********************************
edit. oh when you cant stealth often its because another stealther (or an npc) is looking at you.

I am in the middle of a field. I kill a player then I cant go to stealth. Nobody near or far. -- until enemy army arives and hunt me down

Gisgo · April 2014

Weaken wrote: »

Gisgo wrote: »

*********************************
edit. oh when you cant stealth often its because another stealther (or an npc) is looking at you.

I am in the middle of a field. I kill a player then I cant go to stealth. Nobody near or far. -- until enemy army arives and hunt me down

And how do you know nobody is near or far if they are stealthing?
You need to assume there is always someone stalking you.

Weaken · April 2014

"And how do you know nobody is near or far if they are stealthing?
You need to assume there is always someone stalking you."

So you mean if there is anyone in the map who 1km close to me I am unable to go stealth?

Gisgo · April 2014

Its not 1km but yeah more or less... if someone is looking at you you cant hide.
What you can do is to hit shadow cloak, get behind a cover and stealth.
NPCs (guards) are half bugged and can see you through things.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO · April 2014

You want to know what is a nigthblade? let me humor you then

A nightblade is a warlock an assassin a master of the dark art an expert illusionist but before anything else a night blade embody the power of the shadows and the scary thing you fear in the night. A nightblade is a joker wich use the cards of death and darkness. To resume a nightblade to an assassin is absurd a nightblade can be a wizard a shadowy murderer a black mage or just anything you want it to be. Nightblade are those who deals in the dark.

A nightblade is just a starter template for of a nightblade you can create an assassin just as well as you can create a warlock or a blood mage. You may even create a blademaster by emphasing on your agility and ability to deal deadly strikes with your edge from a combination of assassination heavy armor and 2h swords (NB is the best class in the game for physical damage based build). A nightblade is the scion class for all the darker themed build in ESO.

Think of final fantasy when your character start as a soldier... well from this soldier you can evolve to a paladin a fighter or even a ninja. Nightblade works in similar way.

IN D&D board game you may start as a thief but what prevent the so called thief from turning to magic and becoming an arcane trickster or a master illusionist? Is a Warrior doomed to forever be a warrior or can he build toward becoming a sentinel or a battle mage?

Whatever your night blade is it is way more then just a ''nightblade'' It is everything and nothing at the same time. YOU are the one who choose who you are.

As a heavy armor nightblade using a 2h sword you will always be terrified when you see the Reaper marks right above your head the moment im about to do a vorpal strike and go strait for your scalp from out of nowhere (my 2h sword is unfamous for its one shots because I stack weapon power to the cap before striking)

Weaken · April 2014

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

You want to know what is a nigthblade? let me humor you then

[...]

Whatever your night blade is it is way more then just a ''nightblade'' It is everything and nothing at the same time. YOU are the one who choose who you are.

Nice, I like it. Maybe I played too mutch with WOW and can't think over Rogue.
BTW Iam still sure some abilities should be stamina based.

Vangrave · April 2014

Nightblade is so weird, I agree. I think it actually performs best as a heavy melee fighter or as a caster (healer or DPS). Curious about the dinner dude's take on dual wield though. I had the same impressions as you, but I never really tried to make it work since I typically tank or use a two handed sword to spam carve and shoot bats at people.

ArgonianAssassin · April 2014

SOunds to me like you're not mixing and matching and using purely dual wield abilities or purely class abilities or purely light armor, I'm running 5 light/2 medium, 1 ability from every class tree, 1 vampire ability and 1 dual wield ability, veteran rank 5, and i'm having a blast, some fights are more difficult than others but that's how it should be, with enough practice and playing with my build I can solo anything. My build is Rapid Strikes(Dual Wield) Invigorating Drain(Vampire) Swallow Soul(Siphoning) Mirage(Assassination) & Shadowy Imagine (Shadow) oh yeah, and I use Devouring Swarm or Incapacitating Strikes as my ultimates, and sometimes switch out swallow soul for leeching strikes from the same tree.

steve_skippy_lloyd_ESO · April 2014

The crit you get with stealth pairs nicely with the bow Snipe ability. 2 hander is only way to go, dual wield is useless, unless you going to Flurry the crap out of someone as that is the best damage skill for dual wield. I know you wont feel like an assassin, but really, this game no one feels like they pick. Tank Mages. Mage Dragon Knights. Healing Templars (they need some love).

R0M2K · April 2014

Feeling the same.

Everybody talking, "ok you can play the NB like this or like that" but the archtype should perform better than its actually doing.

When i read about the classes i thougth:

DK=2h
Templar=1h+shield
Sorc=staff
NB=2w

Those archtypes should at the very minimum work... And i think all are working except for the NB.

Weaken · April 2014

ArgonianAssassin wrote: »

SOunds to me like you're not mixing and matching and using purely dual wield abilities or purely class abilities or purely light armor, I'm running 5 light/2 medium, 1 ability from every class tree, 1 vampire ability and 1 dual wield ability, veteran rank 5, and i'm having a blast, some fights are more difficult than others but that's how it should be, with enough practice and playing with my build I can solo anything. My build is Rapid Strikes(Dual Wield) Invigorating Drain(Vampire) Swallow Soul(Siphoning) Mirage(Assassination) & Shadowy Imagine (Shadow) oh yeah, and I use Devouring Swarm or Incapacitating Strikes as my ultimates, and sometimes switch out swallow soul for leeching strikes from the same tree.

Thank you for idea. I think its not good when nighblades definitely need to be vampires. (At veteran level)

Falmer · April 2014

I tried making a NB about 6 different times initially and abandoned the character each time because it just wasn't working how I believed it should.

Then one day, I decided to go for a shadowy siphoner. Strife, Blood Craze(dual wield), and the shadow invis skill is all it takes for me to be the most survivable character I have yet made.

There are passives that make coming out of invis give you astronomical armor and spell resist for 4 seconds. I can easily cast that invis endlessly every 4 seconds. I also have a passive that gives me near 100% crit chance on my strike while in invis.

Wear your medium armor, but spend your attribute points on Magicka. Being a vampire or using siphoning strikes, makes you practically unkillable as you can heal faster than most things can damage you.

I also keep agony on my 2nd hot bar to break up groups and just fight things one at a time easily.

Beeftips · April 2014

steve_skippy_lloyd_ESO wrote: »

The crit you get with stealth pairs nicely with the bow Snipe ability. 2 hander is only way to go, dual wield is useless, unless you going to Flurry the crap out of someone as that is the best damage skill for dual wield. I know you wont feel like an assassin, but really, this game no one feels like they pick. Tank Mages. Mage Dragon Knights. Healing Templars (they need some love).

What? Flurry? The ONLY dual wield skill that is useful is flying blade (hidden blade). Get the damage increase passives for stunned target and a target >25%. Flying blade easily hits for 500-600 after those 2 perks activate. Basically, open with concealed weapon from stealth, ambush, concealed weapon again for a 600-800 hit, then spam flying blade until they're dead.

Sleepydan · April 2014

This was a very interesting way to describe your difficulties.

Seems there are more than a few conflicting choices to make regarding commitment to character design

Dominulf · April 2014

It's pretty annoying that NB is the least sought after class in any situation. No matter how hard I try to come up with builds I feel totally outclassed by the others. Reading through several community forum it seems that the general consensus is that NB is the bottom of the barrel class as it is right now.

Someone who I've been playing games with for a little while said this tonight.

I'm not going to give up on my NB though. It's a challenge to make something out of nothing and balance shifts in MMOS, I guess.

ArgonianAssassin · April 2014

Weaken wrote: »

ArgonianAssassin wrote: »

SOunds to me like you're not mixing and matching and using purely dual wield abilities or purely class abilities or purely light armor, I'm running 5 light/2 medium, 1 ability from every class tree, 1 vampire ability and 1 dual wield ability, veteran rank 5, and i'm having a blast, some fights are more difficult than others but that's how it should be, with enough practice and playing with my build I can solo anything. My build is Rapid Strikes(Dual Wield) Invigorating Drain(Vampire) Swallow Soul(Siphoning) Mirage(Assassination) & Shadowy Imagine (Shadow) oh yeah, and I use Devouring Swarm or Incapacitating Strikes as my ultimates, and sometimes switch out swallow soul for leeching strikes from the same tree.

Thank you for idea. I think its not good when nighblades definitely need to be vampires. (At veteran level)

Fair enough, I didn't think you -had- to be a vampire to be viable, I could probably replace invig drain with any other ability and be just as good, I just don't want to, I quite like being a vampire and it's the only ability in the tree worth using in my rotation besides bat swarm, now if we had a summon thrall ability or something similar, that would earn a permanent slot on my bar, because I'm not playing my class spec or w/e for viability, I'm playing it for rp, fun and theme of it and if there's ever a necromancer line im going right into that to, and to hell with the downsides and debuffs, to me it's about looking cool, viability is an after thought.

Xithian · April 2014

Weaken wrote: »

I thought I will be a stealthy assasin who have tons of cc abilities and insane single target burst damage and lot of utilities, at the cost of medium defense and low aoe dmg.

Weaken wrote: »

Maybe I played too mutch with WOW and can't think over Rogue.

I think I see the problem.

Kidding aside, you're spreading yourself too thin if you think you can do all of that. You only have 5 ability slots. You can't have "tons of" anything. There are a few utility skills but in this case utility just means resource management.

While there are problem with the Nightblade class, people trying to play them like WoW rogues is not one of them. That's a problem with the player, not the class.

If Nightblade skills need tweaked (or in some cases, fixed altogether) to compete with the other classes, that's one thing. But knock off the "but the rogues aren't rogue-like!" complaints. You can also play a melee sorc, a templar that doesn't heal, or a caster DK. The difference is I don't see anyone claiming any of those is a bad thing.

Creslian7 · May 2014

Nightblades are in need of some help and fixes. It doesn't help us that most of our abilities are broken to begin with, some of our passives need to be retuned as well. Look at transfer, ugh.

The shadow tree could use with a passive stealth runspeed buff in addition with what ever you get from concealed weapon slotted. Assasination passives should widen the rear arc for rear stealth attacks attacks. Our magica costs are through the roof on almost all our skills. I would like to see shadow cloak and it's morphs reduced in magica cost. Also, any dots on your target (which is almost every siphoning ability) currently cause you to pop out of your cloak.

Haste doesn't even work on bow attacks,
Blur just doesn't work and is lackluster as a defensive.
Both of the Mark morphs don't work, the armor/spell pen isn't applied to the target, it is to you though.
The snare on Cripple and it's morphs doesn't work and half the time you don't get the runspeed buff.
The shades do horrible damage and bug out 90% of the time just standing there.
Ambush doesn't always port you or do damage, but will spend the magica np. Suprise attack armor reduction isn't applied to the target.

Those are off the top of my head, Tamriel Foundry has a much more indepth report on our broken skills on their forums, I've pasted the list in another thread here.

I've spent over 50k respecing trying different morphs, builds, skills, weapons at VR5 and they are all painful.

ArgonianAssassin · May 2014

Creslian7 wrote: »

Nightblades are in need of some help and fixes. It doesn't help us that most of our abilities are broken to begin with, some of our passives need to be retuned as well. Look at transfer, ugh.

The shadow tree could use with a passive stealth runspeed buff in addition with what ever you get from concealed weapon slotted. Assasination passives should widen the rear arc for rear stealth attacks attacks. Our magica costs are through the roof on almost all our skills. I would like to see shadow cloak and it's morphs reduced in magica cost. Also, any dots on your target (which is almost every siphoning ability) currently cause you to pop out of your cloak.

Haste doesn't even work on bow attacks,
Blur just doesn't work and is lackluster as a defensive.
Both of the Mark morphs don't work, the armor/spell pen isn't applied to the target, it is to you though.
The snare on Cripple and it's morphs doesn't work and half the time you don't get the runspeed buff.
The shades do horrible damage and bug out 90% of the time just standing there.
Ambush doesn't always port you or do damage, but will spend the magica np. Suprise attack armor reduction isn't applied to the target.

Those are off the top of my head, Tamriel Foundry has a much more indepth report on our broken skills on their forums, I've pasted the list in another thread here.

I've spent over 50k respecing trying different morphs, builds, skills, weapons at VR5 and they are all painful.

ALL OF THIS!!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Grim13 · May 2014

Honestly, if I'd even imagined I could be as stealthy being a Heavy Armor wearing DK, as I could being a full Medium Armor set wearing NB,... I'd have just been a DK.

remraub16_ESO · May 2014

There are so many things I find wrong and/or out of proportions with OP.. I wouldn't even know where to begin. So lets just say /disagree.

Gisgo · May 2014

Grim13 wrote: »

Honestly, if I'd even imagined I could be as stealthy being a Heavy Armor wearing DK, as I could being a full Medium Armor set wearing NB,... I'd have just been a DK.

Hmmmmm... you dont.
But im not sure its worth to discuss if you didnt even bother checking medium armor passives...

Im an NB and i can stealth forever behind the enemy lines, everyone else around me get caught regularly. I wonder why.

But hey as long as people keeps sucking and spreading the word that NB sucks and you need to be a vamp i will have my niche class and im happy.

Grim13 · May 2014

Gisgo wrote: »

Grim13 wrote: »

Honestly, if I'd even imagined I could be as stealthy being a Heavy Armor wearing DK, as I could being a full Medium Armor set wearing NB,... I'd have just been a DK.

Hmmmmm... you dont.
But im not sure its worth to discuss if you didnt even bother checking medium armor passives...

Im an NB and i can stealth forever behind the enemy lines, everyone else around me get caught regularly. I wonder why.

But hey as long as people keeps sucking and spreading the word that NB sucks and you need to be a vamp i will have my niche class and im happy.

lol Now, that's just painfully ironic.

kelebra · May 2014

OP, your problem comes from your expectations that NB was intended to be the rogue of ESO. To that you would be wrong as all classes can be the rogue.

merfpmerfinton · May 2014

kelebra wrote: »

OP, your problem comes from your expectations that NB was intended to be the rogue of ESO. To that you would be wrong as all classes can be the rogue.

Except that every description of the class label it as the stealth class.
Also when you create a new character and click on the novice and veteran armor options the NB is shown wearing full leather and dual daggers, which of course is another common characteristic of an assassin type.

Selodaoc · May 2014

I just find it strange that the assassin/stealth lines require light armor to be effective in dmg, while its medium armor thats needed for stealth. NB class skills should be Stamina aswell. If i knew Magicka would be my most imortant stat, i wouldnthave made a khajiit

Weaken · May 2014

Yes. Most player made nb with bonus stamina racial. Its sucks for them now.
And my medium armor traits are researched.

fantom · May 2014

Magicka blows for Nightblades, why would you care about it? Literally every class ability in the game scales with magicka, that doesn't mean everyone has to gear for it and wear light armor.

Go stamina, sneak for days, blow *** up with master assassin (if they buffed this more it would be even more OP, sneak attacks are already too good), move on.

Hint: Use death stroke from sneak and /lol.

Shadowy Disguise is an amazing ability and a great defensive. Spec into all the passives and abuse it.

Impale is a great finisher, abuse that.

Strife isn't a DoT, it's decent as a magicka dump if you need, and ok self healing.

There you go, that's 1 ability from every tree. Use those and stop complaining. No one uses ONLY class abilities, regardless of their class. There are a ton of good weapon, armor, and world abilities (plus bash), just because they're good doesn't mean all NB abilities need to be buffed.

P.S. Dual Weild is an AOE weapon, it blows at single target. That has nothing to do with Nightblades, it's just how the game is designed for everyone. Work with it.