pick up the shadow line and grab Vielded strike and either of its morphs its one of your hieghest damage for lowest cost and provides a nice 4 second stun/disoriant out of stealth/invis,

drop teleport strike for it right now and switch out Soul trap for Camoflauge and shadow Desguise of the shadow tree. agony you can drop too not alot of use out side of Dungeons and even then only if your team works with you well similer to sap for rogues on wow.

you should also pick up an ultimate for Dps Builds Soul leach (aoe) and assasinate one (single target) the shadow line one is better for tanking though one of its morphs can be used effectively for aoe DPS. Mostly though would still maximize your magica then health filling Stanima last, Mediium armor will help you though trigger crits with your assassins blade and Vieled strike,when not stealthed. You'll auto Crit massively from Vieled strike from stealth and auto crit any attack while Camoflauged/shadow Disguised.

Later if you plan on staying DW you'll pick up your AOE stuff Whirling Blade and Morphs and Bottom of Siphon line Drain Power which will make Whirling blade tons more powerful.

Practice using crouch and sneaking up on the backs of enemies to quickly slay one veiled strike usually knocks 60-80% of equeal level life off and stuns him. shouldn't need Camoflauge for this. with medium armor granting better stealth its gets easier.

Thanks to both of you for the comments. I took Jeremy's advice and did a respec - and he was right, it cost next to nothing at Level 9 (about 1000) - which gave me a chance to implement some of plaxy186's ideas. I thought I'd take a minute and give some feedback with the idea that it may help someone else.

As a nightblade, you have three class skill lines: Assassination, Shadow, and Siphoning. I'd never used the Shadow line before. After my respec, I had 0 skill in Shadow and so I spent an hour just raising that skill line a bit. The Shadow Cloak skill, the first you get, was took some getting used to, but it definitely added to my damage power to attack from sneak mode. Even before getting Veiled Strike, I was noticing an improvement in the game.

And then I got Veiled Strike.

I'm not going to say it's overpowered (not when I see DKs and Sorcs one-hitting enemies all around me), but it's a real killer. Used with Flurry and from sneak mode (or while in Shadow Cloak), it's a two-hitter for almost every enemy I face. (At level 10 now.)

Based on plaxy186's suggestions, I've been using this pattern: As soon as I see an enemy, I go into crouch. I advance to the target until VS lights up. Stay in sneak or quickly drop into SC, then it's a one-two punch of VS + Flurry and - at the most - I might need to just tap the left mouse key a time or two.

In fact, I kept DW as a primary weapon skill, but also took up the bow to start leveling it up a bit. DW is at level 11, Bow is at 6 now, but really, there's a world of difference. DW is now deadly effective; the bow requires several hits, even from sneak mode or SC, to kill an enemy. Of course, it is at a lower level and I'm only using poison arrow. I'm still working on leveling it up a bit.

But for now I'm just going through the game now with just three skills in my skill bar: VS + Flurry + SC. That's it. I'm dropping enemies without a second thought.

Which begs the question: how useful are the other two skill lines from NB class? The Siphoning power I thought would be useful for restoring health, but so far I don't even need health buffs. And the assassination skills, which I was using to supplement my DW skills as skill strokes, have nothing on VS. So should I even put any more points in these skills?

Also (and this may be an obvious question), what's be benefit when a skill like Shadow Cloak levels? I've always assumed damage skills get an increase as they level, but what about non-damage skills?

Thanks again for the help.

@ Sorpaijen_ESO: Great summary and suggestions. For now, I think I'll limit my skill points to the shadow line.

Interesting. I've had the experience of "being caught" sneaking and having to jump into VS which, as you say, drains your magicka significantly.

Good thing is already have the levels in TS.

vicNBitis wrote: »

I think Flurry** is still a net DPS loss compared to spamming light attacks. Especially so if you ever have to interrupt it for a block or dodge. The hits get progressively harder so the earlier you stop the channeling the worse it is. If you're killing things with Veiled and Flurry you should be able to do the same with Veiled, a light attack or three, and Assassin's Blade.

**I continued to use it despite the DPS loss. Something satisfying about the sounds it makes I think.

Yeah, I'm fairly unimpressed with Flurry. I still have it on my action bar for some reason though. Mainly just for bursting down low health single targets when I'm low on mana.