ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade Build

This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade build, skills, gear, champion points, and more!

This build has been updated for the Updated 42, the Gold Road Chapter of the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO).

Why Should You Play ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade Build?

The ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade build is a Heavy Attack build that relies on fully charged heavy attacks in combination with champion points, base game gear, and the Oakensoul mythic. This will destroy a parse dummy and complete veteran content with ease. We are also stacking into magicka but still using medium armor for the critical damage passives. You could technically run stamina for heavy attacking as well, but the lightning staff returns magicka with your heavy attacks, making it the overall best choice for these heavy attack builds.

In ESO, the One Bar Magicka Nightblade is perfect for everyone. It’s great for beginners, veterans, and players of any age and experience. It’s easy to understand and doesn’t require bar swapping. Even if you love the higher cpm play of a two-bar build, heavy attack builds are great for just completing dailies or giving your hands a break.

ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade Features

Below are some of the features found using the Oakensoul Heavy Attack Nightblade in the Elder Scrolls Online:

• Class: Nightblade
• Weapon: Lighting Staff
• Armor Types: 1 Light, 5 Medium, 1 Heavy
• Race: Dark Elf
• Set 1: Deadly Strike
• Set 2: Sergeant’s Mail
• Mythic: Oakensoul ring
• Attributes: 64 Magicka
• Mundus Stone: Thief
• Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency, Soul Burst

ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade Build Playstyle

Heavy attacking requires you to fully charge attacks in between abilities, and the lightning staff has the strongest heavy attack mechanics. It deals incremental damage before unleashing a large burst of damage in an aoe around your primary target. You essentially play this build in the opposite way of a traditional two-bar build with light attack weaving. Before you complete your heavy attack, you can actually pre-cast an ability, and your character will cast is as soon as they can. It kind of feels like weaving abilities in this way, but you can hold down your left mouse button to instantly start heavy attacking again.

Unstable Wall of Elements actually acts like a pseudo-spammable in this build, which is why we’re opting for the morph that gives you extra damage when reapplying it. If you chose to run Blockade, you would actually always lose a couple of ticks of damage every cast, since the duration doesn’t line up with the heavy attack channel. Instead, recasting it a little early gives you some extra damage as well as ensures you keep a consistent source of off-balance on your targets. Off-balance lasts for 7 seconds and every enemy has a 15 second cooldown after its duration before it can be applied again. The reason why this is so important is it gives us an extra 10% damage through the Champion Point Exploiter.

You’ll get used to the playstyle quickly, and applying the wall of elements will become second nature. You can also use the add-on “DebuffMe” on your PC to track your off-balance buff status.

Skills 1 – High Survivability

One Bar Lightning Staff – Solo | High Survivability Setup

Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.

• Lightning Staff

This build rewards you for fully charging heavy attacks and building up stacks of Sergeant’s Mail. Sergeant’s Mail increases the base damage of your heavy attacks prior to any damage multipliers, resulting in a huge overall damage increase. This is the single most important set for your damage, but it is also heavy armor. That means even if you swap the armor on your body, you’ll keep Sergeant’s as your jewelry, staff, and one armor piece. It can be any armor piece, but we recommend your chest piece, as it gives you the most armor benefit from a single piece of heavy armor.

Unstable Wall of Storms (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Unstable Wall of Storms acts as a massive damage ground base AoE and the tool we used to proc off balance. Off balance is key to high DPS with the build due to Champion Point passive Exploiter along with huge area damage. You can “spam” or repeatedly cast the skill for an instant explosion doing area damage during “trash” or multiple mob non-boss fights. Consider this an important damage over time to maintain, and remember, an off-balance proc has a 7-second up time and 15-second downtime.

Refreshing Path (Morph of Path of Darkness | Skill Line : Shadow) – Refreshing Path is a great morph choice for solo play due to the massive and constant healing and speed it provides. The other morph, Twisting Path, provides much more damage but doesn’t have the healing component. Typically in solo play, you need a strong heal over time and or a burst heal. If you need more damage, and your survivability is great, swap morphs to Twisting.

Healthy Offering (Morph of Malevolent Offering | Skill Line : Siphoning) – When playing solo, having a burst self-heal or shield is a great idea. Since this build plays with medium armor, a strong shield isn’t possible. Healthy Offering remains the Nightblade’s best and most powerful heal. If you have reaction time, this should be your only healing. If it’s not doing enough or you can’t react quickly when taking pressure, make sure to maintain Refreshing Path healing over time to complement the burst healing of Healthy Offering.

Merciless Resolve (Morph of Grim Focus | Skill Line : Assassination) – The Nightblade class damage kit centres on light/heavy attacks to generate stacks for Merciless Resolve. At five stacks, you can fire off a super hard-hitting Spectral Bow. This, when in melee range, can also heal you for an incredible amount. When using a one-bar heavy attack build, a fully charged heavy attack typically accounts for two stacks on Merciless Resolve. So expect a Spectral Bow proc, after roughly three cycles of fully chagrining heavy attacks. This skill also has some benefits for merely slotting due to the Nightblade’s passives.

Impale (Morph of Assassin’s Blade | Skill Line : Assassination) – Impale is slightly weaker than Killer’s Blade, but it does let you use it at range, which is really nice on a heavy attack build. You can weave this skill with your heavy attack under 25%.

Incapacitating Strike (Morph of Death Stroke | Skill Line : Assassination) – Strong single target damage ultimate. Can replace with Shooting Star if you need more aoe damage.

Skills 2 – Parse Max Damage

One Bar Lightning Staff – Parse | Optimal Damage Setup

Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.

• Lightning Staff

Unstable Wall of Storms (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Used to proc our off-balance consistently and AoE damage while active.

Twisting Path (Morph of Path of Darkness | Skill Line : Shadow) – The best damage over time skill Nightblade has combined with Concealed Weapon, boosting overall damage by 10%.

Merciless Resolve (Morph of Grim Focus | Skill Line : Assassination) – This skill gives a burst damage ability with five stack proc Spectral Bow via heavy-attacking.

Barbed Trap (Morph of Trap Beast | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – A super hard-hitting damage ability that procs the hemorrhage status effect. Even though the buff is reduction (minor force), you are using this primarily for hemorrhage status effect which equals insane damage.

Killer’s Blade (Morph of Assassin’s Blade | Skill Line : Assassination) – Killer’s Blade is a really strong execute, requiring you to be in melee range. Because it scales the lower the enemies health gets, you’ll want to start weaving Killer’s Blade in between heavy attacks around 25%, then swap to exclusively spamming Killer’s Blade around 10%.

Incapacitating Strike (Morph of Death Stroke | Skill Line : Assassination) – High damage and low cost single target ultimate.

Group Added Utility Skills

One Bar Lightning Staff – Group | Optimal Damage Setup

Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.

• Lightning Staff

Unstable Wall of Elements (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Use this skill to proc off-balance status effect and extra area and DoT damage.

Refreshing Path (Morph of Path of Darkness | Skill Line : Shadow) – Really solid group heal and gives Expedition to the group when traveling between packs.

Merciless Resolve (Morph of Grim Focus | Skill Line : Assassination) – This skill gives a burst damage ability with five stack proc Spectral Bow via heavy-attacking.

Healthy Offering (Morph of Malevolent Offering | Skill Line : Siphoning) – Strong burst heal that will heal you or a group member.

Mass Hysteria (Morph of Aspect of Terror | Skill Line : Shadow) – Nightblades are one of the few classes than can source Major Cowardice in ESO. Mass hysteria is a great debuff to place on targets in group content.

Shooting Star (Morph of Meteor | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – Great aoe and high damage ultimate. Incapacitating strike is higher damage, but Shooting Star is really good for fights with multiple enemies.

Scribing Skills & Grimoires – Heavy Attack One Bar Build

The best Grimoires for a Heavy Attack One Bar Build are Ulfsild’s Contingency or Soul Burst. For heavy attack one bar builds, the Scribing skills are not that applicable. Most are either melee or have a long cast time. One suggested grimoire ability is Ulfslid’s Contingency. This gives you a choice of buffs and debuffs, though it’s explodes from your character. Moreover, the Soul Burst is also helpful because it can pull enemies. This synergizes well with the shorter aoe from your heavy attack. Therefore, we suggest you experiment with these two and find what compliments your build for shields, survivability, and damage.

• Ulfsild’s Contingency (Mage Guild) – Flame Damage (focus script), Lingering Torment (signature script), Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Soul Burst (Soul Magic) – Pull (focus script), Class Mastery or Lingering Torment (signature script), Courage (Affix Script)

The Scribing System utilizes one of 11 new skills from the Gold Road Chapter called Grimoires. With Grimoires, you can customize spells via Scripts. The scribing feature requires the purchase of the Gold Road Chapter (sponsored link). To learn more about scribing, check out our full guide here.

Passives Skills

Consider taking all of the passives in the below skill trees to increase your builds performance without slotting any skills:

• Assassination (class skill line)
• Shadow (class skill line)
• Siphoning (class skill line)
• Destruction Staff (weapon skill line)
• Light Armor
• Medium Armor
• Heavy Armor
• Undaunted
• Mages Guild
• Racial
• Alliance War Support
• Alliance War Assault
• Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use

Gear – Best in Slot

Use the below gear setup for optimal damage with the ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade Build:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Light	Slimecraw	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Medium	Deadly Strike	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Heavy	Sergeant’s Mail	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Medium	Deadly Strike	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Medium	Deadly Strike	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Medium	Deadly Strike	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Medium	Deadly Strike	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Lightning Staff	Sergeant’s Mail	Precise	Flame
Necklace		Sergeant’s Mail	Bloodthirsty	Spell Damage
Ring 1	Mythic	Oakensoul ring	Bloodthirsty	Spell Damage
Ring 2		Sergeant’s Mail	Bloodthirsty	Spell Damage

While this is a magicka build, we use Medium Armor specifically to get closer to the critical damage cap of 125%. If you’re under the penetration cap of 18,200, you’ll want to swap your monster helm to a one piece pen item like Valkyn Skoria. Thus, medium armor with specific gear sets will outperform light in most content.

Monster Helms & Mythics

Slimecraw: Obtained from Wayrest Sewers 1, a base game dungeon. The best 1pc critical damage bonus piece in the game. Pen is also a good option, but this is considered best in slot for a one-piece.

Oakensoul: Obtained through ESO Mythics/antiquities system. You need the 5 Leads here to create the mythic. The best one-bar build for DPS because it gives an insane amount of buffs, freeing up bar spots and making us tankier with zero effort. It also gives Empower, which is what makes your heavy attacks hit so hard.

FLEX OPTIONS

• Iceheart, Grundwulf, Stone Husk, Zaan – All one piece with critical chance, just not as much as Slimecraw.
• Lady Malygda, Valkyn Skoria – One piece penetration sets which are great when you’re not at penetration cap.

Gear Sets

Deadly Strike: Obtained in Bruma Elite Gear Vendor, Cyrodiil zone (base game). Best medium body damage option since Storm Master was nerfed.

Sergeant’s Mail: Obtained in the Wayrest Sewers I & II dungeon, Stormhaven zone (base game). This builds stacks by heavy attacking; at 5x stacks, it pumps your base heavy attack damage before damage multipliers, giving you a massive damage increase. The downside is that it comes in heavy, thus putting on jewelry, weapons, and 1x body.

FLEX OPTIONS

• Storm Master – Okay DPS set though Deadly is better currently.
• Tarnished Nightmare – A powerful new set that does lower single target, but more area damage for one bar builds.
• Noble Duelist – Longer and more consistent buff, but less dps and requires melee distance.
• Pillar of Nirn – Good front bar proc damage set.

Race

The best racial choice for the one bar heavy attack PvE Build is below:

1. Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. Dark Elf is considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
2. High Elf: Gain resource sustain passive, max magicka, and weapon and spell damage. The downside of High Elf is a lack of stamina.
3. Khajiit: This race gets recovery, max stats, and critical damage and healing. Consider the Khajiit a great option if you aren’t over the critical cap of 125%.

Attributes

The best choice for slotting Attribute points is 64 magicka, which increases damage, healing, and shields.

Mundus Stone

The Thief is the best Mundus Stone for PvE Builds because it gives Increases Weapon and Spell Critical Strike chance.

Champion Points – ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
War Mount	Wrathful Strikes	Boundless Vitality
Gifted Rider	Thaumaturge	Celerity
Treasure Hunter	Weapons Expert	Fortified
Steed’s Blessing	Exploiter	Rejuvenation

Warfare Constellation Champion Points

Below is a step-by-step method for slotting your champion points in the Warfare tree (blue).  We have used the minimum possible to reach 4 slottable selections all maxed out.  If you have more CP, consider taking more in the passives for optimal performance.

Below are recommended Warfare Champion Point selections for the ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade:

1. Precision 10
2. Wrathful Strikes (slottable) 50
3. Extended Might – sub constellation – piercing 10
4. Extended Might – sub constellation – Weapons Expert (slottable) 50
5. Extended Might – sub constellation – Exploiter (slottable) 50
6. Thaumaturge (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 220 CP (660 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Precision 10
2. Piercing 10
3. Tireless discipline 20
4. Eldritch insight 20
5. Blessed 20
6. Quick recovery 20
7. Flawless ritual 40
8. War mage 30
9. Battle mastery 40
10. Mighty 30
11. Elemental aegis 20
12. Hardy 20
13. Preparation 20

This would max out the Warfare tree with all active and passive champion points at 520 spent 1,560 total spent.

Fitness Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Fitness Champion Point selections for the ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade:

1. Boundless Vitality (slottable) 50
2. Fortified (slottable) 50
3. Rejuvenation (slottable) 50
4. Sprinter 10
5. Winder chaser – sub con – hasty 8
6. Hero’s Vigor 10
7. Celerity (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 228 CP  (684 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance. 

1. Hero’s Vigor 10
2. Tumbling 30
3. Sprinter 10
4. Defiance 20
5. Hasty 8
6. Tireless guardian 20
7. Fortification 30
8. Nimble 6
9. Mystic tenacity 50
10. Tempered soul 50
11. Piercing gaze 30
12. Savage defense  30
13. Bashing brutality 20

This would max out the fitness tree with all active passive champion points at 542 cp spent and 1,626 total spent.

Craft Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Craft Champion Point selections for the ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade:

1. Steed’s blessing (slottable) – 50
2. Breakfall 10 
3. Wanderer 15
4. Steadfast 10
5. Treasure hunter 50 (slottable)
6. Master gatherer 15
7. Gifted rider (slottable) 100
8. War mount (slottable) 120

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 370CP (1110 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Steadfast enchantment 40cp
2. Breakfall 40 cp
3. Wanderer 60
4. Fortunes favor 10
5. Rationer 10
6. Friends in low places 25
7. Out of sight 30
8. Fleet of Phantom 40
9. Soul’s Reservoir 33
10. Gilded fingers 50
11. Fortunes favor 40
12. Inspiration boost 45
13. Infamous 30

This would max out the crafting tree with all active, passive champion points at 823 cp spent 2,469.

Consumables

The best consumables for a Nightblade One Bar Heavy Attack build are Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash and Essence of Health tri-stat potions. Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash give a massive boost to magicka and health, and you really shouldn’t struggle with sustain with a heavy attack build. For your potions, tri-stat potions are the best to passively give you a flood of resources and tri-recovery with the alchemy passive medicinal use. Below are our recommended food and potion choices:

• Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash: Increase Max Health by 5395 and Max Magicka by 4936 for 1.5 Hours. Ingredients: Bananas (1), Seasoning (1), Small Game (1).
  • Bewitched Sugar Skulls: Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Max Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours. They are crafted from provisioning with ingredients of Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.
  • Tomato Garlic Chutney (parsing) increases max magicka. Crafted with provisioning of tomato and garlic ingredients.
• Essence of Health (tri-stat): Restore Health, Magicka, and Stamina immediately and increase your Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery. They are crafted from provisioning with ingredients of Bugloss, Columbine, and Mountain Flower.

Build Summary – ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Nightblade

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