Shadow Walker – Magicka Nightblade PvP Build

Build Written By: Nyassa – PC NA – YouTube

Role: Damage Dealer

Patch: Harrowstorm

Table of Contents

1. Video
2. Introduction
3. 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)
4. Resource Management and Rotation
5. Tips & Misc
6. Contact Info
7. Update Log

Video

Introduction

Welcome to DottzGaming.com’s Magicka Nightblade Build PvP, The Shadow Walker, for the game; Elder Scrolls Online! This build is intended for open world engagements such as: Cyrodiil, battlegrounds, and Imperial city. This build can have fair success in dueling and in 1vX. Over all this build functions well enough considering the current Templar/Sorc meta. With Magicka Snare removal we become even more slippery. Magblade is out of the dumpster folks, but for now there are a still a few issues to build around.

Setup

Gear

Gear Explanations

• Troll King: I honestly hate to use this set but because we cannot fit anything else onto our bars and healing ward is in a weird place I find it necessary for me to use this set to have fun. I have been able to win duels without this set but I am always at low health for the duration of the duel and that simply isn’t very comfortable and thus I don’t find it fun. With this set we’ll actually be able to survive more and not just due the second someone sneezes on you.
• Bright-Throat’s Boast: This set mixes sustain and damage very well for magicka nightblade.
• War Maiden: This is the primary damage set of the build. This set only needs to be front barred, which means we can use a 2x arena weapon on our back bar!
• Blackrose Resto: You basically have to use this if you want to have any meaningful healing.

Attributes

Everything into Magicka. If you feel you have to then you can take up to and no more than 6 out of magic and put it into health, however due to changing arcane Jewelry pieces to protective, I find this highly undesirable. I personally have 4 into Health and 60 into Magicka but sometimes slip to 64 magicka with none in health.

Skills

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

Back Bar – Restoration Staff:  Shadowy Disguise, Phantasmal Escape, Healing Ward, Manifestation of Terror, Siphoning Attacks, Soul Tether

Vampire vs. Werewolf vs. Mortal

While being a vampire benefit this build in a few small ways I personally do not see it as a necessary element. Due to the expensive nature of running a low Regen build using elusive mist is against our interest as it is rather expensive and while in mist form we do not recover magic. However to be frank an truly optimised I will simply state this “Only use Vampire if you need Mist Form” so personally I suggest staying mortal.

But we have other forms of snare removal now so it’s not needed. At stage 2 Vamp we get a regen passive which can be extremely nice though it’s not worth the one shot Dawnbreakers we will take.

Champion Points

CHAMPION POINT 810 SETUP

THE MAGE (BLUE)

• Elfborn – 66
• Spell Erosion – 10
• Elemental Expert – 66
• Master-at-Arms – 66
• Thaumaturge – 34
• Staff Expert – 9
• Blessed – 19

THE THIEF (GREEN)

• Warlord – 53
• Arcanist – 75
• Tumbling – 53
• Mooncalf – 45
• Sprinter – 14
• Befoul – 11
• Shadow Ward – 19

THE WARRIOR (RED)

• Ironclad –  66
• Resistant – 48
• Thick Skinned – 56
• Hardy – 37
• Elemental Defender – 32
• Bastion – 31

Low Champion Points (If you are a lower CP player I suggest playing in no-CP but I will list the trees you want to fill up ASAP should you wish to venture into CP PvP).

THE THIEF (GREEN)

• Warlord – 53
• Tumbling – 53

THE MAGE (BLUE)

• Master-at-Arms – 66
• Elfborn – 66

THE WARRIOR (RED)

• Ironclad –  66
• Resistant – 43

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. Khajiit: Good for it’s crit damage and healing. The recovery passive allows you to possibly forego another form of stam regen since it has a small 85 stam regen this may very well be enough for most players. Though if you find yourself still having issues with stam management using a stam regen glyph is always an option. Breton was also a good option for this spot but I didn’t see enough damage.
3. High Elf: You get the spell damage buff of Dunmer with more max magicka and stam sustain whenever you use a class ability.

Potions/Poisons

POTIONS: PvE Spell power pots. Hands down. If you want to go into BGs then Tripots are good if you can find Bar space for Entropy.

POISONS: Escapist Poisons (optional)

Passives

Class (all), Light Armor (all), Medium Armor (all except the ones that require you to wear 5 pieces), Heavy Armor (all except the ones that require you to wear 5 pieces), Destruction Staff (all), Restoration Staff (all), Fighters Guild (Banish the Wicked), Mages Guild (all except persuasive passive), 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.
• 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.
• Absolutely always keep Elemental Drain on an opponent. The Magicka steal on this ability is what lets me play as a Dunmer or Altmer rather than going to Breton.

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.
• 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 Lotus Fan and Shade.
• You can use Dark Cloak if you want but I find that most the time after I shade away if I don’t have cloak to hide, people with just keep chasing me. If we had a form of expedition then it’d be ok but we’d need to give up 4 second Snare removal with a powerful defensive buff (Phantasmal Escape) for Race Against Time with only 2-3 seconds of snare removal.

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