Nightblade Tank Build PvE for Elder Scrolls Online

“Siphoner”

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Changes from the previous version
• Resource Management
• Dungeons & Trials Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Champion Points (810, 600, 300)
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Update Log

Introduction

Welcome to the Nightblade Tank Build PvE “Siphoner” for Elder Scrolls Online. Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO. The Nightblade Tank Build Siphoner is optimized for Dungeons and Trials. Keep in mind there is a huge variety of different tank builds out there that synergize well depending on your group setup. Remember, each Dungeon needs some small adjustments to the build.

If you are new to Nightblade or ESO please make sure to also read the New Player Beginners Guide and check out the Magicka Nightblade Beginners Guide.

We are using a Health build, as you really want to make sure to have enough health to absorb damage. Having a lot of health also increases our heals that we get from Dark Cloak. This ability scales off health, so we get a decent amount of health per second thanks to our big health pool as long as we keep this ability up. We also have Refreshing Path which heals both us and our group members. On top of that we can use Funnel Health to increase our healing even more and also heal our group members at the same time. The Mirage skill gives us constant 25% AoE damage mitigation, which really helps a lot to mitigation a lot of the incoming damage. We also use Battalion Defender set which both can heal you or your group mates.

• Dungeon & Trial Build
• Tank/Support Build
• Heavy Armor
• Great sustain
• Easy survivability

In case you don’t know what what weaving light attacks is, make sure to check out the “Weaving Beginner Guide” which explains how to weave light attacks between abilities, aka animation canceling. If you want more information about tanking, I can also recommend reading the Advanced Tanking Guide.

Changes from the previous version

Defensive Posture:

• Reworked this ability and its morphs into a Damage Shield, rather than a weird buff. These abilities no longer passively reduce the cost of block or increase the amount of damage you can block while they are slotted.
• Reduced the duration of the bonus from this ability to 6 seconds from 30 seconds.
• Increased the cost to 4320 from 2430.
• The Damage Shield scales off 30% of your Maximum Health, similarly to other damage shields like Bone Shield or Sun Shield.
• This ability will continue to reflect once, but will now reflect any projectile rather than only spell projectiles. Reflecting an attack does not consume the shield.
  • Absorb Magic (morph):
    • This morph is now called Absorb Missile, because it can absorb any ranged attack instead of just magical ones!
    • Reduced the damage shield size to 30% from 50%.
    • Increased the heal granted from an absorbed ranged attack by approximately 29%, and will no longer remove the shield.

Resource Management

Leeching Strikes helps us sustain our stamina better, you will get a big burst of resources when the effect ends and when you do light or heavy attacks. Healers can also support you with Energy Orb and Luminous Shards (Templar) to give you around 4000 Stamina back, that is also the reason why we have more Stamina than Magicka, because you gain resources depending on your higher resource stat. So our Stamina should be about 2000 higher than our Magicka pool, which means we will always get Stamina back from the Spears or the Orbs! Also, you do not always need to permablock, so when you have time, do some heavy attacks to restore some resources! Potions are also a key to manage your resources well, use the right potions to really get the edge on your resources. If you still have troubles with sustain, you could also utilize Sentinel of Rkugamz, you can easily proc this with Swallow Soul.

• Leeching Strikes
• Spell Symmetry
• Heavy Attacks
• Spears (Templar ability)
• Orbs (Undaunted skill)
• Argonian passive

Dungeons & Trials Setup

Gear

Remember that there is a ton of good Tank sets to choose from. Here are a few good sets to list them up:

• Ebon Armory
• Roar of Alkosh
• Torug's Pact
• Plague Doctor
• Powerful Assault
• Akaviri Dragonguard
• Battalion Defender
• Perfected Claw of Yolnahkriin

Gear Setup 1

Lightning vs Frost Staff: You can use both options, a frost staff is better if you want to go the save route and get all the block mitigation on the backbar as well. The Lightning Staff is used in combination with Elemental Blockade to apply Off-Balance to the enemy, that way you can support your group and increase the overall damage output.

• Set allocation: It does not matter what gearsets you wear where, as long as you use those two combos, you should be fine.
• Monster Sets: There are various Monster sets that you can wear along with this combination. I usually use two more seperate health bonus from 1 piece Malubeth & Valkyn. You can also use Mighty Chudan, Pirate Skeleton, Bloodspawn etc.
• Swarm Mother: This set is very good for Dungeons, it automatically pulls almost all type of enemies to you without any cooldown.

Beginner Gear Setup

This beginner setup is here for people that do not have access to the other setup now. You can ask a friend to craft Fortified Brass and Torug’s Pact for you. You could also use Plague Doctor instead of Torug’s Pact as it is very cheap available in the Guild Stores.

Where can I get the gear?

Ebon Armory: Crypts of Hearts
Battalion Defender: Rewards of the Worthy, Guildstore
Lord Warden: Imperial City Prison
Roar of Alkosh: Maw of Lorkhaj
Bloodspawn: Spindleclutch
Swarm Mother: Spindleclutch 1
Torug's Pact: Craftable
Fortified Brass: Craftable
Torug's Pact: Craftable
Night's Silence: Craftable
Plague Doctor: Deshaan, Guildstore

 Skills

Make sure to adjust your skills to your needs, this setup is not maced into stone, make sure to adjust skills depending on the situation of a fight.

• Heroic Slash: Debuffs the enemy with a 15% damage reduction debuff and also gives you Minor Heroism, increasing your Ultimate generation.
• Dark Cloak: Heals you based on Max Health and grants Minor Protection, increasing your damage mitigation by 8%.
• Pierce Armor: Your main taunt, also debuffs the enemy with Major Fracture and Major Breach, reducing Spell and Physical Resistance by 5280.
• Funnel Health: Heal yourself and your group members with this ability.
• Absorb Missle: Gives you a big shield, plus if you get hit by a projectile you also get some health back!
• Bolstering Darkness: Apply Major Protection to you and your allies, gives you a 30% incoming damage reduction.
• Leeching Strikes: One of your resource management tools, keep this active all the time.
• Mirage: Keep this up as it provides you with Minor Ward and Resolve, plus a 25% AoE damage mitigation effect.
• Refreshing Path: Keep this ability up all the time because we need to proc the Shadow Barrier passive to get Major Ward and Resolve increasing Spell and Physical resistance by 5280.
• Inner Rage: This is your ranged taunt, in case you can not get to a mob fast enough.
• Elemental Blockade: The Lightning Blockade needs to be on the ground all the time, it is here to keep our crusher enchantment up a 100%. The crusher enchantment will even proc while you are on the frontbar, you just have to make sure to keep the blockade up.
• Aggressive Warhorn: Your main Ultimate, to buff the group with 10% more max resources and crit damage boost.