Powerful Stamina Nightblade Bow Gank Build PvP for ESO

Table of Contents

• Cyrodiil Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Killer Combo
• Battlegrounds
• Outfit Style Showcase
• Update Log

Welcome to the Stamina Nightblade Bow Gank Build PvP “Silencium” for ESO. Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO.

The Silencium build is optimized for Cyrodiil and is focused on ranged combat combined with high burst damage, perfect for a rogue gank playstyle. To optimize our damage we are stacking as much Weapon Damage as possible. The sets that we are using include New Moon Acolyte, Swamp Raider, and two different Monster Set pieces to gain even more Weapon Damage.

The Vampire toggle Simmering Frenzy allows us to apply even more burst damage to our setup, but be careful, it might be tricky to use because it drains health! Vampire also allows us to increase our stealth movement speed by a lot which is even more important thanks to the Dark Stalker skill.

• Cyrodiil Optimized
• Champion Points & No Champion Points Campaign
• High burst damage
• Ranged playstyle
• Gank build
• Good sustain
• Medium Armor
• Bow/ Two Hander setup
• Long range hits up to 45m
• Easy escape possibilities

Cyrodiil Setup for the Bow Gank Build

Now let’s take a look at how you can build this ESO Nightblade Gank Build.

5x New Moon Acolyte, 5x Swamp Rider, 1x Velidreth, 1x Molag Kena on a Wood Elf with Longfin Pasty Melon buff food.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, buff food active
• Buffed: In combat, buff food, Major Brutality active.

Gear Setup 1

Gear Setup 2 with Mythic Item

If you have access to mythic items I can also recommend using the Markyn Ring of Majesty. This will give you slightly better attack stats than the above setup. Alternatively you could also slot Ring of the Wild Hunt if you want some extra speed.

Where can I get the gear?

Molag Kena: vWhite-Gold Tower, Undaunted Enclave
Velidreth: vCradle of Shadows, Undaunted Enclave
New Moon Acolyte: Craftable
Swamp Raider: Shadowfen Overland
Frenzied Momentum: Vateshran Hollows Arena
Perfected Frenzied Momentum: vVateshran Hollows Arena
Markyn Ring of Majesty: Antiquities

Skills for the Nightblade Bow Gank Build

Skill explanation:

• Relentless Focus: This ability is only used during longer fights, you can get a huge damage proc from the Spectral Bow if it hits the enemy.
• Silver Shards: This is used in combination with Lethal Arrow to burst your enemy.
• Lethal Arrow: This is your main damage attack and should always be used first when you make your opening.
• Camouflaged Hunter: Gives us 12% Weapon Crit and 5% overall damage through Minor Berserk.
• Simmering Frenzy: When you activate it, boosts your Weapon Damage and drains health.
• Toxic Barrage/ Ballista: Only use this if you are certain the enemy is fighting with someone else, this will expose your location and it has to be channeled.
• Forward Momentum: 20% Weapon Damage buff and snare and root immunity.
• Resolving Vigor: Your main heal, always heal first before you use Shadowy Disguise cloak.
• Channeled Acceleration: Applies 30% speed buff for 12 seconds and increases your Critical Damage by 10%.
• Shadowy Disguise: Your main cloaking tool, always use this after you kill an enemy or when your combo fails to make you invisible.
• Concealed Weapon: We never use this, it is only slotted to gain 25% speed boost in stealth.
• Temporal Guard: Use this if you can’t get away from an enemy, it will place you back in the position you were 4s ago, confusing the enemy.

Your Vampire Stage should be either Stage 1 or Stage 2, but not higher!

Champion Points for the Gank Build Nightblade

Important Info for Stamina Nightblade Bow Gank Build PvP

Buff-food

We are using a Tri-Stat buff food, that way we will always have enough Magicka to also use support abilities.

You have two options, the slightly more expensive Bewitched Sugar Skulls or the Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce. Bewitched Sugar Skulls has a bit more stats but is more expensive to buy.

Bewitched Sugar Skulls
(Max Health, Max Stamina, Max Magicka)

Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce
(Max Health, Max Stamina, Max Magicka)

If you want more sustain you could also use Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice, but be careful because your health will drop very low.

Lava Foot Soup and Saltrice
(Saltrice, Flour, Potato, Scrib Jelly)

Mundus Stone

We are using the Warrior Mundus Stone to get extra weapon damage, which boosts our overall damage tremendously. You can learn more about all the other Mundus Stones on the Mundus Stone Overview Page.

The Warrior Mundus Stone (Increased Weapon Damage)

Race

All stamina-based races work with this setup. More about each race can be found on the racial overview page.

Orc
Redguard
Wood Elf
Nord
Khajiit
Dark Elf
Imperial

Potions

You can either use the crafted or the crown store potions. I recommend using Tri-Stat potion that way you will always have enough Magicka to use Shadowy Disguise and refill your Health or Stamina if you need it.

Tri-Stat Potion
(Health, Stamina, Magicka)
(Bugloss, Columbine, Dragonthorn)

Passives

• Assassination: Master Assassin, Executioner, Pressure Points, Hemorrhage
• Shadow: Refreshing Shadows, Shadow Barrier, Dark Vigor, Dark Veil
• Siphoning: Catalyst
• Two-Handed: Forceful, Heavy Weapons, Balanced Blade, Follow Up, Battle Rush
• Bow: Long Shots, Accuracy, Ranger, Hawk Eye, Hasty Retreat
• Medium Armor: Dexterity, Wind Walker, Improved Sneak, Agility, Athletics
• Fighters Guild: Banish the Wicked, Skilled Tracker, Slayer, Intimidating Presence
• Psijic Order: Clairvoyance, Spell Orb, Concentrated Barrier, Deliberation
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Vampire: Up to Stage 2
• Assault: Continuous Attack, Reach, Combat Frenzy
• Support: Combat Medic, Battle Resurrection
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use
• Racial: All

Attributes

All into Stamina

Resource Management

You should not have too many sustain issues, we sit at approximately 1200 Stamina Recovery buffed, which is more than enough for our ranged gank playstyle.

Make sure to keep using potions to refill your resources.

In case you feel like you still need more sustain, you can always choose to run the Dubious Camoran Throne Drink.

Killer Combo with the Nightblade PvP Build

In this section of the build, I am going to show you how you should approach and kill enemies. You need to understand the burst mechanic behind this build and the tricks Nightblades can pull off to really master the build.

Mobility

Mobility is key to this build, most of the times we are in sneak mode, invisible to our enemy. Usually, you get a sneak movement penalty, Not us! Because we are a Vampire Stage 1 or 2 we have the Dark Stalker passive removes the sneak movement penalty, which means we basically run as fast as outside of sneak.

Channeled Acceleration additionally applies Major Expedition 30% speed buff to us and gives us 10% more Critical Damage on top of that. The Concealed Weapon skill is never used but we have it on the bar to increase our movement speed in stealth by 25%! Whenever you move around, do it on the backbar to benefit from this speed boost.

In this video example, you can see how fast I can move around, attack and still be hidden.

Stay far away!

This is a ranged snipe gank build, in no way should you ever try to fight in melee with this setup. It is meant to be played at max range, which will also increase your damage due to the bow Long Shots passive.

Staying far away has more benefits, by the time the enemy will actually realize where you are, he will try to find you but then you are long gone or re-positioned yourself already.

Buff Up!

Like with every build, if you can’t keep your buffs up you will lose power and might not get the kill. Forward Momentum has to be active all the time, it provides you with the 20% Weapon Damage buff Major Brutality. The skill has a long duration and is therefore easy to keep up.

The same counts for the Channeled Acceleration skill, always activate it before you attack. That way you will get the 30% speed buff for 12 seconds and can change positions fast if needed.

(Optionally, you can also use Leeching Strikes instead of the Vampire Simmering Frenzy skill to increase your sustain if needed)

Who are my targets?

Are you going to attack the 40k Health tank enemy or a 20k Health light armor user? The answer should be obvious, always inspect your possible targets first and make a decision whether it is actually possible to kill them or not.

Once you have found your prey, buff up and time to get a kill!

Killer Combo

Your main damage abilities are Lethal Arrow and Silver Shards. Why do we need two direct damage abilities? Lethal Arrow has a long travel time, Silver Shards has a short travel time till it hits the enemy.  Your first hit will stun the enemy if you are in stealth, therefore making it impossible to block or avoid the attacks! You have a few options in terms of attack pattern:

Lethal Arrow > Silver Shards > Silver Shards

Lethal Arrow > Lethal Arrow > Silver Shards

The first combo is faster but deals less damage. The second combo is slower but deals more damage. After the first impact, you want to start using Light Attacks as well to pressure the enemy even more. The reason we don’t do it on our first two abilities is to get the stun from our stealth attack.

What do we need Toxic Barrage and Relentless Focus for? Toxic Barrage should only be used if an enemy is engaged with someone else already. Otherwise, it might expose you too much and get you killed, it can place a lot of pressure on the enemy because it also applies poison damage over time effect after you finished the ultimate.

Relentless Focus is only really used when you pressure an enemy that is fighting someone else and he keeps ignoring you. Then you can use this skill to get a big damage hit on the enemy, you could replace this with something else if you prefer, kind of like a flex spot.

Here in this video you see, the enemy gets stunned after I hit him while I was in stealth, making it impossible to block my following attacks.

After the kill!

Don’t just stand there and keep spamming abilities. If you killed an enemy or failed to kill him, re-position yourself! Standing too long in one position might expose you, there are ways to detect enemies in close range with potions or certain skills. Though they only work in close range, therefore it is easy to avoid this if we always stay far away.

Aka situational awareness, you have it you will survive, you don’t you gonna die eventually.

Dodge Roll & Cloak

In case someone is hunting you, there is easy ways to avoid damage and get away.

Dodge rolling will let you avoid damage and also give you the 30% speed buff if you need it due to the bow passive Hasty Retreat. After the dodge roll you want to use Shadowy Disguise to cloak yourself, the enemy can’t see you now!

Because we are using Tri-Stat buff food we have plenty of Magicka to use Shadowy Disguise several times and we can also use our Tri-Stat potion to regain a huge amount of Health, Magicka & Stamina instantly! Once you learn to manage your resources and play around with your potions, you will see that you are never going to run out of resources on this build. 

Here you can see another clip of how you can fight, after kills you should always try to use Shadowy Disguise to avoid further detection and reposition yourself.

Battlegrounds Bow Gank Build

If you are going to play Battlegrounds with this build, I recommend changing the buff food to Dubious Camoran Throne or the more expensive version Artaeum Takeaway Broth to gain more Stamina Recovery, because in Battlegrounds Champion Points are deactivated, thus it will be harder to sustain.

Update Log for the Stamblade Bow Gank Build

19.05.2019 Updated Build for the Elsweyr Chapter, Stamina Nightblade Bow Gank Build PvP.
19.10.2019 Updated the build for the Dragonhold DLC.
21.02.2020 Updated the Build for the HARROWSTORM DLC.
16.05.2020 Updated the Build for the GREYMOOR CHAPTER.
18.08.2020 Updated the Build for the STONETHORN DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
08.09.2020 Updated the Build, changed out Titanborn Set for Swamp Raider due to a change in the Patch Notes 6.1.6 which makes Titanborn only work in combat, therefore pretty useless for our gank setup. Devs buffed Swamp Raider quite a bit, that way we can utilize Swamp Raider with Lethal Arrow to get massive extra damage.
24.10.2020 Updated the Build for the MARKARTH DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
05.03.2021 Updated the Build for the FLAMES OF AMBITION DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
28.05.2021 Updated the Build for the BLACKWOOD CHAPTER.
18.08.2021 Updated the Build for the WAKING FLAMES DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
26.10.2021 Updated the Build for the DEADLANDS DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
09.03.2022 Updated the Build for the ASCENDING TIDE DLC, High Isle Chapter.
14.05.2022 Updated the Build for the HIGH ISLE CHAPTER.
09.08.2022 Updated the Build for the LOST DEPTHS DLC, High Isle Chapter.
28.10.2022 Updated the Build for the FIRESONG DLC, High Isle Chapter.
08.03.2023 Updated the Build for the SCRIBES OF FATE DLC, Necrom Chapter
24.05.2023 Updated the Build for the NECROM CHAPTER.
25.10.2023 Updated the Build for the Necrom Update 40.
06.03.2024 Updated the Build for the Scions of Ithelia DLC U41, Gold Road Chapter

Tag: Stamina Nightblade Bow Build PvP, Stamina NB Bow Build, Stam NB Bow PvP Build.

Related Guides

• ESO PVP Tier List
• Cyrodiil Guide
• Imperial City Guide
• Battlegrounds Guide
• How to unlock Alliance War Skill Lines and Vigor