Stamina Nightblade Build PvP for Elder Scrolls Online ESO

“Assassin”

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Resource Management
• Cyrodiil Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Champion Points (810, 600, 300)
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Battlegrounds Setup
• How to Play (Healing, Defense, Offense)
• Gameplay
• Update Log

Introduction

Welcome to the Stamina Nightblade Build PvP “Assassin” for Elder Scrolls Online. Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO.

If you are new to the game I can also highly recommend checking out the Stamina Nightblade Beginner Guide along with a lot of other beginner guides.

This Nightblade Build is designed to be a stealth silent killer. Your main focus is to kill weak targets, always prioritize low health light or medium armor targets over heavy armor targets. For our Cyrodiil setup we are using Eternal Hunt, New Moon Acolyte, Balorgh and Caustic Arrow.

Eternal Hunt is a very nice set that deals a decent amount of damage and makes it almost impossible to catch you if you are on the run because the rune roots people on the ground for a short time. You could use another set if you want more offense, but I am a huge fan of the set, once you get used to it you will also be able to use it more effectively.

• Cyrodiil & Battlegrounds Build
• Medium Armor 2H/Bow
• High Burst Damage
• Stealthy
• Fast paced combat

Resource Management

Leeching Strikes is our main active sustain tool, always keep it up.

Heavy Attacks also restore resources, if you drop low, make sure to weave in some Heavy Attacks.

Potions refill a huge amount of resources, use them whenever the right moment comes, for example when you drop low health you can drink a potion to get out of execute range!

We have built in sustain through the Artaeum Takeaway Broth (or Dubious Camoran Throne) drink in addition with 1 Stamina Recovery glyph. Being a Woodelf also boosts our Stamina Recovery by another 258!

We have 4 pieces Well-Fitted trait on our armor, which helps reduce the dodge roll cost by a lot, that is important because we dodge roll a lot to active our Eternal Hunt set and to avoid damage from the enemy.

• Leeching Strikes
• Heavy Attacks
• Potions
• Artaeum buff food

if you still lack sustain, you can always add more Stamina Recovery glyphs to your jewelry.

Cyrodiil Setup

5x Eternal Hunt, 5x New Moon Acolyte, 2x Balorgh on a Wood Elf with Artaeum food.

• Unbuffed: Battle Spirit, out of combat
• Buffed: Battle Spirit, Weapon Damage Enchantment, Balorgh proc, Major Brutality, Tri-Stat Potion were active

Gear

Where can I get the gear?

Eternal Hunt: Craftable
New Moon Acolytes: Craftable
Balorgh: vMarch of Sacrifices, Urgalarg Undaunted Chest
Master's Bow: Dragonstar Arena

Skills

Gear Setup

Champion Points

In case you are not at the suggested champion point level like you can see here, I recommend checking out the Champion Points Calculator that can help you allocate your Points.

Champion Points [810]

The Ritual
64 Mighty, 66 Precise Strikes, 25 Piercing
The Atronach
20 Shattering Blows, 72 Master-at-Arms
The Apprentice
23 Blessed
The Shadow
56 Tumbling, 13 Shadow Ward
The Lover
64 Mooncalf, 56 Arcanist
The Tower
56 Warlord, 1 Siphoner, 5 Sprinter, 19 Bashing Focus
The Lord
23 Quick Recovery
The Lady
37 Hardy, 37 Elemental Defender, 48 Thick Skinned
The Steed
65 Ironclad, 54 Resistant, 6 Medium Armor Focus

Champion Points [600]

The Ritual
64 Mighty, 19 Piercing, 37 Precise Strikes
The Atronach
20 Shattering Blows, 37 Master-at-Arms
The Apprentice
23 Blessed
The Shadow
23 Tumbling, 13 Shadow Ward
The Lover
56 Mooncalf, 56 Arcanist
The Tower
27 Warlord, 1 Siphoner, 5 Sprinter, 10 Bashing Fo cus
The Lord
23 Quick Recovery
The Lady
37 Hardy, 37 Elemental Defender, 37 Thick Skinned
The Steed
36 Ironclad, 29 Resistant, 1 Medium Armor Focus

Champion Points [300]

The Ritual
43 Mighty, 9, 25 Piercing
The Atronach
9 Master-At-Arms
The Apprentice
23 Blessed
The Shadow
The Lover
49 Mooncalf
The Tower
51 Warlord
The Lord
23 Quick Recovery
The Lady
23 Hardy, 23 Elemental Defender, 13 Thick Skinned
The Steed
1 Ironclad, 7 Resistant

Important Info for Stamina Nightblade Build PvP

Buff-food

Artaeum Takeaway Broth and Dubious Camoran Throne must be used with this setup. Dubious can be bought for a very cheap price in the guildstores, Artaeum does cost a lot more for a tiny bit extra stats increase.

Mundus Stone

The Warrior (Increased Weapon Damage)

Race

Woodelf (recommended)
Khajiit
Redguard
Orc
Imperial

Potions

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

Poisons

Drain Health Poisons
(Drain Health, Restore Health, Poison Damage)
(Butterfly Wing, Columbine, Scrib Jelly)

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: Intimidating Presence, Slayer, Banish the Wicked, Skilled Tracker
• Psijic Order: Clairvoyance, Spell Orb, Concentrated Barrier, Deliberation
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Assault: Continuous Attack, Reach, Combat Frenzy
• Support: Magicka Aid, Combat Medic, Battle Resurrection
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Battleground Setup

The build has to be slightly adjusted for the Battlegrounds because Champion Points are deactivated and therefore sustaining is overall more difficult. Mostly the Monster Set and the buff food that we use changes.

Add one extra Stamina Cost Reduction glyph to the jewelry, to make sustain easier.

How to Play

Healing

Rally and Resolving Vigor are your heals. You want to always keep up Rally and whenever you go defense mode you need to keep Vigor up. I recommend using Vigor before you dodge roll. That way you can heal up and the enemy can barely hit you.

The potions that we are using also contain health, when your health drops low you can activate your potion to get a burst heal.

Defense

Your main defense is dodge roll, dodge rolling in the right moment you can avoid basically all incoming damage and it gives you room to breath, every time you dodge roll you also gain 1500 Penetration if you are a Wood Elf and Eternal Hunt procs, making it fairly hard for the enemy to follow you.

You can use Eternal Hunt in combination with Shadowy Disguise, with a bit of practice it will be impossible for the enemy to follow or kill you. Dodge rolling too much in succession is not recommended, because it applies fatigue to you that increases the cost of dodge roll. Therefore Shadowy Disguise is nice to use while the fatigue wears off.

Relentless Focus, if you have several stacks active you also gain damage mitigation, which is really nice in specifc situations.

Shuffle needs to be active all the time, it gives you so much AoE damage mitigation and also prevents you from getting rooted or snared for a short duration, making escape even easier.

Offense

Burst damage on a Nightblade is very effective, the first rule you have to learn is how you should pick your target.

• Target 1: 30k health, heavy armor
• Target 2: 22k health, light armor
• Target 3: 22k health, light armor but constantly shielded

Obviously you pick target 2, but I hope you understood what I tried to teach you here, pick the easy targets. Sure you can kill heavy armor targets, but it will be way more difficult, especially because they usually have more health.

Now there is a few ways you can push out insane burst damage, always approach your enemy in stealth.

1. Heavy Attack > Incapacitating Strike > Surprise attack
2. Surprise Attack > Incapacitating Strike > Surprise attack

Both options are viable, if you start your combo with a Surprise attack, the enemy will get stunned because of the Surprise Attack skill. Like you can see here in the example, I am in stealth and then I use Surprise Attack to stun him into a Incapacitating Strike which he can not block due to the stun and it basically finishes him off.

Here a Nightblade tried to get away from me but I used Piercing Mark so I still see him even if he is cloaked. Then I used Ambush to get the extra 8% damage to boost my Incapacitating Strike into a Surprise Attack and the enemy is dead.

Another example of my Nightblade using Surprise Attack > Incapacitating Strike (7k damage, enemy gets stunned) and I activate my Spectral Bow (Relentless Focus) which crits for 10k and kills the enemy.

Now please remember, you NEED TO use Light Attacks between each skill, Light attacks can deal more damage than an actual skill.

Update Log