The Glass Nuke – Stamina NB Build (Solo PvE)
Class: NIGHTBLADE
Race: Dunmer (Dark Elf)
Main Role: Damage
Health, Magicka, Stamina
HEALTH | MAGICKA | STAMINA |
15000 - 22000 | 10000 | 23000 - 29000 |
Skills
Bar 1
Weapon 1: Dual Wield

Nightblade Skill
Swallow Soul

Nightblade Skill
Reaper's Mark

Nightblade Skill
Ambush

Dual Wield Skill
Bloodthirst

Dual Wield Skill
Steel Tornado

Nightblade Skill
Soul Tether
Bar 2
Weapon 2: Dual Wield

Nightblade Skill
Shadowy Disguise

Nightblade Skill
Surprise Attack

Nightblade Skill
Refreshing Path

Nightblade Skill
Shadow Image

Nightblade Skill
Siphoning Attacks

Nightblade Skill
Soul Harvest
Armor Types
Light Armor | Medium Armor | Heavy Armor |
0 | 5 | 2 |
Gear and Item Set Info
A cheap and cheerful choice for this build is:
5 way of the fire set pieces (heavy chest and legs + 2 rings and necklace.)
5 Shadow of the Red Mountain set pieces (Medium waist, gloves, feet and 2 daggers.)
2 Stormfist set (or similar medium monster mask sets.)
Precise or sharpened on the daggers and divines on all armor pieces.
These sets add stamina, weapon damage, crit chance and very easily proced armor abilities that do 4000 and 8400 flame damage respectively. the monster mask set also adds a seriously powerful AoE ability that does 12500 over 3 seconds.
As you can imagine, this build is all about doing tons of burst damage to single targets as fast as possible. Aim for around 50% crit chance then pump the rest of your stats into weapon penetration, weapon damage and crit damage.
General Info
This buils is pretty straight forward to use. Ability rotation is Reaper's Mark->Ambush->bloodthirst. This combo usually allows you to kill an enemy before or right after the stun from ambush expires. (Reapers mark also heals for 60% max health and bloodthrist heals for a % of damage done on final attack so this really helps add to survivability.) Steel tornado is there to clear out numerous trash mobs quickly and swallow soul for any needed heals while still maintaining dps.
Second ability bar is for resource management/utility reasons mainly. shadowy disguise and surprise attack allow for a long stun and refreshing path is a useful DoT + HoT combo. Shadow image can be a useful setup for boss monsters to teleport out of danger if need be. FInally, siphoning attacks is used to recover magicka and stamina.
A few handy potions to have on hand are as follows:
tri stat elixir of health (restore health, magicka and stamina immeadiately plus more over several seconds)
can be made with Columbine + Lady's Smock + Mountain Flower.
bi stat elixir of invisibilty (turns invisible and restores health)
Can be made with Blue Entoloma + Mountain Flower + Namira's Rot.
tri stat elixir of weapon power (weapon damage, weapon crit and movement speed)
Can be made with Blessed Thistle + Dragonthorn + Namira’s Rot.
A word of advice is to get the medicinal use passive from alchemy. (Need a total level of 47 in alchemy to get rank 3) This extends potion effects by 30%.
Reccomended food buffs are ragout meals that increase health and stamina for 1 hour.
Kwarma Egg Omelet: Made with Poultry + Carrots + Cheese
Breten Bubble-and-Squeak: Made with Game + Greens + FLour
Silverside Perch Pudding: Made with Fish + Beets + Millet
PROS:
+ Easy to use build.
+ Great DPS output.
+ Decent survivability. Most delves, dungeons, public dungeons etc. can be soloed.
+ Cheap to put together. Way of the fire and red mountain sets are plentiful and fairly cheap to buy/easy to get.
CONS:
- Lacks any real healing or tank abilities.
- Stamina can drain fairly rapidly.
- Works best against single targets, but isnt great against groups. (Steel tornado + refreshing path doesnt kill half as fast as single target dps.)
Champion Point Tips
In the mage constellation:
Ritual tree - 100 precise strikes and 87 piercing.
This adds 25% more damage to crits and 22.7% increased penetration. You may wish to change either of these to mighty, which increases raw physical damage up to 25%.
In the thief constellation:
Tower tree - 100 warlord and 87 magician.
This lowers stamina ability costs by 16% and magicka ability costs by 14.7%. Another option is to put points into the lover tree and increase Health/stamina regeneration.
In the warrior constellation:
Lady tree - 100 hardy and 87 elemental defender.
This raises physical and elemental damage resistance. Very useful for surviving long or tough fights.
Currently working on a slightly different ability rotation. Switch out swallow soul and steel tornado for killers blade and power extraction. Ability rotation is Reaper’s Mark->Ambush->power extraction->bloodthirst and killers blade when the enemy is under 25% health. Power extraction increases damage by 20% and killers blade does 300% more damage when the enemy is under 25%. Also, throw in some light attacks after bloodthirst. This adds to dps and generates ultimate points. Also, I’m not entirely sure if this is a fact or not, but the bloodthirst animation, followed by a light attack seems to cause the animation to the light attack to occur faster than normal, allowing for more attacks per second. I’ve not done any extensive tests on this but it still is a good idea to mix in some light attacks for ult generation.
Have fun and good hunting.
Trying this build out for leveling. What are your recommended stats for Magicka/Health/Stamina?
I put all 64 points into stamina for extra damage. If you’d like you could put a handful into health for a bit more survivability but I didn’t find it necessary.
This is what I was looking for. I was ready to give up and m NB until this. Thanks. Now I need to find some lvl 20 gear
I do have a question, why go full stamina if 6 out of 10 skills use magicka? tyia
I went all stamina because all the skills in the description can be morphed to be stamina skills instead of Magicka. (Which I forgot to mention is highly recommended to do otherwise the build doesnt work)