Looking for the best Nightblade Class Builds for The Elder Scrolls Online? This list is gathered from the ESO community’s top players and creators and is frequently updated. This list includes several build types for the Nightblade Class including Healers, Tanks, DPS, Solo, PVE and PVP Builds, so let’s jump right into it!
Table Of Contents
Nightblade Solo PVE Builds
The Nightblade Class is a great choice for players who enjoy playing Solo in The Elder Scrolls Online, due to strong its strong defensive and healing options and wide array of buffs and debuffs. Some great examples of Solo Nightblade Builds are below.
1. Brawler – Stamina Nightblade One Bar SOLO PVE Build – Hack The Minotaur
The BRAWLER Build is a powerful Solo Stamina Nightblade build with high single target damage, solid AOE and STRONG survival skills. Check out the video below or explore the Written Guide.
This build uses a very unique mechanic for it’s main survival, that being the automatic damage shield granted by the Para Bellum set. This set gives you a free 7000+ damage shield every 10 seconds, greatly helping you to absorb damage from bosses and other hard hitting enemies. In addition to a strong survival set, this build also takes advantage of an equally strong damaging set in Ravager. The Ravager set is uniquely suited to the Stamina Nightblade as it will easily proc its bonus damage while using our main, armor-shredding spammable skill: Surprise Attack.
This Stamblade offers a solid balance between single target and AOE focused damage, as well as a bit of damage over time. One of the key skills for this build is Power Extraction – a very strong AOE skill that is exclusive to the Stamina Nightblade which also makes surrounding enemies weaker and serves to buff your own damage with Major Brutality. Stamblades also have a unique class execute skill in Killer’s Blade, which this build makes good use of, though you can substitute this for Reverse Slice.
This build is strong enough to Solo content with only one skill bar if you like, though a set up for two skill bars is provided for more flexibility, damage and utility.
2. Blood Frenzy – Solo Vampire Magicka Nightblade PVE Build – Hack The Minotaur
The BLOOD FRENZY build in a unique combination of Nightblade and Vampire abilities focused on blood magic. This build has STRONG single target damage, massive self-healing and great survivability! A Full Written Guide is also available.
This Solo Magicka Nightblade Build takes a unique spin on the Vampire skill line in ESO, mixing the Magblade’s strong self-healing with the Vampire Spammable Skill: Blood For Blood. Since Blood For Blood costs Health to cast, there is a strong synergy at work here which makes the build very easy to sustain.
This build is focused around Critical Damage as well as healing, which makes the Mother’s Sorrow set ideal. This is typically very easy to purchase from guild traders and equally easy to farm on your own. This build also makes use of Spell Power Cure which has a high proc chance on the Magicka Nightblade due to the constant influx of healing this class can make use of.
The Blood Frenzy Build utilizes several self-heals including Swallow Soul, Siphoning Attacks, Merciless Resolve (the bow proc heals for a lot!) and even the Swarming Scion ultimate to ensure you always have big heals rolling in. This combined with our shield from the Dampen Magic skill makes this build a very strong choice for any Solo content in The Elder Scrolls Online.
3. Gloom – Solo Stamina Nightblade PVE Build – Dottz Gaming
Dottz Gaming’s Solo Build for the Stamina Nightblade class is a great option for those that want to also Roleplay as a Dark Assassin. A full Written Guide is also available.
This build is intended for playing solo PVE content including questing, public dungeons, Maelstrom Arena and more! This build focuses on being a true thief and assassin, giving you the “sneak thief” feel that everyone knows and loves from the single player Elder Scrolls titles! Dottz’ goal with this build was to create a Stamina Nightblade that could play solo effectively, but had strong thematic ties to the class’s identity!
Speaking of theme, this build uses sets surrounding the Night Mother, including Night Mother’s Gaze for the extra Critical and free Major Breach debuff as well as the Night Mother’s Embrace set for its bonuses to Sneak Detection and Sneak Cost Reduction. Skill for this build include the usual Stamina Nightblade class tools such as Surprise Attack, Relentless Focus, Killer’s Blade and Incapacitating Strike.
4. Blood Mage – Magicka Nightblade Solo PVE Build – Hack The Minotaur
The BLOOD MAGE Build is a STRONG Magicka Nightblade set up for both Solo and Group play in The Elder Scrolls Online. Insane Damage potential plus Easy self-healing, sustain and survivability make for a great combination with this build! Make sure to check out the Full Written Guide as well!
This build relies on mostly magic-based damage, including skills like Swallow Soul, Impale and Sap Essence. All of these skills will be buffed on this build thanks to the War Maiden set. Since we are using mostly class skills as well, those will be further improved by the Innate Axiom set. Both of these sets are either craftable or easy to obtain on guild traders which makes this build quite easy to get started with.
Nightblade PVE DPS Builds
The Nightblade Class can make for a challenging DPS Build using both Stamina and Magicka Variations. This is due usually to having a more complex rotation featuring lots of light attack weaving. Here are some favorite Nightblade DPS Builds with great tips and advice to get you started.
5. Magicka Nightblade PVE DPS Guide With Easy & Advanced Set Ups – Skinny Cheeks Gaming
Skinny Cheeks gives you an amazing breakdown of the Magicka Nightblade build for DPS here. Some great insights are provided including top race, consumable and gear options. His videos are always extremely detailed and well done, so go check it out!
In this complete guide, Skinny Cheeks shows off multiple set ups depending on what you need for your build including a basic set up with no trials gear as well as two different trials builds for the Magblade. The Mother’s Sorrow set as usual is recommended here, while the new Medusa 5 piece set can be used instead if you want to try something different with free access to Minor Force. Siroria is the Trials set recommended.
Multiple rotations on this build are also possible, depending on whether you want an easier static rotation or a more complicated dynamic rotation.
6. Toxic Raider – Stamina Nightblade Easy One Bar PVE DPS Build – Hack The Minotaur
The TOXIC RAIDER Build is an EASY One Bar set up for the Stamina Nightblade class in The Elder Scrolls Online with a focus on Bow as the primary weapon. Most gear sets for this build can be easily farmed or bought on guild traders and the easy one bar rotation means no complicated bar swapping is needed. Plus this build does tons of TOXIC DAMAGE! No trials gear is needed for this build, as both of the main 5 piece sets are tradable or can be farmed yourself. Don’t forget to check out the Full Written Guide too!
In terms of gear, this build uses some fairly unique options. For example, the newly buffed Swamp Raider set now gives you 600 weapon damage applied to all of your damaging attacks that inflict either Disease Damage or Poison Damage. Luckily for the Stamina Nightblade this affects most of our main skills, and it definitely buffs bow skills as well! Any other damaging set can be paired with Swamp Raider including Flanking Strategist, Briarheart or even New Moon Acolyte. This build is also very flexible, so if you’d like to substitute trials get here you can as well.
As a bow build this set up of course relies quite a bit on bow skills for damage, especially those that deal either Poison or Disease damage including Poison Injection, Lethal Arrow and Toxic Barrage. Combining these bow abilities with the Stamina Nightblade’s own Toxic abilities such as Relentless Focus and Killer’s Blade is a lethal combination!
7. Sting – Stamina Nightblade PVE DPS Build – Xynode Gaming
The String Build for the Stamina Nightblade is a fun and unique set up from Xynode Gaming that features high single target damage output, especially in execute range, high ultimate generation, and a fast paced and easy rotation! Both a video version and Written Guide are available.
Xynode goes into immense detail here in both the video and written guide including explaining each skill used and which skill line it comes from. He also covers the necessary passives and ideal Champion Point breakdown for max CP and less than max. Of course he covers all the gear options as well including a trials-focused build that features Arms of Relequen and an easy Crafted build that includes New Moon Acolyte and Mechanical Acuity. Go check it out!
8. The Rogue – Stamina Nightblade DPS Build – Cpt Natedog729
The Rogue is a simple yet effective DPS build with no trials gear needed! Perfect for Veteran and Normal Dungeon content as well as getting started with Normal Trials! This build does amazing damage especially when enemies drop into execute range and the rotation is simple enough even for new players to get started with. Nate goes into detail about every single skill and passive needed to make this build work to optimum efficiency so it’s definitely worth watching!
9. Stamina Night Blade DPS Guide With Easy And Advanced Rotations – Skinny Cheeks Gaming
As expected, Skinny Cheeks provides a complete and extensive guide for playing a Stamina Nightblade DPS in The Elder Scrolls Online. In his video, Skinny review the top DPS options for Race, Consumables, Mundus Stone and Potions. Many different variations of gear set ups are reviewed here as well including double dual wield, dual wield / two-handed, and dual wield bow / bow – so there’s something here for you no matter what weapon load out you prefer.
Nightblade Healer Builds
The Nightblade Class can make for a fun and UNIQUE group healing build in The Elder Scrolls Online due to its strong healing and utility skills as well as it’s unique theme and playstyle! Some favorite Nightblade Healer builds are below.
10. Honorbound – Magicka Nightblade PVE Healer Build – NefasQS
Nefas provides an in depth look at healing on the Magicka Nightblade class, including several great options for Beginner gear and Trials gear.
11. The Offering – Magicka Nightblade Healer Build – JustLootIt
This healer build for the Magicka Nightblade in ESO dishes out great damage while also keeping your group alive and well! A fully comprehensive guide is available over at the JustLootIt site, so definitely check it out! The ideal options for Race, Mundus, and Consumables are explained and multiple set ups are also showcased, including starter gear options and a high end option for healing trials.
12. Transfusion – Magicka Nightblade PVE Healer Build – Dottz Gaming
Welcome to the Nightblade Healer build, Transfusion, for ESO by Dottz Gaming! This build focuses on healing others by sacrificing your own health or the health of your enemies making for a very fun play-style. Sustain focused around light attack weaving also makes for very good general gameplay habits as well. This build provides great overall healing to your group and also has access to some nice buffs such as AOE Major Expedition, meaning your groups will be zipping around Tamriel in no time! Go check out this amazing and detailed Written Guide for the Magicka Nightblade healer!
13. Illusion – Magicka Nightblade PVE Healer Build – Alcast
Nightblade Healer setups are very powerful and include very good resource management, which allows us to run a more increased healing based setup due to our higher Spell Damage and Maximum Magicka. Nightblades also have very good skills to support healing in general. Alcast’s Nightblade healer build utilizes Refreshing Path for a strong AOE heal over time, Funnel Health, which deals damage and heals you and some of the group members and of course Healthy Offering which gives you access to a insane burst heal.
Multiple gear set options and Champion Point recommendations are available so make sure to check out the full Written Guide!
Nightblade Tank Builds
The Nightblade Class offers great options for a Tank Build in The Elder Scrolls Online due to their strong passives and group utility. Check out some favorite Nightblade Tank builds below.
14. Nightblade Tank Build – ArrowIsGaming
This build video from ArrowIsGaming goes in depth into the world of Tanking in The Elder Scrolls Online, and specifically, tanking on the Nightblade Class. Expect to see detailed breakdowns of the build’s stats, best consumables, skills and passives, best race and Champion Point distribution. This video is also very nice in that he shows you different gear load outs for dungeons based on the composition of your group (Stamina-focused DPS vs. Magicka-focused DPS).
15. Slayer – Nightblade PVE Tank Build (Sap Tank) – NefasQS
Nefas gives us an extremely detailed look at tanking on the Nightblade class including multiple different gear set options.
Nightblade PVP Builds
The Nightblade Class is a favorite choice for a PVP Build due to their strong Burst combo potential, defenses, passives and ability to go invisible at any time.
16. Backstab – Stamina Nightblade PVP Build – Kristopher
Kristopher gives us a fantastic build for Stamina Nightblade with insane damage and sustain as well as great mobility. Kristopher is known for his amazing builds as well as high quality build guides so this is definitely worth checking out.
17. Stamina Nightblade PVP Build Guide – Grimhallow
Grimhallow’s Stamina Nightblade guide video below is so much more than a simple build. He offers in-depth guidance on everything you need to know in order to excel as a Stamina Nightblade in PVP. Go check it out!
18. Min/Maxed Magicka Nightblade PVP Build Guide – Unified Gaming
A powerful and versatile build, great for Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds alike.
19. Damage – Magicka Nightblade PVP Build – Kristopher
Kris is back with an equally powerful build on the Magicka Nightblade.
20. Magicka Nightblade 1vX PVP Build – zDan
Check out zDan’s quick and dirty look at the Magicka Nightblade build in PVP showcasing some intense 1vX combat in Imperial City.
