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Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my Nightblade guide designed for the thieves guild patch. In the past, nightblades has really never had what it takes to be able to properly compete with other classes, however this patch is very interesting for nightblades, easily one of the best classes to dps with. My build will be covering all the trials, and how to use it overall for dungeons etc. I might add in a vMoL section later, but for now im not good when it comes to it, sadly. A little background about me, I’ve been playing with Hodor for roughly a year now (?) I was in the core team that took all the trial leaderboards pre thieves guild, and I have one praetorian, and one tribune nightblade, so I feel I have enough knowledge to define myself as an expert when it comes to Nightblades.

Changelog

[spoiler]

2.0 – Updated build for Orsinium/Wrothgar.

3.0 – Build updated for the Thieves Guild.

3.1 – Build updated with champion points from @Asayre

[/spoiler]

Core 

Alright, so. Let’s start talking about the health, I find it a very interesting subject in a matter of fact. You can, by all means do completely fine with lets say 16k ~ from personal experience, but it requires good movement, and it requires you to be aware of your surroundings. If you want to stay abit more safe, you can change attributes and pump it up to roughly 18k and you should be fine. If you still die from there, then you’re not aware enough about your surroundings, or your tank or your healer is doing something very bad :P.

I use blue magicka and health food, and I usually spam spell power potions regardless of where I go, but you only really need it in single target fights, where you won’t be using sap essence that actively.

Gear

Decent setup

Alright, so obviously not everyone will have scathing mage in their possession, which is something I will be explaining here if this is the case. Scathing mage is the best setup for nightblades, without doubt, however on a solid second place we will have twice born star. If you were to craft julianos or twice born star, tbs is the way to go. You can replace the maelstrom inferno staff with a normal torug’s staff, not too big of a dps loss. I feel kena is mandatory to properly dps these days, it’s still not fixed on live as of now, so it’s what im gonna build my builds around. If you’re experiencing magicka issues, kick your healer in the ass and tell the healer to put siphon spirit. Otherwise than that, it’s pretty simple and straight forward.

Ideal setup

Alright, lets talk about scathing mage. Got a change in the thieves guild patch, increasing the proc chance from 10% to 20% which makes it really interesting, and competitive to TBS and Julianos. There is a few factors that determines whetever this set is better or not than TBS and Julianos, and one of them being is obviously uptime on scathing mage. Now, let me tell you something fascinating. Back in the Orsinium patch, scathing mage would proc on the crippling grasp, and dark shades DoT. They fixed both of those, but they still didn’t fix it proccing on twisting path. With a decent good uptime on twisting path, this will ensure us close to a insane 90% uptime, making it without doubt the best setup for nightblades.

Mundu Stones

1. The Thief

The thief got buffed in 1.7 to 12% critchance, so alongside with scathing mage and divines stacking, this will be insane. The way to go if you have the ideal gear.

2. The Shadow

The Shadow is an interesting choise. I need to test this further to say something about it though, but I can say for a fact it doesn’t beat the thief with the ideal gear setup.

Skills

Mainbar

- Proximity Detonation

Amazing AoE burst skill, and a skill that I think has alot of potential. Still experimenting whetever or not it’s worth to use it for single target rotation, but with using scathing mage and precise swords, giving us a very high crit chance I think it’s something to consider.

- Sap Essence

Your AoE spammable, doesn’t need an introduction, grants you major sorcery for those who wants to save their potions, heals quite nice too.

- Siphoning Attacks / Twisting Path

I usually have this on my bar to help with my resources, if you feel confident about your resources then feel free to go with twisting path instead.

- Impale

The second best execute in the game, hits like a truck. Spam this once the boss goes below 25%, do NOT weave it.

- Inner Light

Grants you max magicka and spell critical, overall solid DPS boost.

- Soul Harvest

Allows you to stack ultimate really quickly when plowing through trash. Once you’re executing spam this alongside with impale.

Offbar

- Crippling Grasp

A really good stick on DoT, grants us major expedition aswell which will come very handy in for the Maw of Lorkhaj trial. Keep this up 247.

- Funnel Health

The bread and butter for our DPS, this is our single target spammable. Doesn’t hit too hard, but it does the job. *Might be changed to force pulse

- Elemental Blockade

I honestly have no clue what went through Zenimax’s minds when they buffed this skill. A MUST for every magicka DD. Keep this up 247, also triggers the maelstrom destruction staff enchantment which helps us quite alot.

- Inner Light

Grants you max magicka and spell critical, overall solid DPS boost.

- Merciless Resolve

Grants us minor berserk, so we don’t rely on standing in the healers combat prayer, also the proc hits like a truck. Keep this up 247.

- Shooting Star

Pretty good DPS ultimate if you ask me, hits nicely, grants us an additional 2% extra magicka, if possible make sure to hit multiple targets with it for additional ulti.

Rotation 

Alright, for nightblades there isn’t a to go to rotation, atleast for me, but I’ll give you the basics. At the start of every boss fight, you want to activate merciless resolve, proximity detonation then go on your destruction staff bar and do a heavy attack to start the fun. Straight after the heavy attack, use wall of elements, then crippling grasp, between every skill light weave. Once your proximity detonation goes off, go to your dual wield bar again and apply twisting path and proximity, do this everytime your twisting path runs out.

For AoE, keep proximity up all the time, and wall of elements, theres no real more magic to it than that. Practice animation cancelling.

Champion Points

The Mage 

– 26 in Elfborn

– 100 in Elemental Expert

– 29 in Spell Erosion

– 12 in Thaumaturge

The Thief

– 100 in Magician

– 67 in Arcanist

The Warrior

– 100 in Elemental Expert

– 67 in Hardy

I change these around all the time, use whatever you want for the warrior.

Thanks to @Asayre for these CP’s, they are based on precise staves, scathing, and kena.

Races

1 – Dunmer

We have alot of fire damage, and with the champion point changes then this is even more appealing. Your meteor, wall of elements and light attacks will all be boosted by the increased fire damage passive. Also provides 9% max magicka which isn’t far off from the 10%.

2 – Highelves

They’re pretty good too, provides more regeneration than dunmers does, elemental damage and 10% max magicka. Overall solid choise.

Screenshots

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Last Words

Most of my parses that can be seen above is mostly outdated, I will update them on the fly every now and then.

If you like my work, and would like to contribute into me putting more time into testing, and more time in general into this guide, then please feel free to send me a donation on the EU mega server to @IWM, but please do not feel forced to.

I’d like to give credit to the entire Hodor core group, who has shaped me into who I am today and ofcourse, nobody else but the amazing @Hjelmi and @EgoRush for keeping me alive ;*

– @IWM.

• This topic was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Mashinate.