Stamina Nightblade Build PvP for Elder Scrolls Online ESO

“Assassin”

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Changes from the previous version
• Resource Management
• Cyrodiil Setup
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Champion Points (810, 600, 300)
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• BONUS – More Options
• 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, Spriggan's Thorns, Velidreth and Caustic Arrow (optional). You will also have some more options, because I know some of the gear can be time consuming to get. This specific gear setup here allows us to have a lot of instant burst damage and continuous high pressure on the enemy if needed. The goal is always to find weak targets and instantly kill them. With abilities such as Shadowy Disguise it is very easy to approach a target without them even noticing. We have a high magicka pool so we can perma cloak for quite a while.

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

Changes from the previous version

No major changes to the build in the Dragonhold DLC.

Resource Management

The sustain on this setup is fairly easy, you have really high stamina recovery and also plenty of max magicka to keep using your utility skills. Our sets already provide us with plenty of stamina recovery in addition with Dubious Camoran Throne and the Serpent Mundus Stone. Our Jewelry enchants have one stamina recovery and a stamina cost reduction enchant on them, that also further boost our sustain. You can change this to your liking, because some people prefer more max weapon damage, but I usually like to have slightly higher stamina recovery for tough situations. Being a Woodelf also boosts our stamina recovery by another 258!

• Dubious Camoran Throne Drink
• Stamina Recovery Glyph
• Stamina Cost Reduction Glyph
• The Serpent Mundus Stone
• Potions

In addition to that, always remember that heavy attacks restore a huge amount of stamina and if you time your potions correctly you get another big boost.

Cyrodiil Setup

Gear

• Well Fitted? I do think 2-3 Well Fitted pieces are optimal to also have some sort of dodge roll and sprint cost reduction, which is good because you dodge roll a lot as Nightblade.
• The Infused Disease Enchantment on the backbar allows us to pressure the enemy even if we are not close up, Light Attacks proc the Disease Enchantment and Poison Injections deals again quite a bit of damage.
• You can use pretty much any stamina based Monster Set of your choice for this setup.

Where can I get the gear?

Eternal Hunt: Craftable
Spriggan's Thorns: Bangkorai Overland
Velidreth: vet Cradle of Shadows, Urgarlag Undaunted Chest
Master's Bow: Dragonstar Arena vet
Agility: Random Dailies (LFG) or Guildstores
Bloodspawn: vet Spindleclutch 2, Maj Undaunted Chest

Skills

Gear Setup 1 Skills

Turn Evil now fears enemies and it costs stamina, therefore it is the better choice compared to Mass Hysteria, we can utilize the extra magicka for extra cloaking.

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.

Championpoints

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.

Championpoints [810]

The Ritual
75 Mighty, 72 Precise Strikes, 25 Piercing
The Atronach
20 Shattering Blows, 72 Master-at-Arms, 6 Physical Weapon Expert
The Apprentice
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, 59 Resistant, 1 Medium Armor Focus

Championpoints [600]

The Ritual
75 Mighty, 25 Piercing, 37 Precise Strikes
The Atronach
20 Shattering Blows, 37 Master-at-Arms, 6 Physical Weapon Expert
The Apprentice
The Shadow
23 Tumbling, 13 Shadow Ward
The Lover
56 Mooncalf, 56 Arcanist
The Tower
27 Warlord, 1 Siphoner, 5 Sprinter, 10 Bashing F0cus
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

Championpoints [300]

The Ritual
43 Mighty, 57 Piercing
The Atronach
The Apprentice
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

Tri Stat Buff food gives us the most utility, I always recommend using this one for open world Cyrodiil PvP.

Tri Stat Buf Food
(Health, Stamina, Magicka)

Mundus Stone

The Serpent (Increased Stamina Recovery)

Race

Woodelf (recommended)
Khajiit
Redguard
Orc
Imperial

Potions

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

Poisons

Double Health Poisons
(Poison Damage, Poison Damage)
(Nirnroot, Stinkhorn, Torchbug Thorax)

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

You can make the build work without the Psijic Skill Line, so don’t panic in case you do not have that skill line.

Bonus

You can improve the build by a small changes, but they require you to clear veteran Dragonstar Arena, which is 4 man content. Plus you would want to get the Psijic Order Skill-line.

Instead of an Caustic Arrow you could also simply run the Agility bow on the back bar.

To increase your burst damage out of stealth you could also use Channeled Acceleration on the back bar. Temporal Guard in the ultimate slot on the back bar gives you a free 8% damage mitigation plus you could use it to trick your enemy when you jump down a huge rock and teleport right back up again.

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.

Because our health drops lower and we already have more then enough damage, I recommend using Bloodspawn as a Monster Set to boost your defensive stats and ultimate regeneration.

Buff Food

Dubious Camoran Throne (Max Health+Max Stamina+Stamina Recovery)

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.

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

Gameplay

Here you can find some Gameplay of an older version of the setup, it is still fairly similar to the setup here.

Update Log