ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build

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

This build has been updated for the Update 42 patch of the Elder Scrolls Online.

Why Should You Play the ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build?

The ESO Stamina Nightblade PVE build is for players looking to complete group content, arenas, dungeons, and trials. This build has high burst damage and super high single-target damage paired with high mobility, making it the perfect killer assassin class.

ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build Playstyle

Use the following rotation as the starter point. After, apply your buffs and cast the DoT skills on cooldown for the best, highest DPS. In total, the Damage over Time skills (DoTs) do more damage than your main spammable. Thus, they need to be cast less often and are easier to maintain, for example, The Degeneration from Mages Guild or the Barb Trap from Fighters Guild. Maintain DoTs and use your spammable skill as filler until you need to reapply the DoTS.

At certain percentages, replace your spammable with your in-class or weapon execute if you have one in this build. Executes are the skills that deal more damage the lower the health of the opponent becomes. In this build, you’ll swap to Killer’s Blade at around 25% health left on the boss. At a high level, execute skills become so strong that the lower the enemy’s health, the fewer DoTs you maintain because it does so much damage.

Use the healing skill when your health drops below 50% or the shield skill when you anticipate damage. Also, always use the suggested food and potions as they significantly increase your damage, survivability, and resource sustain.

If you run out of resources, do a heavy attack and return to your rotation. Remember that a heavy attack on off-balance enemies will return double the resources.

ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build Features and Mechanics

Below are some of the features found using the ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build:

• Class – Nightblade
• Weapon One – Dual Wield
• Weapon Two – Flame Staff
• Armor Types: 6 Medium, 1 Light
• Mythic: Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet
• Race: Dark Elf
• Attributes: 64 Stamina
• Mundus Stone: Thief
• Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency, Traveling Knife

Skills

Front Bar – Dual Wield

Front Bar Weapon choice options:

1. Dual Wield
2. Two-handed
3. Bow

Whirling Blades (Morph of Whirlwind | Skill Line : Dual Wield) – AoE damage that acts as an execute, dealing more damage to enemies below 50% health. Could swap for Rapid Strikes for single target damage.

Killer’s Blade (Morph of Assassin’s Blade | Skill Line : Assassination) – Single target execute that hits very hard! Replace it with your main spammable around 25% of enemies’ health.

Merciless Resolve (Morph of Grim Focus | Skill Line : Assassination) – Maintain this buff at all costs as it increases your weapon damage for each stack. You can proc the shot burst damage, after the five light or heavy attacks, so remembers about light attack weaving. Skill heals if in melee range

Barbed Trap (Morph of Trap Beast | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – a trap that immobilizes target, procs minor force buff and does good single target damage.

Deadly Cloak (Morph of Blade Cloak | Skill Line : Dual Wield) – Reduces damage from AoE and deals AoE in return.

Incapacitating Strike (Morph of Death Stroke | Skill Line : Assassination) – Low cost ultimate that gives us a small burst window and extra resource sustain for slotting. Switch to Rend from Dual wield for crazy survivability if you struggle.

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Back Bar – Flame Staff

Back Bar Weapon choice options:

1. Flame Staff
2. Two Handed
3. Bow

Blockade of Fire (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – AoE deals magic damage plus additional effect depending on type of staff.

Twisting Path (Morph of Path of Darkness | Skill Line : Shadow) – Buffs you and allies with increased speed, and deals damage.

Debilitate (Morph of Cripple | Skill Line : Siphoning) – Deals DoT and decreases enemy movement speed.

Dark Shade (Morph of Summon Shade | Skill Line : Shadow) – Great hard hitting DoT skill. Replace with Leaching if you struggle with sustain.

Siphoning Attacks (Morph of Siphoning Strikes | Skill Line : Siphoning) – Convert health into stamina. Additionally, while slotted all damage you deal heals you and restores some stamina.

Incapacitating Strike (Morph of Death Stroke | Skill Line : Assassination) – Double barring Incapacitating Strike will provide higher damage, but you can swap to Shooting Star for trash mob pulls or Soul Tether for survivability.

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Scribing Skills – ESO PvE Stamina Nightblade Build

The best grimoires for a Stamina Nightblade PvE build are Ulfsild’s Contingency and Traveling Knife. Contingency gives you a large radius burst of damage as well as a long DoT. Setting Contingency up with Flame damage modifiers gives you the greatest dps increase for aoe fights, but this skill isn’t really worth using in more single target encounters. Traveling Knife is another great grimoire for the Nightblade that does great damage. Below are the suggested combination of Grimoires, focus, signature, and affix scripts:

• Ulfsild’s Contingency: Flame Damage (Focus Script), Lingering Torment (Signature Script), Minor Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Traveling Knife: Bloody (Focus Script), Warrior’s Opportunity (Signature Script), Major Savagery/Prophecy (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). If you wish to know more about Scribing, check out our full guide here.

Rotation and Parse

Using Weapon Power Potions to source major damage and crit buffs.

Stamina Nightblade, while stronger than the Magicka Nightblade, is still in a rough spot this patch. While you can hit high numbers on the target dummy with one, they still lack in aoe encounters, and there are many better trial options. Still, in dungeons or just for fun, Stamina Nightblades are a very engaging class that is challenging to play. Depending on the fight, you’ll want to use either a single target or a spammable. You could also use Surprise Attack instead of Rapid Strikes, but it’s slightly lower dps.

One of the challenges with Nightblades is you also don’t have a great way to source your major weapon damage and crit buffs, while dealing high damage. Because of this, you’ll want to use Weapon Power Potions, which are cheap and will greatly boost your overall dps. For a slightly simpler setup, you could source those buffs by dropping Siphoning Attacks and Barbed Trap, replacing those skills with Camouflaged Hunter, and then dropping Deadly Cloak for Power Extraction. That setup is lower dps, but is easier to sustain Major Brutality and Savagery, which might help your overall dps.

Start by pre-buffing Dark Shade and Deadly Cloak, then engaging with Barbed Trap>Bar Swap>Blockade>Debilitate>Twisting Path> Bar Swap>Rapid Strikes>Merciless Resolve>Incapacitating Strike>and Rapid Strikes until you need to start reapplying DoTs. The key to hitting high numbers is to make sure you’re casting your Merciless Resolve proc every five light attacks. This can be challenging, but counting in your head to five can help you start to get the rhythm down.

Passives Skills

Below are passive skill lines that add power without requiring a skill slot while playing the ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build. Consider taking all the skill passives in the skill tree listed below:

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

Gear – Best in Slot

The gear chart below represents the best gear for ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Stamina
Shoulders	Light	Slimecraw	Divines	Stamina
Chest	Medium	Perfected Coral Riptide	Divines	Stamina
Legs	Medium	Perfected Coral Riptide	Divines	Stamina
Gloves	Medium	Perfected Coral Riptide	Divines	Stamina
Boots	Medium	Perfected Coral Riptide	Divines	Stamina
Belt	Medium	Perfected Coral Riptide	Divines	Stamina
Weapon One	Dagger	Aegis Caller	Charged	Fire
Secondary	Dagger	Aegis Caller	Charged	Poison
Weapon Two	Flame Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace	Mythic	Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 1		Aegis Caller	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 2		Aegis Caller	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage

Monster Helms and Mythic

Velothi Ur-Mages Amulet: Mythic item requiring the Antiquies system and Necrom Chapter. Requires five leads; find them here. Incredibly strong passive damage in the current meta.

Slimecraw: Obtained in Wayrest Sewers I Veteran dungeon and Maj Undaunted Vendor. Gives us the highest critical chance for a one-piece item.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Harpooner’s Wading Kilt Set = Great mythic if avoiding damage and can keep the stacks up.
2. Mora’s Whisper = This provides up to 10% critical chance but requires collections of Mages Guild Books on your specific character.
3. Death Dealer’s Fete = Is a great option because it boosts max stats with zero downsides.

Gear Sets

Aegis Caller: Dungeon set that drops in Unhallowed Grave, Harrowstorm DLC. Passive Bleed damage and good bonuses for martial melee build.

Perfected Coral Riptide: Obtained in veteran Dreadsail Reef, a High Isle chapter dungeon. Boosts damage the lower your stamina drops.

Perfected Crushing Wall: From Veteran Maelstrom Arena in Orsinium. Increase your overall DPS due to the ability of the wall of elements and more damage.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Perfected Ansuul’s Torment: It is the best overall damage-dealing set that comes in medium armor.
2. Pillar of Nirn: Obtained in Falkreath Hold dungeon, Horns of the Reach DLC.
3. Perfect Whorl of the Depths: Trial set found in Dreadsail Reef, High Isle chapter.
4. Kinra’s Wrath = Dungeon set that drops in Black Drake Villa, Flames of Ambition DLC.
5. Perfected Arms of Relequen = the bust pure damage set in the game.
6. Order’s Wrath = great craftable option though watch for too much critical damage (125% cap)
7. Leviathan = easy base game dungeon set with high critical

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Gear – Beginner

Starter setup for someone just starting ESO.

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	medium	Briarheart	Divines	Stamina
Shoulders	medium	Briarheart	Divines	Stamina
Chest	medium	Hunding’s Rage	Divines	Stamina
Legs	medium	Hunding’s Rage	Divines	Stamina
Gloves	medium	Hunding’s Rage	Divines	Stamina
Boots	medium	Hunding’s Rage	Divines	Stamina
Belt	medium	Hunding’s Rage	Divines	Stamina
Weapon One	Dagger	Agility	Precise or Sharpened	Damage Health Poison
Secondary	Dagger	Agility	Precise or Sharpened	Damage Health Poison
Weapon Two	2H Sword	Agility	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace		Briarheart	Robust	Stamina Recovery
Ring 1		Briarheart	Robust	Weapon Damage
Ring 2		Briarheart	Robust	Weapon Damage

FLEX OPTIONS FOR BEGINNERS

• Briarheart: obtained in overland Wrothgar (Orsinium DLC) or from traders. WHY? great burst damage and nice healing and easy to obtain set.
• Hunding’s Rage: craftable 6 traits, crafting stations found in Bangkorai, Reaper’s March, The Rift. WHY? Craftable set that has well-balanced stats.
• Agility: found in Imperial City with keys or Dungeon Finder via random dungeons and or traders sell. WHY? easy to obtain with massive stats as a two-piece set.

Race

The best racial choice for the ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build is below:

1. Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. The flame resistance is also helpful and considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
2. Orc: Gain max stamina, health, and weapon and spell damage. Also reduces the cost of sprint and increases your movement speed.
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 Attribute point choice for the ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build is 64 points into Stamina. This will increase your 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 a chance.

Champion Points – ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
Treasure Hunter	Fighting Finesse	Bloody Renewal
Liquid Efficiency	Deadly Aim	Boundless Vitality
Gifted Rider	Master-at-Arms	Rejuvenation
Steed’s Blessing	Wrathful Strikes	Fortified

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 four 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 Stamina Nightblade PvE Build:

1. Precision 10
2. Wrathful Strikes (slottable) 50
3. Fighting Finesse (slottable) 50
4. Extended Might – sub constellation – piercing 10
5. Deadly Aim (slottable) 50
6. Master – at- Arms (slottable) 50

This would be the minimum setup, spending 220 CP (660 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 Stamina Nightblade PvE Build:

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

This would be the 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 Stamina Nightblade PvE Build:

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. Rationer 10
9. Liquid Effiency (slottable) 75

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 total spent.

Consumables

The best consumables for the Stamina Nightblade PvE build are Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables and Weapon Power Potions. Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables gives a massive amount of health and stamina, stats that give you both the most survivability and damage of any other consumable. If you struggle with stamina sustain, you could switch to Artaeum Takeaway Broth or Dubious Camoran Throne as a cheaper option. These both give up some stamina and health for stamina sustain.

For your potions, your build doesn’t source your major weapon/spell damage and crit buffs, so you need to bring those buffs on your potions. We have weapon power potions here because as a Nightblade, you will always bring Minor Savagery to the group, and your critical chance scales off of whichever is higher, your weapon or spell crit. In a group, Sorcerers provide the group with Minor Savagery, so if you have a Sorcerer in group, you could run either Weapon Power Potions or Spell Power Potions. If you do end up running Traveling Knife with Major Savagery and Prophecy as an Affix, you can run tri-pots.

• Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables: Increase Max Health by 5395 and Max Stamina by 4936 for 1.5 hours. Ingredients: Greens (1), Seasoning (1), Small Game (1).
  • Artaeum Takeaway Broth: Increase Max Health by 3326, Health Recovery by 406, Max Stamina by 3080, and Stamina Recovery by 338 for 2 hours. Ingredients: Fish (20), Melon (5), Powdered Mother of Pearl (5), Torchbug Thorax (5).
• Essence of Weapon Power: Restore 7582 Stamina immediately. Grants you Major Endurance which increases your Stamina Recovery by 30%. Grants Major Brutality which increases your Weapon Damage by 20%. Grants Major Savagery which gives you 2629 Weapon Critical Rating. Ingredients: Blessed Thistle, Dragonthorn, Violet Coprinus.

Build Summary – ESO Stamina Nightblade PvE Build

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