You actually pretty much summed up all the trade-offs and it pretty much just comes down to preference. Healthy offering is pretty much the go to say this point but as you mentioned some prefer having brutally on demand vs using extraction even though extraction is just a much better way to go when you look at everything you get.


I personally prefer dw for more damage and extraction or a potion for brutality. I don't actually like using extraction but if you want damage it's the way to go unless of course you're trying to gank.

So if you have just really gotten used to or good at charging up rally then it's a strong consideration but yeah dw will give you more damage overall though less stam sustain. Also again consider what you lose in not using offering or extraction and weigh that against how comfortable you feel using each.

Ganking is its own story then. Normally it's either going to be brutality portions or 2h on back bar with dw front depending on preference. Check out build 5 for a dw and bow gank build. There's a few ways to build a gank build but I can say personally this one worked decently for me.

You can always experiment with bow on back and using rally so that you can use tripots then you could have the extra stam and health but you do also have to manage the stam requirement for sneaking and rally. It's no big deal but something to consider.

For melee ganks dw or 2h will work but dw is generally preferable unless you're just fond of the 2h ult. I've been ganked both ways and they both work. Just comes down to how you like to keep your buffs up and which resources you prefer to manage.

https://eso-pvp-builds.com/nightblade/

HowlKimchi wrote: »

Ever since healthy offering was introduced + hybridization, there's little reason to use 2h. Rally's heal at 300% scaling which can only be done once every 20 seconds is comparable to a basic cast of healthy offering.

How all in to ganking do you want your build to be? Because the best gankblade is a vampire who uses proc sets.

The one 2h build that I think is worth using on a nightblade is the classic vateshran 2h / bow stamblade.

With all due respect, the Rally heal is on par with Healthy Offering at around 10 seconds in (perhaps 11 or 12). A full 20 seconds completely outperforms Healthy Offering. I know I'm splitting hairs here and I get your point, but it does underestimate how good Rally actually is. The value of being able to disengage and heal in stealth without revealing yourself cannot be overstated. Healthy Offering is obviously better for spamming the snot out of it in a pinch, which definitely also has a lot of value. You just gotta be careful with your Magicka.

As for the build I'm looking for... I'm not entirely sure. It's partly why I am asking what others do.

I'm mostly trying a build that CAN kind of gank, but is also capable of following up in case the gank doesn't kill them. I found a build that kinda works but I am working out the kinks, and one of those kinks has been messing around between 2h and Dual Wield.

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

With all due respect, the Rally heal is on par with Healthy Offering at around 10 seconds in (perhaps 11 or 12). A full 20 seconds completely outperforms Healthy Offering. I know I'm splitting hairs here and I get your point, but it does underestimate how good Rally actually is. The value of being able to disengage and heal in stealth without revealing yourself cannot be overstated. Healthy Offering is obviously better for spamming the snot out of it in a pinch, which definitely also has a lot of value. You just gotta be careful with your Magicka.

As for the build I'm looking for... I'm not entirely sure. It's partly why I am asking what others do.

I'm mostly trying a build that CAN kind of gank, but is also capable of following up in case the gank doesn't kill them. I found a build that kinda works but I am working out the kinks, and one of those kinks has been messing around between 2h and Dual Wield.

Bro it's straight up possible RN with DW front/2h back. Anthelmir's Construct opened the door to gank builds that can hit brawler benchmarks while still handing out globals. You can fit 3 non conflicting damage procs and rallying cry on one build, or 2 non conflicting procs, rallying cry and a mythic. It's a glorious meta that I never thought would happen.

3 set procs + rallying cry?

taugrim wrote: »

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

With all due respect, the Rally heal is on par with Healthy Offering at around 10 seconds in (perhaps 11 or 12). A full 20 seconds completely outperforms Healthy Offering. I know I'm splitting hairs here and I get your point, but it does underestimate how good Rally actually is. The value of being able to disengage and heal in stealth without revealing yourself cannot be overstated. Healthy Offering is obviously better for spamming the snot out of it in a pinch, which definitely also has a lot of value. You just gotta be careful with your Magicka.

As for the build I'm looking for... I'm not entirely sure. It's partly why I am asking what others do.

I'm mostly trying a build that CAN kind of gank, but is also capable of following up in case the gank doesn't kill them. I found a build that kinda works but I am working out the kinks, and one of those kinks has been messing around between 2h and Dual Wield.

Bro it's straight up possible RN with DW front/2h back. Anthelmir's Construct opened the door to gank builds that can hit brawler benchmarks while still handing out globals. You can fit 3 non conflicting damage procs and rallying cry on one build, or 2 non conflicting procs, rallying cry and a mythic. It's a glorious meta that I never thought would happen.

Anthelmir's Construct
Tarnished Nightmare

Which frontbarred sets are good options for the 3rd proc? Caluurion's?

I'm actually don't use Tarnished Nightmare on my Stamblade, but it's nice on my Magblade. I still use Night Mother's Gaze on my Stamblade because I tend to run a Bow over a Staff and I REALLY don't like Assassin's Mark. I tested it a bunch and found Night Mother's Gaze just barely outperforms Tarnished Nightmare if you already have a source of Sunder (Surprise Attack) but no other source of Major Breach. The only time Tarnished Nightmare outperforms NMG on my Stamblade is if I already have a source of Major Breach, or the target is an actual squishball, in which case... I'm not sure the proc even matters at that point.

DrNukenstein wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

Yeah I saw this but I also like having a ranged weapon of some kind... But I have been running Anthelmir's lately and at first no one really paid much attention to it. Over the past couple weeks it has been picking up traction.

You can do it with icestaff back bar, but you'll need to use brutality/sorc potions and you won't be able to fit a 3rd instant damage proc

I've been using flame staff back bar with impale also on the back bar. Its a good combination to pick off people that are running away.

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Can't a NB be good at both ganking and brawling? Some people are unlikely to be ganked.

In my opinion, Magicka nightblade is better than stam. So the stam recovery from 2handed is kinda moot to me. But this requires a staff backbar instead of a bow. weakness to elements is better than anything bow has.
I still use power extraction on magblade because it's better than sap essence.
Concealed weapon is better than surprise attack, and impale is better than killers blade. More reasons to go Magicka.
Lotus fan is pretty nice too.

Needing to hit people with power extraction to major sorcery kinda sucks, but it's not the end of that world. Can use a potion if you know you're setting up a gank at the time.

I agree with the Staff vs Bow thing, but I take Bow because I ironically don't use any weapon skills on my backbar. I use Bow for the Major Expedition on Dodge. Also, the Heavy attacks actually kinda slap when you build up the Hawkeye passive. Weakness to the Elements is certainly wild though.

I don't mean any disrespect but I feel the need to correct you on Surprise Attack vs Concealed Weapon. Surprise Attack may have a lower tooltip, but the guaranteed Sunder effect really boosts Surprise Attack in ways people underestimate. Concealed Weapon only marginally beats Surprise Attack when it has the 10% buff, and even then, only marginally so (we're talking less than 1%). The real difference between the 2 is that Surprise Attack boosts the damage of other skills due to the Sunder effect, while Concealed Weapon makes you faster. One isn't really better than the other anymore. It's just a matter of what you want or need for your build. If you value the Minor Expedition over the Minor Breach, or you already have a source of Minor Breach, then yes, Concealed Weapon is most certainly better.

This is why I find Tarnished Nightmare to be slightly better on Magblades than Stamblades. Concealed Weapon doesn't provide a means of Sunder + Minor Breach and Tarnished Nightmare fills that gap (at least for a little bit after it procs).

I number crunched this a lot lol

I guess it's a matter of preference. Can we get the sundered effect from a stamina drain glyph?
Didn't really think about the sundered effect because I already have elemental susceptibility.
I tend to like stat based sets. Currently using Orders Wrath and innate axion. About to get Balorgh as soon as I can get the shoulder.

But what I'm really wondering is how you're even managing to make cloak useful as a stamblade?
I have an old stamblade from years ago and I can barely make use of cloak because of low Magicka and Regen. I figure someday I'll just turn her into a PVE DPS.

Tri-stats on armor give me plenty of Magicka to work with. That with really any source of Magicka Regen. Jewels of Misrule food is a solid choice, but I use the Wretched Vitality set on my Backbar to make room for Smoked Bear Haunch (or more commonly Dubious Camoran Throne). Being an Imperial lowers the costs a bit, but Wretched Vitality with the Tri-stat glyphs are definitely doing the bulk of the work.

As for the Sundered effect from the Stamina Drain glyph, it CAN, but it doesn't proc very frequently. You would ironically get more damage out of Fire glyphs because 1) Burning hurts, and 2) Most people are Vampires and Fire does more damage against them.

My build right now is:

Imperial
Night Mother's Gaze Frontbar (Dual-wield or 2h); Fire Enchants
Wretched Vitality Backbar (Bow); Infused with Weapon Damage enchant
Anthelmir's Construct Monster set
Markyn Ring of Majesty | OR Wild Hunt (depends on what I'm doing, but usually the former)
3 Weapon Damage enchanted rings
2 Swift + 1 Infused if Markyn | 3 Infused if Wild Hunt
7 Medium if Ganking | 4 Medium, 2 Heavy, and 1 Light if Brawling. All Tri-stat and Well-Fitted (except the Heavy chest which is Reinforced)

I tend to go back and forth a lot. I'm trying to find that sweet spot of being ABLE to gank, but not being a pure ganker. I want to be able to do enough damage to pressure people even if I can't put them down in a single global. One thing people don't know about NMG is that the Major Breach applied by Crits will apply BEFORE the damage. Meaning if you Incap someone from Stealth, guaranteeing the Crit, the Incap will be affected by the Major Breach. I tested this very thoroughly. It happens to be the reason why NMG is actually competitive with Tarnished Nightmare on my Stamblade.

But I fear what an earlier poster mentioned may be correct. Magblade may be better overall. Sure, a Stamblade COULD run Tarnished Nightmare and get their source of Major Breach from Weakness to Elements, but at that point you may as well use Concealed Weapon over Surprised Attack because the movement speed will be more valuable than Sunder because you are getting Sunder from TN, and it's probably a better idea to make your primary resource pool the same as your spammable resource cost.

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

You're right about the struggle to be able to do bother gank and brawl.

As for magblade vs stamblade. Sometimes it's more important to do what makes you happy instead of what's technically the meta.
Other than my mageblade all of my other PvP characters are mortal because I don't want to ruin their looks which I've designed. Doesn't matter is undeath is better.

That being said. I'm very hard on resources. I've been having trouble sustaining on my mageblade as vamp 3. I've been dying from running out of resources.
I changed my mundus to atronach in order to not run out of Magicka.

Wretched Vitality. Seriously. I love the set so much.

Caecus0 wrote: »

Wretched Vitality. Seriously. I love the set so much.

I'm pretty out of touch with the current nb metas, but is wretched vitality necessary after the u41 update to siphoning strikes?

DrNukenstein wrote: »

A lot of players of the class don't appreciate how smooth it is to get your spammable completely refunded from a dual wield heavy attack out of cloak. You don't even have to invest in stam to make it feel smoother than the beta concealed weapon. Both pools are smooth at 64 health, and the damage get's crazy at 64 mag. Edit: One more use of the word smooth.

Before the dw heavy attack nerf, I used to love a heavy attack + incap out of cloak/stealth. Back in the old days, that could kill a lot of players in 1 gcd with Selene.

The current state of non-channelled heavy attacks is disappointing.

Caecus0 wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

Wretched Vitality. Seriously. I love the set so much.

I'm pretty out of touch with the current nb metas, but is wretched vitality necessary after the u41 update to siphoning strikes?

DrNukenstein wrote: »

A lot of players of the class don't appreciate how smooth it is to get your spammable completely refunded from a dual wield heavy attack out of cloak. You don't even have to invest in stam to make it feel smoother than the beta concealed weapon. Both pools are smooth at 64 health, and the damage get's crazy at 64 mag. Edit: One more use of the word smooth.

Before the dw heavy attack nerf, I used to love a heavy attack + incap out of cloak/stealth. Back in the old days, that could kill a lot of players in 1 gcd with Selene.

The current state of non-channelled heavy attacks is disappointing.

Wretched Vitality is not *required* if you take Siphoning Attacks, but I find myself running out of resources a lot even with Siphoning Attacks. I do a lot of Battlegrounds and I tend to get hyperfocused by people when I'm on my Nightblade, and resources help me survive better than Rallying Cry does.

However, one myth I want to dispel is Siphoning Attacks being "buffed." It was more of a quality of life change than a buff.

Prior to the patch, Siphoning Strikes would heal you a little bit and restore resources based on the Morph (Magicka or Stamina). You would get ~200 resource per strike (depending on the morph), ~1300 health, and a whopping 4k resource at the end of the duration. Casting it only cost around 800 of that resource, resulting in a net 3200 resources. If you managed to land a light attack once per second (possible with the GCD) over the course of those 20 seconds, you would gain a net 7200 of that resource (200*20 + 4000 - 800). You also have to consider that prior to the changes, the buff called Reave was on Incap Strike, restoring 100 of each resource per hit. That would bring your resource regen from 7200 to 9200, with another 2000 in the other resource, totaling 11200 (again, this is if you are sticking to your target).

With the changes and reave Reave being gone, and assuming you took the Siphong Attacks (blue) variant, you will now restore 200 of EACH resource per hit (in addition to the healing). That means over that same 20 second period, you would gain 4000 of each resource, totaling 8000 resources. If you activate it, that would rise to 6600 of each resource, totaling 13200 resources, but at the cost of 4000 health. The only real buff here is that you can get that 8000 resources with DoTs without needing to stick to your target.

Basically what has happened is that you CAN restore more resources than before, but it it's more evened out rather than focused on one resource, and it costs health to do so. If you decide to never use the active at all, or you take the other morph, it is actually is a flat out nerf to resource generation. Do not be fooled by the YouTubers and guide writers who are saying Siphoning Strikes is insane now: it is NOT a buff to resource regeneration. Only to quality of life.

I think you're right. I tried siphoning attacks and found it lackluster..and it takes up a bar slot.
Instead I just use atronach mundus and witch mother's brew.

StaticWave wrote: »

It is a buff because it restores both stam and mag without needing to light attack. That's more useful for your typical PvP scenario than the previous version where you had to light attack to get the sustain.

The 4k HP cost is nothing when you consider the healing potency of NB + Cloak and also off-heals from your teammates. On my NB it was mandatory to run Orzoga's Smoked Bear Haunch last patch. This patch I'm running Bewitched Sugar Skulls and have no sustain issues.

Yes, it's a boost to its reliability and quality of life by removing the light attack requirement. DoTs can now set it off.

But if you are like me and were pretty comfortable weaving, the only difference you are going to notice is a very slight increase in your off-resource regen while seeing a very slight decrease in your primary resource generation, if you were good at sticking to your target. I only really notice a buff if I am running DoTs and I'm kiting a lot because of no longer needing to rely on light-attacks to activate it. The real buff is the flexibility of activating the regeneration, not how much potential regeneration it offers. (Unfortunately for me, a lot of the builds I run don't allow much room for DoTs without sacrificing something else even more important).

I know the healing potential of the NB can counteract the health cost of Siphoning's active, but it's also important to not underestimate the health cost. Using it in a fight can really mess you up if you aren't careful, because that is 4k of UNMITIGATED health just going away. That is on par with a spammable post-mitigation, although it depends on your level of tankiness. I'm not saying this doesn't make the skill good, I'm saying you gotta be good to take advantage of active portion of the skill. Once you figure it out, it certainly is a buff most of the time in PvP.

So I discovered something in direct regards to this thread:

Unless you need a specific ability in the DW skill line, 2h seems to just be flat out better. I number crunched this very thoroughly and tested my findings on both a dummy and players (CP and non-CP). What I found was that abilities when used with Dual-Wielding did perform marginally better, but ONLY marginally.

Due to the changes in how Light Attack damage is capped, 2-handed weapons have a higher cap, and therefore higher LA damage. This increased LA damage actually more than makes up the difference in its lower ability damage. In my findings, what I discovered is that spammables (Surprise attack) did roughly 75 more damage dual-wielding than with a 2h (bear in mind this is in the thousands of damage, 75 more damage is marginal). Obviously harder hitting abilities will in fact have a bigger difference, but even my Merciless Resolve was only hitting for 160ish more Dual-Wielding than 2-handing. However, the Light Attacks from the 2h were doing around 150 more damage than the DW attacks because the 2h LA attack cap is that much higher. What this basically means is that as long as you LA weave, 2h is breaking even with DW if not performing marginally better. This is both the case when comparing it against a Nirnhoned MH and Sharpened OH, or both the MH and OH being sharpened.

While it would be understandable for people to walk away from these findings by thinking "oh so there is really no significant difference, that's balanced", here is something important to understand: Dual-Wielding is currently structured so that it would pull out slightly higher numbers by sacrificing some flexibility. If that advantage isn't there because 2h and DW are balanced in damage, then that means 2h is just flat out more flexible with no downside. 2h has passives that 1) grant massive Stamina Regen upon killing a target, 2) Passively Cleave things with the LA and HA, and 3) the Heavy Attacks hit noticeably harder, and actually boost the damage of the LAs, HAs, and abilities even further for a few seconds. Combining those benefits with the fact that 2h is actually slightly outperforming DW in damage, it ends up begging the question if DW is even worth using if you don't intend to use any of its abilities or place healing abilities on the front-bar.