The Nightblade in The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is a master of both stealth and raw power, a deadly assassin capable of devastating single targets or controlling the battlefield with powerful area-of-effect attacks. This guide explores a versatile Nightblade build, adaptable to various playstyles and challenging content. We'll cover skill choices, attributes, champion points, and gear recommendations to help you unleash your inner shadow.
Choosing Your Class Role: DPS or Tank?
Before diving into specifics, you need to decide whether you want a Nightblade focused on dealing damage (DPS) or mitigating damage for the group (Tank). Both roles are viable, but their skill choices and attribute spreads differ significantly. This build focuses on DPS, optimizing for high damage output. A tank build would prioritize different skills and champion points.
Skill Choices: Unleashing the Night's Fury
This build utilizes a balanced approach, incorporating both the Nightblade's Siphoning and Assassination skill lines for a powerful combination of damage and survivability.
Siphoning Skill Line: Sustained Damage and Healing
- Siphoning Attacks: This is your bread and butter. It provides consistent damage while leeching health, crucial for sustained combat. The morphs offer different strengths – Inner Light for more healing or Volatile Siphon for increased damage.
- Dark Cloak: Provides crucial survivability, offering damage reduction and a short invisibility window. Essential for escaping dangerous situations.
- Shadowy Disguise (Ultimate): While not always active, this ultimate ability offers valuable burst damage and resets your other abilities. Its utility in both PvE and PvP is invaluable.
Assassination Skill Line: Burst Damage and Control
- Sap Essence: This skill deals high damage and applies a bleed effect, increasing your overall DPS.
- Crippling Grasp: This ability deals solid damage and applies a crippling effect, reducing the enemy's movement speed. Excellent for crowd control and kiting.
- Blade Cloak (Ultimate): A powerful ultimate that allows you to deal significant damage while becoming nearly invulnerable for a short duration.
Other Skill Lines: Complementary Abilities
Choosing your third and fourth skill lines depends on your preferred playstyle and the content you face. Here are some strong options:
- Mystic (for sustain): Provides access to powerful healing abilities and buffs to further enhance survivability.
- Shadow (for additional crowd control): Offers powerful control abilities like Shadowy Embrace and Drain Essence for increased survivability in group content.
- Bound Atronach (for added crowd control): Especially useful in PvP or challenging dungeons, this skill line grants you a summonable atronach for added support and control.
Attributes: Powering Your Skills
For a DPS Nightblade, prioritize Magicka and Health. Magicka fuels your abilities, and Health ensures you can survive long enough to unleash your full potential. Stamina can be a secondary consideration, but it’s not as crucial for this build as the others.
Champion Points: Mastering Your Potential
Champion Points significantly impact your character's effectiveness. Prioritize the following constellations:
- The Warrior: Focus on increasing your health and damage output.
- The Thief: Maximize critical damage and chance for increased burst damage.
- The Mage: Boost your spell damage and spell critical for maximizing magicka-based abilities.
Gear: Enhancing Your Prowess
Gear choices heavily influence your effectiveness. Focus on pieces with high Magicka, Spell Damage, and Critical Chance/Damage. Sets like Night Mother's Gaze, Za'ji's, or Grothdarr are strong choices for a DPS Nightblade, but many alternatives exist depending on your playstyle and available gear.
Playing Your Nightblade: Tips and Strategies
- Utilize your stealth: Shadowy Disguise can be used to reposition, avoid attacks, or gain the upper hand.
- Manage your resources: Pay attention to your Magicka and health levels, using Siphoning Attacks effectively.
- Combine your abilities: Chain your abilities to maximize their impact, utilizing burst damage and crowd control effectively.
Conclusion: Embrace the Shadows
This Nightblade build provides a solid foundation for players looking to excel in ESO's challenging content. Remember that this is a guideline, and you can adjust it based on your preferred playstyle and the challenges you face. Experimentation is key to finding the perfect build that suits your individual preferences. Remember to adapt and evolve your build as you progress through the game, exploring different skills, gear, and champion point setups to discover the optimal strategy for your Nightblade!
