The Nightblade Thread

[irons]

I think the "Mark Target" description is out of date.

It does reduce your targets resist but it also makes yourself vulnerable.

So its more a PvE dps thing I guess...

No it's the perfect PvP skill.

 

It reduces Armor and SpellRes by 75%, yes it also reduces your armor but you won't have much armor any way because you rely more on stuff like Evasion and Shadowcloak.

[Areodon]

I agree with irons. 

[Theoryexpert]

Mark target will be a great pvp spell actually but it makes you squishy as hell just like your target. This means that you need to be on top of dodge rolls and shadow cloaks or youll be dead before your target is. I see this one ability making having at least one nightblade in a group to be important. The nightblade seemingly had no group utility for pvp, but this is actually it. It makes the nightblade the main assist, and the nightblade has the highest pvp survivability due to shadow cloak, so it works out perfectly.

 

In a 1on1 this spell might not be so great, it basically just speeds up the fight but doesnt give you any advantages. Now if you are fighting 1on2 its perfect, because you can quickly kill one guy (hopefully) and then recover enough to fight the second guy.

 

The next ability to question is strife. I think a lot of people think this is a DOT ability that returns some health, but that is not what I think it is as that would make it too similar to Entropy. What I think this ability does is effectively put you into a vampiric lifeleach mode for its duration, where you actually heal 30% of all the damage you do from things like flurry, dots, white hits, etc. Thoughts? If Im wrong and strife really is just a DOT, I may reconsider taking it.

[Terhix]

Strife does instant damage, then heals you over time for % of that damage per tick.

[Theoryexpert]

Strife does instant damage, then heals you over time for % of that damage per tick.

I see, is this just your interpretation of the skill description, or do you know for sure? If you are right it looks to be a very mana efficient spell so I'd probably still use it. That is ofcourse unless you are at full health already, then the heal just goes to waste. Tough call

 

Another questionable ability is haste. Going by the description where it describes heavy and light attacks, it almost appears as if haste only affects white hits "left mouse button attacks" and not the speed of animations of your special abilities like flurry. If haste does not make my flurry attack 30% faster, and only effects white hits, then its value is greatly diminished and its really only good for pairing with siphoning strikes to regain health and then forces u take face tank, thus making evasion/blur/blind must haves. So how haste works is important to know.

[Guest Hans]

Strife is Direct damage and a hot. 100%Light and heavy attacks are indeed the legt click.Those are not unimportant. Your magicka pool lasts 3-6 skills and refreshes very slowly in combat.You will use those normal attacks.

[Theoryexpert]

Strife is Direct damage and a hot. 100%Light and heavy attacks are indeed the legt click.Those are not unimportant. Your magicka pool lasts 3-6 skills and refreshes very slowly in combat.You will use those normal attacks.

Are you saying that haste does not effect abilities, like flurry?

[Areodon]

I see, is this just your interpretation of the skill description, or do you know for sure? If you are right it looks to be a very mana efficient spell so I'd probably still use it. That is ofcourse unless you are at full health already, then the heal just goes to waste. Tough call

 

Another questionable ability is haste. Going by the description where it describes heavy and light attacks, it almost appears as if haste only affects white hits "left mouse button attacks" and not the speed of animations of your special abilities like flurry. If haste does not make my flurry attack 30% faster, and only effects white hits, then its value is greatly diminished and its really only good for pairing with siphoning strikes to regain health and then forces u take face tank, thus making evasion/blur/blind must haves. So how haste works is important to know.

Strife does moderate and instant damage and heals u for 30% of damage u make in 10 seconds. And if u use one of his morphs then strife heals in addition for same amount 2 party members. 

White hits are very significant. If u make some math u will see that u can hit average spell every 3 secs ( without active defence ). It means that u have lot of gaps in between so obviously u need fillers like white hits. U certainly want to have some white hit enhancers -one of them is haste. Obviously u will not need it on short bursts but as fight prolongs your gaps will appear and grow - then u need haste and not just for siphoning. 

[Theoryexpert]

Another question, is does activating siphoning strikes only reduce the damage of white hits, or all of my abilities? Do abilities like flurry work with siphoning and suffer the penalty? My guess is that siphoning only effects white hits. Siphoning might be a great ability but there is one huge problem with it. It forces you to engage in face to face melee with someone, which is a problem playing as a squishy character. As a rogue type character you typically want to hit and run, or attack people only while they are CC'd, then kite and dodgeroll away. Face to face melee combat is more of a strong point of heavy armor wearing classes (although you technically could play a heavy armor health focused nightblade and do the face tanking just fine).

 

In PVP, haste and siphoning strikes is going to work much better on a heavy armor wearing, health focused nightblade running some defenses like evasion or blur than it will on a medium armor wearing nightblade who is built for damage and using mark target making himself even more squishy. Trying to stand face to face with a dragon knight and regen your magicka and stamina with haste and siphoning strikes as the squishy nightblade is not going to end well for you.

[Areodon]

Its reducing just white hits. All other questions u answered .-)

[Theoryexpert]

Ok I updated my nightblade build slightly. This should be very strong 1on1

 

30 Magicka

20 Stamina

0 Health

Light Armor

Any Race

 

Dual Wield

 

Shadow Cloak

Cripple

Teleport Strike

Flurry or Twin Strikes

Veiled Strike

Death Strike

 

Resto Staff

 

Cripple

Entropy

Strife

Resto Staff Ability

Shadow Cloak

Consuming Darkness

 

Typical Playstyle:

 

Open the fight with veiled strike, then cripple. Your opponent will use a CC break to get out of the stun, immediately shadow cloak so that he can't target you and then immediately reopen with another veiled strike into flurry. If he was dumb enough to not break out of the first veiled strike stun then you can flurry right after cripple. At this point you are dictating the pace of the fight but you are now taking return damage and CC. Against a good player your flurry will likely be interrupted, or you will immediately be CC'd after your second veiled strike. Use your CC break now and against a fragile opponent continue assaulting him relentlessly with flurry and basic attacks. You can likely finish the fight here against squishier opponents.

[Mandalore]

First Elder Souls Post!!

Planning to play on PS4 in Daggerfall Covenant.

 

Berserker

Orc Nightblade

5 Medium, 2 Heavy(Chest, Greaves)

[Option to go the opposite at times depending on group]

Dual Wield Maces(Possibly Daggers)*

1. Teleport Strike

2. Cripple

3. Drain Power

4. Whirlwind/Assassin's Blade

5. Strife(Maybe Shadow Cloak or Siphoning Strikes**)

Ultimate- Orc Racial "Berserk"

 

Bow

1. Scatter Shot

2. Volley

3. Poison Arrow

4. Haste

5. Siphoning Strikes**

Ultimate-Soul Shred or Consuming Darkness

 

Intending to do alot of questing and PvP with a small group. Will be teamed up with a Dragonknight alot and Templar(s).

Meant to be a mostly single target fighter. Harass with bow, do damage up close. Berserk + Drain Power while sped up(Cripple) hopefully very affective once I reach Ultimate. When with a group maybe Strife can be replaced by a better damage dealing attack.

Siphon/Strife + Health Regen to help keep me intact. 5 Medium for stealth and stamina boosts and so I can swing Maces faster.

 

*Maces to make me affective against heavier foes as I'm not so much built up as a hunter. Daggers with all the Crit passives sounds intriguing too tho. Maybe depend on team again.

 

**Siphoning Strikes on either, but most likely Bow. Could use Shadowcloak to disengage, switch to Bow. Siphon and Kite then back in the action.

 

Comments, questions, insults? lol

[Areodon]

I would use flurry instead of whirlwind coz flurry is single target and will give u 15% white attack speed increase. Actually u can start with strife, teleport, flurry and couple more white and he is down. I would add shadow cloak instead of drain power ( if u are single target oriented )

Cripple/agony  u can use better on kiting side and instead of it u can use assassin strike on first loadout ( Specially harder opponents like bosses). Death stroke is powerful specially if u go after morph which will provide stun, extremely reducing enemy reception of healing. More or less u can use it on every third opponent.  

[Mandalore]

Thanks for the comments I'll keep that in mind.

I still like Drain Power because even though I'm more single target than AoE I plan to fight with a small group. Can't count on being able to fight 1v1 all the time and that's about my only contribution to the team(other than killing) is debuffing our enemies.

 

I also like Shadow Cloak so I can have Refreshing Shadow working for me.

 

So long as Flurry isnt easy to interrupt that might be a good addition. Whirlwind/Assassins Blade was my thought for finisher. Probably more Assassins Blade but Whirlwind maybe PvE.

 

I'll keep Death Stroke in mind, don't know anything about any of the Morphs ATM.

[Theoryexpert]

Anyone who makes a pvp build without shadow cloak, is not making an optimal build. Its like making a pvp sorcerror without bolt escape. You cant leave out the best pvp ability, and have an optimal build. You might make a workable build, even a good build, without taking these abilities but why leave out what are the best pvp abilities of your class? Cripple is also up there as one of the best pvp abilities a nightblade can take.

[Rally]

of u ever played an invis char in other mmos, u would know that good players instantly dmg u out of ur invis.

So shadow cloak isn't the best pvp skill for a nightblade! 

Bolt escape is a different story. U can't counter it as easy as shadow cloak.

[Jorik]

Im gonna agree with Rally.

 

2.9 secs of invis is awesome mid combat, but be prepared to sprint your ass out of there once you pop it as it doesnt move you anywhere by itself.  Side note Blur is quite LOL in that you can face tank some mobs but too many or if they are much higher lvl its still ouch city.

[Jorik]

On the Ultimate note: Soul Shred is where its at in spades. Good AOE magic damage, decent radius & 3 sec stun for 150 Ultimate (middle of the road amount) yes please.

 

Deathstroke was meh, will have its uses for hardcore single target takedowns, no duration listed on 50% healing debuff.

[Areodon]

Basic premise is that he emphasised NB single target focus. Anyways if NB is fully speced in AOE still it can't come even close to Sor, Temp, or DK. 

Shadow cloak has morph which is removing one dot so he will probably hit u once but still it doesn't change anything ( in a situations with lot of hostile aoe Shadow cloak is less useful )  

Deathstroke cost is 50. If u put morph where he is stunning opponent with higher health than yours it can be life saver since u dont have any significant aoe in close range except whirlwind ( and it works best for low health targets). Frequency u can use Deathstroke is high and is saving your resources a lot. DS makes significant damage if u use him when u have a lot of ultimate points because his damage multiplier depends on it. 

Actually in dungeons i tried, during mob encounters NB has more than sufficient number of healers ( mobs ) who are dispersed all over the room. Healers should be his primary targets anyways. Taking down healers one by one is NB contribution to the group. Thats why i really don't care much about a lack of aoe on DW loadout. Since mob healers are mostly in corners of the room ( staying out of our aoe) a larger portion of time u are not under your healer aoe and thats why again u need strife and DS.  

[Terhix]

Anyone who makes a pvp build without shadow cloak, is not making an optimal build. Its like making a pvp sorcerror without bolt escape. You cant leave out the best pvp ability, and have an optimal build. You might make a workable build, even a good build, without taking these abilities but why leave out what are the best pvp abilities of your class? Cripple is also up there as one of the best pvp abilities a nightblade can take.

 

Just because you make a Nightblade, doesn't mean you have to make a stealthy uber dps ninja assassin pew pew. I'm not taking shadow cloak simply because it doesn't help me perform the role I want to perform.

[Theoryexpert]

Thats correct, but that doesnt change the fact that I think shadow cloak is a class defining pvp ability (and cripple). You can make pvp builds without these skills, I just don't think they are as good. If you forego shadow cloak, it means you have to facetank enemies like any other class, and that makes blur/evasion/sparks almost mandatory.

 

Now if there are invisibility potions that you can use in-combat, that changes things because now everyone can get a shadow cloak type ability from their potion. So a little variable like that can ofcourse change what Im saying, and I have heard from sources that there are invis potions.  

 

I still think that shadow cloak and cripple are the best nightblade pvp abilities and not taking them is foolish.

[Musclemagic]

Cloak is bad. Mrawr

[Theoryexpert]

Making a statement with no evidence as to why, doesn't hold any credibility. Why don't you explain why shadow cloak is bad. Ill explain why it is insanely good

 

1. It's a drop target and escape. If you are being focus fired by 2, 3, or even 10+ people you can simply vanish and force them to aquire another target. You can repeatedly recast it if you have enough mana and use it as an escape tool. 

 

2. You can use it to supplement stealth attacks like veiled strike

 

3. You can use it to clear DOT's from you or delay a fight while your own DOT's tick

 

4. You activate powerful passive abilities like +15% stamina regen after stealth, and +armor and +spell resistance after stealth

 

5. You can dictate the pace and momentum of a fight with this ability

[Areodon]

@Theoryexpert 

 

I think that cloak is really ok but ... All spells are good - specially if they are only option on your disposal. If u say it is great then u should put it in at least some context ( type of fight, built, combat style, fight mechanics, pve or pvp, team u work with ..... ) . There is no such spell which beats all alternatives in all situations. . If some guy has different play style then you, cloak could be of no use to him. Ill give u number of cases where it is more or less useless, if that is "evidence" you are looking for. Spell is not just great or bad - there are many shades of gray.

[Theoryexpert]

I put shadow cloak in context multiple times in this thread already.

 

The only reason not to take shadow cloak is if you actually want people to target you and to take damage such as if you are a tank. In this case I see blur/evasion/sparks being far better.