Magicka Nightblade PvP Build ESO – Shadow Walker

Build Written By: Nyassa – PC NA – YouTube

Role: Damage Dealer

Patch: Blackwood

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Setup
   1. Gear
   2. Attributes
   3. Skills
   4. Vampire vs. Werewolf vs. Mortal
   5. Champion Points
   6. Other Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives)
3. Resource Management and Rotation
4. Tips & Misc
5. Contact Info
6. Update Log

Introduction

Welcome to DottzGaming.com’s Magicka Nightblade Build PvP, The Shadow Walker, for the game; Elder Scrolls Online! This build is intended for all CP PvP, though I do recommend altering some aspects of the build if you intend to do a lot of dueling. This build will not be making use of the malacath ring or the vampire abilities so if you’ve been looking for a build without that then this is your build!

Setup

Gear

Gear Explanations

• Vateshran Destruction Staff: One of the new items from the arena that came in the Markarth patch, this adds a ton of damage on an opponent that we cast our Elemental Drain on and anyone that stands between us and that opponent!
• Bright-Throat’s Boast: This set mixes sustain and damage very well for magicka nightblade.
• Julianos: This is the primary damage set of the build, giving us a mixture of critical, spell damage and magicka!
• Blackrose Restoration Staff: You basically have to use this if you want to have any meaningful healing.

Attributes

All points in magicka!

Skills

Main Bar – Fire Staff:  Merciless Resolve, Swallow Soul, Shadow Image, Elemental Drain, Mass Hysteria, Soul Harvest

Back Bar – Restoration Staff:  Shadowy Disguise, Race Against Time, Healing Ward, Rapid Regeneration, Siphoning Attacks, Soul Tether

Vampire vs. Werewolf vs. Mortal

Even after vampires got changed I still recommend not using it simply because the downsides are just a little too much. If you want to try and be a vampire go for it.

Champion Points

The list below showcases the order in which champion points should be acquired, the number of points you need to place into that perk and whether or not it needs to be slotted in the CP bar. The Warfare CP perks increase your damage and mitigation and are the most important, the Fitness tree has some miscellaneous sustain and defensive perks and the Craft tree has crafting and non-combat bonuses. The Craft CP points are entirely customizable to however you want, or you can follow the list below.

CHAMPION POINT SETUP
WARFARE (BLUE)

• Eldritch Insight: 20
• Precision: 20
• Piercing: 20
• Fighting Finesse: 50 (slotted)
• Reaving blows: 50 (slotted)
• Deadly aim: 50 (slotted)
• Thaumaturge: 50 (slotted)
• Quick recovery: 20
• Hardy: 20
• Elemental Aegis: 20
• Blessed: 20
• Flawless Ritual: 40
• Warmage: 30
• Tireless Discipline: 20

FITNESS (RED)

• Rejuvenation: 50 (slotted)
• Tumbling: 30
• Defiance: 20
• Slippery: 50 (slotted)
• Mystic Tenacity: 10
• Hero’s Vigor: 20
• Shield master: 50 (slotted)
• Bastion: 50 (slotted)
• Hasty: 16
• Sprinter: 20
• Mystic Tenacity: 40
• Tireless Guardian: 20
• Nimble Protector: 6
• Fortification: 30
• Piercing Gaze: 30

CRAFT (GREEN)

• Steed’s Blessing – 50 (Slotted)
• Breakfall – 50
• Wanderer – 15
• Steadfast Enchantment – 50
• Rationer – 30 (Slotted)
• Liquid Efficiency – 75 (Slotted)
• Treasure Hunter – 50 (Slotted)
• Fortune’s Favor – 50
• Gilded Fingers – 50
• Soul Reservoir – 33

Other Important Info

Buff Food

Witchmother’s Potent Brew – Max Health, Max Magicka and Magicka Recovery

Mundus

Apprentice – Increased Spell Damage

Race

1. Dunmer: Great Damage and max stats. Might still need some source of stam or magicka regen but overall you should be ok if you play your cards right. 
2. Breton: One of the better magicka races to use due to it’s amazing sustain.
3. High Elf: You get the spell damage buff of Dunmer with more max magicka and stam sustain whenever you use a class ability. You can probably use a normal magicka sustain Glyph rather than the prismatic one I suggested before should you choose to be a high elf.

Potions

Essence of Spell Critical (Major Prophecy, Health and Magicka)
Bugloss, Water Hyacinth, Lady’s Smock

Passives

Class (all), Light Armor (all), Medium Armor (all), Heavy Armor (all), Destruction Staff (all), Restoration Staff (all), Psijic Order (Clairvoyance & Concentrated Barrier), Undaunted (all), Racial (all), Alchemy (Medicinal Use), Assault (all), Support (all except the first)

Resource Management & Rotation

The following is basically a checklist of what you want to do when you play this build. It is important to note that in PvP we have no true rotation, that is even more true as a nightblade.

• Maintain Merciless Resolve on yourself at all times.
• Re-apply Siphoning Attacks every time the effect ends. We should keep this up even while we are out of combat and just cloaking around
• Always try and combo stuns with Merciless or Soul Harvest
• In a fight it is important to keep Swallow Soul up as it heals you passively. It is not affected by the 60% healing reduction applied by battle spirit though the heal on Merciless resolve is.
• When using Shade keep it active as often as you can. This will help us escape tricky situations over all. You can also cast it more often if you want as it refreshed our resistance buff and porting back to it is a free cost. Shade also applies minor maim to our target which helps us stay alive longer as we will take less damage.
• Absolutely always Elemental Drain an opponent. The Magicka steal on this ability is what lets me play as a Dunmer or Altmer rather than going to Breton. And unfortunately using Ele Drain is actually more effective than using a DoT such as Debilitate/Cripple. 

The Defile on Soul Harvest will help ensure that even after our enemy has a harder time healing up and fully recovering.

Tips & Misc.

• We have no “defensive spammable” so it’s very important to use merciless even when we are pressured and at low health. The counter pressure might make your opponent lay off a bit to take care of their own wounds but the healing you get from a close range merciless is also fairly meaningful. It’s good to cast Healing Ward right before using merciless so that the heal is affected by the Major Vitality. Also try to use a healing ward before rapid regen so you can gain the healing benefit from major vitality.
• In the CP section you will see we have a fair amount of points into tumbling. Typically you want to avoid rolling too much on magic builds but due to the fact we are getting up rather close and person, dodge roll is beneficial to use to escape and even animation cancel skills when you want them to go off, but need to move.
• In nearly all engagements it helps to stay mobile, even if that means changing where you do LoS.
• Drink potions on cooldown as it gives you ult via a nightblade passive and damage.
• With the Merciless heal requiring a 7 meter range and using Mass Hysteria as our stun you’ll find yourself needing to get close. The best way to play this is to bob in and out with Race Against Time and Shade. 
• You can use Dark Cloak if you want but I find that most of the time after I shade away if I don’t have a cloak to hide, people will just keep chasing me. Should you choose to use Dark Cloak I recommend looking into the Swift set

Contact

If you have any questions about the build, join our discord server and ask @Nyassa about the build!

Update Log

10/25/2019 – Build created
2/29/2020 – skills updated
5/29/2020 – skills, CP and gear updated
9/4/2020 – Intro updated, fear morph changed
11/2/2020 – changed sets
3/22/2021 – updated CP for Flames of ambition
6/10/2021 – updated CP