Hey there, some people have been asking me to update my Rollerblade and Brawlerblade builds for Scalebreaker and now, Dragonhold. While updating the old builds, I was testing their viability in the Scalebreaker DoT PvP meta and I realized that though both were viable with some changes, they were not exactly optimal as none of them had the required damage to deal with the general high tankiness everybody was stacking to survive DoTs. They were both balanced builds with decent sustain, mitigation and damage but still lacked in comparison in most respects to classes like magplar, stamplar or magDK and really struggled to threaten the tanky setups resulting in constant stalemates. So I decided to make a whole new 2H/Bow build with aspects of both my older builds with a totally new playstyle of ranged non-snipe stamina nightblade with massive damage stats.
Some people wanted gameplay for my builds for which I lacked the hardware on my laptop. This time however I was back home with my desktop in the time of making the build, so I added a 30 minute long gameplay montage with all PvP scenarios from CP IC, Cyrodiil open world solo duo outnumbered PvP to non-CP Battlegrounds. I suggest watching the video(at least parts of it) before reading the long write up, as it will help you understand how the build operates as it has a totally unique playstyle.
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I know the video is long so here are some "chapters" to split the video.
Imperial Sewers DC Base Solo/Duo - 0:31
Cyrodiil Solo vs Pugs - 2:49
Battlegrounds Deathmatch - 7:11
Imperial Sewers Center Solo Zerg-hunting - 8:22
Cyrodiil Solo Zerg-hunting - 9:36
Imperial City 1vX - 12:15
Cyrodiil Gate 1vX - 18:39
Cyrodiil 1vX+2vX - 23:01
Cyrodiil Resource Solo vs Small Scale groups - 26:49
Note - If you are viewing on PC or TV screens, use the 4k quality option or at least 2k even on lower resolution displays if you have the bandwidth, as the videos were recorded in very high bitrate for max graphical fidelity and much of the details are lost due to youtube compression on 1080p or lesser resolutions with low bitrates. However youtube allows much higher bitrates on 4k playback hence much of the original quality is retained.
Includes gameplay from both Scalebreaker and Dragonhold, which does not matter as the build remains unchanged being a burst build apart from the fact that it is easier to survive open world now.
It is commonly believed in ESO PvP, that full damage builds are not viable especially in the tank meta, mainly because glass cannons end up taking more damage than they can deal. This is true for most setups, barring few exceptions. Over the years we have such builds become unviable like the melee bow stamblade, all divines max magicka shield stacking magsorc due to gradual streamlining of the game. However, the changes intentionally or unintentionally made certain things possible that could have never been done before. My goal here was to create a full damage build which dealt times more damage than it takes on average from any range and get out of any situation.
Iron Cannon is a yolo build that goes all out on damage investment, both for CP and non-CP, while also having high survivability. This approach to building usually has two problems, i.e. sustain issues and low defense. However, both of those issues have been solved resulting in a build that has highest damage of all builds in the game within the limits of viability, ridiculous escapability and mobility, ability to operate from any range from straight melee to max range while also retaining the rollerblade aspect of the OG nightblade assassin playstyle. Also this is not a gank build by any means as it does not need stealth to burst and has enough survivability to take a fair beating, but it can still gank better than most dedicated gank builds.
Single Target Melee Damage - SSS
Single Target Ranged Damage - SSS
AoE Damage - SSS
DoT Damage and Pressure - A+/S (depends on setup)
Mobility - S+
Mitigation - C
Magicka Sustain - SS
Stamina Sustain - B
Self Healing - SSS
Stats without Continuous Attack:
Weapon Damage: 7808 Magicka Recovery: 964 Stamina Recovery: 2052
I left some choices above to let you decide what suits you better. I personally went with the first choice shown for each decision as it was giving me the highest possible stat density while satisfying my personal minimum stat requirements of at least 24.3k HP(so that one Shadow skill equipped can put me at 25k), 15k Magicka, 2k stamina recovery, 900 magicka recovery buffed. Your personal mileage may vary so changing certain things will suit you better especially if you are trying the build on a different race than mine(I use Khajiit). Some basic explanations below.
Khajiit - It is the number one race for this build by a big margin. Not only does it have the highest max damage, highest burst and highest self-healing with the Critical Hit Damage and Healing bonus, it also has highest combined sustain on all resources than all pure damage races with the tri-stat recovery, higher health and magicka combination than any race with the tri-stat resource bonus. In fact since this build uses Dark Stalker stealth to conserve magicka, the -3m stealth radius also helps(you can see this in action in the vid vs other stealthblades, where I walk over to find a hiding NB and break his stealth, while staying in stealth myself and the funny thing is many such NBs were bosmer who are supposed to be better at this). This build fits Khajiit like a glove. The tooltips and gear choices explained are all done from the perspective of a Khajiit.
Other races are all viable but every one of them falls short on Khajiit in terms of overall combination of damage, stamina sustain and magicka sustain. Some notable alternatives are mentioned below.
Potions - Tri-stat potion(main), Stamina Immovability potion, Stamina Invisibility/Rogue's Escape potion, Trash Stamina potion needed.
The Origin of Iron Cannon and its Difference to Glass Cannon
How Iron Cannon works in ESO PvP
This stamblade build was heavily inspired by the original Iron Cannon build concept. In this case, Spriggan/New Moon Acolyte, Balorgh, Master's Bow+Berserker enchant buff, triple Weapon Damage jewelry combined with ridiculously high Weapon Damage multiplier and Minor Berserk gives us huge damage potential. We have a seriously high Critical Hit Damage modifier at more than 2.12 or more thanks to Khajiit and Shadow to push burst at max when the big tooltips starts critting. Much like the OG Iron Cannon's prayer boons, Acuity, by giving 100% crit rate, provides a window where we can go full Beast Mode on enemies with every critical hit multiplying our already crazy damage.
As for survivability, with huge Weapon Damage and Critical Healing Modifier, comes crazy self-healing power. That when combined with the high magicka sustain of this build, just enough health and natural evasiveness, mobility of stamina nightblades results in great survivability as long as you know how to properly use the NB evasion toolkit to full extent.
I will explain both the offense and defense aspects of the build in more details later on.
Comparison of Damage to Other Full Damage setups and Hypothetical Maximum Possible damage
Effective Weapon/Spell Power is a very good measure of raw damage of a build. It takes into your combat damage stats like Weapon Damage, Stamina, Penetration, Critical Hit Chance and Damage Modifier as well as CP and other damage bonuses like buffs such as Minor Berserks and debuffs on enemies. The opponent's target resists and critical resists can also affect Effective Weapon Power. It does not take set damage procs like Velidreth or enchants/poisons like Disease enchants or Double-DoT poisons into account but takes damage/debuff procs, enchants and poisons into account. With Effective Weapon Power(referred to as EWP hence onwards), you can compare the damage between the damage of builds ignoring the damage of proc. However, this excludes proc set builds from the comparison. To give you a reference to compare a build's damage to, the average PvP build has between 8000 - 12000 EWP self-buffed, with the mean being at 10000 EWP for the default enemy resists stats in UESP build editor. The average stamina NB build has around 12000 EWP at the higher range of PvP builds and 20% higher than the average PvP build of all classes.
Below we are providing the EWP of various popular sets combinations at default UESP settings. You can click on the build to open a UESP build editor page to see the EWP of the build, its stats, active buffs and other details. Further details in the spoilers.
EWP of Permanent Stat Increasing Viable Setups
Spriggan's Thorns + Hunding's Rage + Balorgh + Master's Bow 22442
Spriggan's Thorns + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23284
Temporary Stat Increasing Viable Setups
Spriggan's Thorns + Armor of Truth + Balorgh + Master's Bow 22710
Spriggan's Thorns + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23179
Clever Alchemist + Warrior's Fury + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23299
Clever Alchemist + Armor of Truth + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23462
Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23593
Twice Fanged Snake + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23799
Ravager + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23959
All of these builds have ridiculously high damage at nearly twice that of the average stamina nightblade setup. The average EWP is 23303 and the highest build is barely below 24k. Some of them are very unrealistic like the Fury build. Some of them have very long cooldowns like Clever Alchemist setups, resulting situations you may need to wait pretty long for that sweet burst. Some of them is very wonky to pull off in combat like the Ravager+NMG combination, which will take a minimum of 5 seconds to fully proc if you get a critical hit every second and since one of the sets will need to front-barred meaning you will need to be on front bar exclusively to gain Ravager stacks.
The build is highest EWP of these setups as well as realistically high uptimes is Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte(+Balorgh+Master's Bow which was constant) at 23593. So I am going removing the Mininum Stat Requirements and convert it to a fully glass cannon build with zero sustain, zero mitigation by using all Infused jewelry, all attribute points in Stamina, Stamina enchants, pure Stamina food instead of Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice to get the ultimate damage stats. This adds further 360 Weapon Damage, 4k stamina to the build after buffs at the cost of 3k Magicka, 4k Health and 1k Stamina Recovery. So let's look the new EWP.
EWP of Unviable Highest Damage Pure Glass Cannon Setup
Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow(Full Glass Cannon) 24952
The build gets 1359 more EWP, which is a pretty bad deal for the loss of 3k Magicka, 4k Health and 1k Stamina Recovery essentially killing the viability of the build.
So the Unviable Highest Damage Pure Glass Cannon Setup still has lesser than 25k EWP. Take a wild guess of the EWP of the Iron Cannon build in these exact same settings and conditions. 25k? 26k? 27k?
EWP of Iron Cannon build
Some people wanted gameplay for my builds for which I lacked the hardware on my laptop. This time however I was back home with my desktop in the time of making the build, so I added a 30 minute long gameplay montage with all PvP scenarios from CP IC, Cyrodiil open world solo duo outnumbered PvP to non-CP Battlegrounds. I suggest watching the video(at least parts of it) before reading the long write up, as it will help you understand how the build operates as it has a totally unique playstyle.
Gameplay
I know the video is long so here are some "chapters" to split the video.
Imperial Sewers DC Base Solo/Duo - 0:31
Cyrodiil Solo vs Pugs - 2:49
Battlegrounds Deathmatch - 7:11
Imperial Sewers Center Solo Zerg-hunting - 8:22
Cyrodiil Solo Zerg-hunting - 9:36
Imperial City 1vX - 12:15
Cyrodiil Gate 1vX - 18:39
Cyrodiil 1vX+2vX - 23:01
Cyrodiil Resource Solo vs Small Scale groups - 26:49
Note - If you are viewing on PC or TV screens, use the 4k quality option or at least 2k even on lower resolution displays if you have the bandwidth, as the videos were recorded in very high bitrate for max graphical fidelity and much of the details are lost due to youtube compression on 1080p or lesser resolutions with low bitrates. However youtube allows much higher bitrates on 4k playback hence much of the original quality is retained.
Includes gameplay from both Scalebreaker and Dragonhold, which does not matter as the build remains unchanged being a burst build apart from the fact that it is easier to survive open world now.
General Information
It is commonly believed in ESO PvP, that full damage builds are not viable especially in the tank meta, mainly because glass cannons end up taking more damage than they can deal. This is true for most setups, barring few exceptions. Over the years we have such builds become unviable like the melee bow stamblade, all divines max magicka shield stacking magsorc due to gradual streamlining of the game. However, the changes intentionally or unintentionally made certain things possible that could have never been done before. My goal here was to create a full damage build which dealt times more damage than it takes on average from any range and get out of any situation.
Iron Cannon is a yolo build that goes all out on damage investment, both for CP and non-CP, while also having high survivability. This approach to building usually has two problems, i.e. sustain issues and low defense. However, both of those issues have been solved resulting in a build that has highest damage of all builds in the game within the limits of viability, ridiculous escapability and mobility, ability to operate from any range from straight melee to max range while also retaining the rollerblade aspect of the OG nightblade assassin playstyle. Also this is not a gank build by any means as it does not need stealth to burst and has enough survivability to take a fair beating, but it can still gank better than most dedicated gank builds.
Single Target Melee Damage - SSS
Single Target Ranged Damage - SSS
AoE Damage - SSS
DoT Damage and Pressure - A+/S (depends on setup)
Mobility - S+
Mitigation - C
Magicka Sustain - SS
Stamina Sustain - B
Self Healing - SSS
Stats
![Z4AelQx.png]()
Buffs - All selfbuffs, set procs and Continious Attack. These stats are from choosing the first choices for the gear choices. Alternate gear choices mentioned can get over 9k weapon damage but at the cost of other stats. Also these are actual realistic max stats in battle without any external temporary buff like the various Cyrodiil bonuses, Ayleid well etc. I have provided build editors links later on in the comparison.
Stats without Continuous Attack:
Weapon Damage: 7808 Magicka Recovery: 964 Stamina Recovery: 2052
Gear
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Choices
I left some choices above to let you decide what suits you better. I personally went with the first choice shown for each decision as it was giving me the highest possible stat density while satisfying my personal minimum stat requirements of at least 24.3k HP(so that one Shadow skill equipped can put me at 25k), 15k Magicka, 2k stamina recovery, 900 magicka recovery buffed. Your personal mileage may vary so changing certain things will suit you better especially if you are trying the build on a different race than mine(I use Khajiit). Some basic explanations below.
For armor weight - 5M/1/1 is best for max damage and hence my choice. Stamina sustain is this build's Achilles' heel and as such 6M/1H or 7M is a good choice if you struggle with sustain and you will also get more Critical Hit Chance which will help in burst when Acuity is down.
For armor trait - As long as you have 5 impenetrable, you should have decent Critical Resistance. For the other two traits, Divine or Well-Fitted is great depending on what you currently prefer between 1% Critical Hit Damage or 5% cost reduction on dodge and sprint. You can take one of each as well like me. Getting more Impenetrable is also a great choice if you are struggling with survival.
Triune vs Infused Jewellery - Infused is an excellent trait as the 104 Weapon Damage from it is massive to our build as we have a massive weapon damage multiplier that can get as high x1.77. At the same time, Triune is already 50% more stat dense than any other trait in the game. Triune allows you to get to a decent Magicka pool while getting free Health with it without having to give up Stamina. I use one Triune to put my max magicka at 15.5k and go Infused for the rest. If you want to exchange damage for a higher Magicka pool, you can get more Triune and just remove some of the attribute points in Health and put them in Stamina.
Spriggan's Thorns vs New Moon Acolyte - Spriggan's Thorns and New Moon Acolyte both have more or less the same max damage i.e. when Acuity and Balorgh is up. One of NMA's set bonus is Critical Hit Chance which is wasted when Acuity procs, so inspite of having better 5-pc damage bonus, NMA is not ahead of Spriggan in max damage realistically. Main difference between them is that when other buffs are down, NMA has more damage but even when front-barred, the sustain is worse due to the cost increase as the fact that NMA has no resource bonus unlike Spriggan has two Stamina bonuses. Also, you will need to run three Triune to get to 30K Stamina. For these reasons, Spriggan is still a great choice which I used for this build when I created it last patch, even though NMA does give higher damage when Acuity is in cooldown. I usually finish my targets within the Acuity window so essentially they are the same damage to me. However, I used NMA a few times and find it a very interesting choice and probably better than Spriggan on pure sustain races. Even on mixed sustain races like Khajiit, Argonian, it is good and on Khajiit the extra Critical Hit Chance does help burst outside. Essentially go with whatever, you can sustain as NMA is just slightly higher damage with worse sustain than Spriggan's Thorns.
Nirnhoned vs Sharpened Maul - Sharpened is more damage than Nirnhoned by a small margin, especially on NMA which lacks the high penetration of Spriggan but lesser healing from Rally. You are fine with both.
Frontbar Enchant/Poison - Minor Brutality poison is the best choice imo if you can stay in close in and just stay in melee range long enough to proc it as Minor Brutality increases both damage and heals by boosting the already super high Weapon Damage. In fact, the increase in damage is more than every other choice, if Minor Brutality procs during the same window as Acuity. Otherwise, Absorb Stamina, Shock and Disease enchants are all great as they are a guaranteed proc and adds to your burst with additional effects. Double-DoT poison is the preferred choice, if you want higher pressure to go with your burst.
If you are still confused between choices, check "Comparison of Damage to Other Full Damage setups and Hypothetical Maximum Possible damage" part where I show some examples in the end and directly compare their damage/sustain etc.
For armor trait - As long as you have 5 impenetrable, you should have decent Critical Resistance. For the other two traits, Divine or Well-Fitted is great depending on what you currently prefer between 1% Critical Hit Damage or 5% cost reduction on dodge and sprint. You can take one of each as well like me. Getting more Impenetrable is also a great choice if you are struggling with survival.
Triune vs Infused Jewellery - Infused is an excellent trait as the 104 Weapon Damage from it is massive to our build as we have a massive weapon damage multiplier that can get as high x1.77. At the same time, Triune is already 50% more stat dense than any other trait in the game. Triune allows you to get to a decent Magicka pool while getting free Health with it without having to give up Stamina. I use one Triune to put my max magicka at 15.5k and go Infused for the rest. If you want to exchange damage for a higher Magicka pool, you can get more Triune and just remove some of the attribute points in Health and put them in Stamina.
Spriggan's Thorns vs New Moon Acolyte - Spriggan's Thorns and New Moon Acolyte both have more or less the same max damage i.e. when Acuity and Balorgh is up. One of NMA's set bonus is Critical Hit Chance which is wasted when Acuity procs, so inspite of having better 5-pc damage bonus, NMA is not ahead of Spriggan in max damage realistically. Main difference between them is that when other buffs are down, NMA has more damage but even when front-barred, the sustain is worse due to the cost increase as the fact that NMA has no resource bonus unlike Spriggan has two Stamina bonuses. Also, you will need to run three Triune to get to 30K Stamina. For these reasons, Spriggan is still a great choice which I used for this build when I created it last patch, even though NMA does give higher damage when Acuity is in cooldown. I usually finish my targets within the Acuity window so essentially they are the same damage to me. However, I used NMA a few times and find it a very interesting choice and probably better than Spriggan on pure sustain races. Even on mixed sustain races like Khajiit, Argonian, it is good and on Khajiit the extra Critical Hit Chance does help burst outside. Essentially go with whatever, you can sustain as NMA is just slightly higher damage with worse sustain than Spriggan's Thorns.
Nirnhoned vs Sharpened Maul - Sharpened is more damage than Nirnhoned by a small margin, especially on NMA which lacks the high penetration of Spriggan but lesser healing from Rally. You are fine with both.
Frontbar Enchant/Poison - Minor Brutality poison is the best choice imo if you can stay in close in and just stay in melee range long enough to proc it as Minor Brutality increases both damage and heals by boosting the already super high Weapon Damage. In fact, the increase in damage is more than every other choice, if Minor Brutality procs during the same window as Acuity. Otherwise, Absorb Stamina, Shock and Disease enchants are all great as they are a guaranteed proc and adds to your burst with additional effects. Double-DoT poison is the preferred choice, if you want higher pressure to go with your burst.
If you are still confused between choices, check "Comparison of Damage to Other Full Damage setups and Hypothetical Maximum Possible damage" part where I show some examples in the end and directly compare their damage/sustain etc.
Nature
Stage 4 Vampire - Dark Stalker helps conserve magicka by decreasing Cloak usage and allowing us to use other Magicka skills more often. It also helps to get into Sneak and exit combat easily when needed. Undeath gives the tankiness necessary to survive long enough to reset from tough situations and with the decrease of usage of DBoS by most people, it is much more viable surviving as a vampire.
Race
Khajiit - It is the number one race for this build by a big margin. Not only does it have the highest max damage, highest burst and highest self-healing with the Critical Hit Damage and Healing bonus, it also has highest combined sustain on all resources than all pure damage races with the tri-stat recovery, higher health and magicka combination than any race with the tri-stat resource bonus. In fact since this build uses Dark Stalker stealth to conserve magicka, the -3m stealth radius also helps(you can see this in action in the vid vs other stealthblades, where I walk over to find a hiding NB and break his stealth, while staying in stealth myself and the funny thing is many such NBs were bosmer who are supposed to be better at this). This build fits Khajiit like a glove. The tooltips and gear choices explained are all done from the perspective of a Khajiit.
Other races are all viable but every one of them falls short on Khajiit in terms of overall combination of damage, stamina sustain and magicka sustain. Some notable alternatives are mentioned below.
Nord - Easily the race that comes second to Khajiit, with the ultimate regen which fills up Balorgh faster and resists. Basically you are exchanging some damage and sustain for better survivability. Use more triune for higher magicka sustain and remove all health attribute points to put into stamina.
Bosmer - The race that comes third closest to Khajiit with higher stamina sustain, falls short significantly signicantly in Health and Magicka resource and recoveries. The penetration gives decent damage increase but is still significantly lesser than Khajiit or Orc. The mobility is great for kiting and is the main reason to go to for Bosmer. Use NMA instead of Spriggan.
Imperial - Huge resources bonuses, nice tri-stat sustain proc. Use more triune for higher magicka sustain and remove all health attribute points to put into stamina, which will result in a massive stamina pool, which will both help in damage and sustain. Use NMA instead of Spriggan as the Imperial cost reduction passive counter-acts the NMA cost penalty.
Orc - Has 2.4% lesser max damage and 0.7% average damage than Khajiit as well as lesser sustain across the board. The mobility passive is nice though. Use more triune to make up for lesser magicka sustain.
Argonian - Nearly the same resources, sustain and self-healing power as a Khajiit. Damage is lesser significantly but the Potion passive will help in resetting battles for less experienced players.
Bosmer - The race that comes third closest to Khajiit with higher stamina sustain, falls short significantly signicantly in Health and Magicka resource and recoveries. The penetration gives decent damage increase but is still significantly lesser than Khajiit or Orc. The mobility is great for kiting and is the main reason to go to for Bosmer. Use NMA instead of Spriggan.
Imperial - Huge resources bonuses, nice tri-stat sustain proc. Use more triune for higher magicka sustain and remove all health attribute points to put into stamina, which will result in a massive stamina pool, which will both help in damage and sustain. Use NMA instead of Spriggan as the Imperial cost reduction passive counter-acts the NMA cost penalty.
Orc - Has 2.4% lesser max damage and 0.7% average damage than Khajiit as well as lesser sustain across the board. The mobility passive is nice though. Use more triune to make up for lesser magicka sustain.
Argonian - Nearly the same resources, sustain and self-healing power as a Khajiit. Damage is lesser significantly but the Potion passive will help in resetting battles for less experienced players.
Mundus Stone
The Shadow
The Shadow
Attribute Points
Put points in HP till you get to 24.3k HP without Shadow skill equipped so that one shadow skill makes it 25k HP.
Put the rest in stamina. On a Khajiit, this is 15 Health Points for one triune jewellry, 12 for two and 8 for three.
Put points in HP till you get to 24.3k HP without Shadow skill equipped so that one shadow skill makes it 25k HP.
Put the rest in stamina. On a Khajiit, this is 15 Health Points for one triune jewellry, 12 for two and 8 for three.
Potions and Food
Food - Lava Foot Soup-And-SaltricePotions - Tri-stat potion(main), Stamina Immovability potion, Stamina Invisibility/Rogue's Escape potion, Trash Stamina potion needed.
Champion Points
Blue Tree
The Ritual
Precise Strikes - 51
Piercing - 43
Mighty - 49
The Atronach
Physical Weapon Expert - 23
Shattering Blows - 16
Master-at-Arms - 81
The Apprentice
Blessed - 7
Red Tree
The Lord
Quick Recovery - 27
The Lady
Thick Skinned - 7
Hardy - 64
Elemental Defender - 49
The Steed
Medium Armor Focus - 10
Ironclad - 51
Spell Shield - 10
Resistant - 52
Green Tree
The Shadow
Shade - 18
Shadow Ward - 26
Tumbling - 53
The Lover
Mooncalf - 64
Arcanist - 56
The Tower
Sprinter - 23
Warlord - 30
The Ritual
Precise Strikes - 51
Piercing - 43
Mighty - 49
The Atronach
Physical Weapon Expert - 23
Shattering Blows - 16
Master-at-Arms - 81
The Apprentice
Blessed - 7
Red Tree
The Lord
Quick Recovery - 27
The Lady
Thick Skinned - 7
Hardy - 64
Elemental Defender - 49
The Steed
Medium Armor Focus - 10
Ironclad - 51
Spell Shield - 10
Resistant - 52
Green Tree
The Shadow
Shade - 18
Shadow Ward - 26
Tumbling - 53
The Lover
Mooncalf - 64
Arcanist - 56
The Tower
Sprinter - 23
Warlord - 30
Skills
2H Bar
- Utility Spot
- Shadow Image - Debate-ably the strongest defensive and escape skill in the game. Minor Maim + Teleport through everything + as well as some chip damage. Best skill in the NB kit and a must have in any NB PvP build ever since the bug fix. Gives us 3% HP to put us at 25k health.
- Turn Evil - AoE Fear + Minor Protection + 3% weapon damage. It is used as an offensive and defensive stun when we are not using any back bar CC. However, unlike the other CC options, it is melee only. If it is used, Shadow Image goes to back bar.
- Camouflaged Hunter - It basically sits in our bar and gives us Minor Berserk + Major Savagery + 3% weapon damage. It is unreliable to find a NB but can be used mid-fight against NB just before burst to deny them a reset via Cloak.
- Silver Shards - Our primary spammable with a hefty 18k tooltip at max on a Spriggan setup. While it has around 9% lesser damage than Surprise Attack, it has splash damage AoE and works from range. Deals 20% more damage to undead and gives us 3% weapon damage.
- Rally - Our source of Major Brutality and a burst heal.
- Flex Spot
- Relentless Focus - It is our primary burst skill with a massive 36.7k max tooltip Bow proc. Also gives us 2% crit chance and builds upto 10% mitigation, which is pretty nice when we are setting up a burst.
- Deep Thoughts - A great source of overall sustain that is occasional used in 1vX situations with spread out pugs, that are not tanky enough not to warrant using the Bow proc. Note that when it is used, the frontbar Ultimate is locked to Incapacitating Strike to give the Assassination passives.
- Ultimate
- Dawnbreaker of Smiting - A great source of massive AoE burst+CC with a 31k max tooltip and a 30k tooltip AoE DoT over 5 secs. It is usually my preferred opener against multiple enemies but is unreliable mid-combo as it misses a lot since the cast time change. Also gives us 3% weapon damage.
- Incapacitating Strike - Great option for cheap burst with a 31.5k max tooltip. Low cost and is almost always available. Gives us 20% vulnerability against the target for 5 secs(equivalent to around 21k penetration according to my tests) which can be used to deal some serious damage. Gives us Reave and 2% crit chance as well access to Assassination passives when Relentless Focus is dropped.
- Onslaught - The strongest burst ultimate in the game with 34.5k max tooltip that also ignores resists on the initial hit as well for followup burst for the next 5 seconds. Has a decent AoE splash damage radius which is no where as big as DBoS but helps against stacked enemies. Due to the high cost for a primarily single-target ultimate in this build, it is competing with Ballista for usage, which is by far the stronger damage ultimate at least in this build, barring a few scenarios. However, it is occasional slotted to fight the strongest defensive setups, against which neither the other two melee ultimates nor Ballista can put a dent.
Bow
- Poison Injection - A decent DoT, with a 16k max tooltip on the DoT and 10k direct damage tooltip. It is mainly used to get the Master Bow buff.
- Shadowy Disguise - The most annoying skill in the game for enemies that gives invisibility, suppresses DoTs and can be used as an alternative dodge. Also gives us 3% HP, Major Ward, 10% weapon damage and guaranteed crit for the next direct damage skill.
- Utility
- Manifestation of Terror - One of the CCs primarily used in the builds. It can be setup prior to burst as an off-GCD CC, also can be camped like mines for a off-GCD defensive CC. Best for fighting multiple melee builds at once and as well when we have hold a particular area like a resource flag.
- Magnum Shot - The most reliable CC available that can also be used from range. Its knockback flight time allows us to make sure that our target eats our burst. Best option against mobile targets as well as ranged targets. Also has a surprising high max tooltip of 14.2k with 5x Hawk Eye, which makes it a very bursty combo enabler.
- Concealed Weapon - It is also another alternative for CC, which is less reliable in a crunch but provides 25% speed boost in stealth, which is nice to have.
- Shadow Image - Used here, when Turn Evil is as CC instead of the earlier three options.
- Resolving Vigor - Our primary HoT. You will want to keep this up as much as your sustain can allow.
- Race Against Time - Our source of snare removal and Minor Force. Also gives us access to Psijic passives as well as a way to get Major Expedition without breaking Cloak/stealth.
- Ultimate
- Ballista - A generally high pressure medium burst ultimate, which has been converted into a sheer maelstrom of destruction both in terms of burst and pressure, sitting at a max tooltip of 143k with 5x Hawk Eye, which is essentially nearly 30k damage per sec. Also it has no cast time and hence can be used defensively.
THE IRON CANNON
The Origin of Iron Cannon and its Difference to Glass Cannon
Iron Cannon is a term that originated in Runescape PvP. There your overall level rose from a weighted average of total experience across all your combat skill levels like Attack level, Defense level, Constitution level, Ranged level, Agility level, Magic level etc. Non-combat skills also increased character level but had much lesser weight-age than combat skills so didn't affect character levels that much. In Runescape PvP, you could only attack enemies near your own level or higher in most PvP areas, which meant you had to plan how you gained experience and carefully invest in skill levels for your character. PvPers generally wanted to limit their character levels to have a wider pool to people to attack and get their required combat skills as high as possible without getting their character level too high. Properly planned Lv70 pure builds could destroy Lv140 hybrid builds by having much higher level for the things they need and ignoring the rest.
For e.g., Warrior type builds leveled only Attack, Strength, Constitution and Defense while Rangers leveled Defense, Agility, Strength and Range. People who went Glass Cannon upgraded only Attack Level, which increased accuracy/hit-chances while also let them use the highest tier weapons and Strength which increased their damage and ignored everything else.
Several years after launch, a new build called Iron Cannon made by a well-known PvPer appeared in the scene that pretty much butchered higher level tanks, balanced builds and glass cannons of mage, ranged and melee types alike in certain conditions. It was very similar to glass cannons but at same time differed a lot in how it actually played out. It focused its skill levels into Strength even higher than glass cannons to squeeze out every last drop of burst damage, just enough Attack levels to wield high tier weaponry much lesser than glass cannons leaving them at much lesser accuracy/hit-chance compared to glass cannon. For the remaining skill levels, it just leveled Defense to Lv5, which took very little experience hence not adding even a single-level to Character level and put the rest they wanted in a non-combat skill Prayer, which being a non-combat skill didn't affect levels much. Prayer inspite of being a non-combat skill let you access to some temporary buffs called boons which affected combat that costed you prayer points. One particular boon would let you gain high accuracy while active but could be sustained for a short window as it drained prayer points very fast and another boon gave you a short burst of huge self healing. Defense Lv5 let this build use Iron Armor(hence the name), which was a big step up from going naked or using Bronze Armor like glass cannons. How this build operated was that in-combat even though it had bad accuracy and missed a lot, it had huge damage making it a major threat when it actually hit and had just enough defense to survive otherwise one-shots. It would suddenly activate boons and gain accuracy to burst down people with its insane damage and used healing boons to survive. People often made the mistake of not recognizing an iron cannon and thinking it was a bad foe due to the seeming low defense and accuracy and lowered their guards only to get deleted when they least expected.
People using this build type started killing people three times their level. Lv50 Iron Cannons had enough damage to slaughter Lv150 balanced builds. It became considered so overpowered that the devs, who generally did not make change widespread combat, made Prayer a combat skill, increased required Defense level to use Iron Armor and the Attack level required to use high tier weaponry significantly. Funny thing is that even though the nerfs targeted against this particular build ended up affecting other builds even more, still leaving it comparatively overpowered.
For e.g., Warrior type builds leveled only Attack, Strength, Constitution and Defense while Rangers leveled Defense, Agility, Strength and Range. People who went Glass Cannon upgraded only Attack Level, which increased accuracy/hit-chances while also let them use the highest tier weapons and Strength which increased their damage and ignored everything else.
Several years after launch, a new build called Iron Cannon made by a well-known PvPer appeared in the scene that pretty much butchered higher level tanks, balanced builds and glass cannons of mage, ranged and melee types alike in certain conditions. It was very similar to glass cannons but at same time differed a lot in how it actually played out. It focused its skill levels into Strength even higher than glass cannons to squeeze out every last drop of burst damage, just enough Attack levels to wield high tier weaponry much lesser than glass cannons leaving them at much lesser accuracy/hit-chance compared to glass cannon. For the remaining skill levels, it just leveled Defense to Lv5, which took very little experience hence not adding even a single-level to Character level and put the rest they wanted in a non-combat skill Prayer, which being a non-combat skill didn't affect levels much. Prayer inspite of being a non-combat skill let you access to some temporary buffs called boons which affected combat that costed you prayer points. One particular boon would let you gain high accuracy while active but could be sustained for a short window as it drained prayer points very fast and another boon gave you a short burst of huge self healing. Defense Lv5 let this build use Iron Armor(hence the name), which was a big step up from going naked or using Bronze Armor like glass cannons. How this build operated was that in-combat even though it had bad accuracy and missed a lot, it had huge damage making it a major threat when it actually hit and had just enough defense to survive otherwise one-shots. It would suddenly activate boons and gain accuracy to burst down people with its insane damage and used healing boons to survive. People often made the mistake of not recognizing an iron cannon and thinking it was a bad foe due to the seeming low defense and accuracy and lowered their guards only to get deleted when they least expected.
People using this build type started killing people three times their level. Lv50 Iron Cannons had enough damage to slaughter Lv150 balanced builds. It became considered so overpowered that the devs, who generally did not make change widespread combat, made Prayer a combat skill, increased required Defense level to use Iron Armor and the Attack level required to use high tier weaponry significantly. Funny thing is that even though the nerfs targeted against this particular build ended up affecting other builds even more, still leaving it comparatively overpowered.
How Iron Cannon works in ESO PvP
This stamblade build was heavily inspired by the original Iron Cannon build concept. In this case, Spriggan/New Moon Acolyte, Balorgh, Master's Bow+Berserker enchant buff, triple Weapon Damage jewelry combined with ridiculously high Weapon Damage multiplier and Minor Berserk gives us huge damage potential. We have a seriously high Critical Hit Damage modifier at more than 2.12 or more thanks to Khajiit and Shadow to push burst at max when the big tooltips starts critting. Much like the OG Iron Cannon's prayer boons, Acuity, by giving 100% crit rate, provides a window where we can go full Beast Mode on enemies with every critical hit multiplying our already crazy damage.
As for survivability, with huge Weapon Damage and Critical Healing Modifier, comes crazy self-healing power. That when combined with the high magicka sustain of this build, just enough health and natural evasiveness, mobility of stamina nightblades results in great survivability as long as you know how to properly use the NB evasion toolkit to full extent.
I will explain both the offense and defense aspects of the build in more details later on.
Comparison of Damage to Other Full Damage setups and Hypothetical Maximum Possible damage
Effective Weapon/Spell Power is a very good measure of raw damage of a build. It takes into your combat damage stats like Weapon Damage, Stamina, Penetration, Critical Hit Chance and Damage Modifier as well as CP and other damage bonuses like buffs such as Minor Berserks and debuffs on enemies. The opponent's target resists and critical resists can also affect Effective Weapon Power. It does not take set damage procs like Velidreth or enchants/poisons like Disease enchants or Double-DoT poisons into account but takes damage/debuff procs, enchants and poisons into account. With Effective Weapon Power(referred to as EWP hence onwards), you can compare the damage between the damage of builds ignoring the damage of proc. However, this excludes proc set builds from the comparison. To give you a reference to compare a build's damage to, the average PvP build has between 8000 - 12000 EWP self-buffed, with the mean being at 10000 EWP for the default enemy resists stats in UESP build editor. The average stamina NB build has around 12000 EWP at the higher range of PvP builds and 20% higher than the average PvP build of all classes.
Below we are providing the EWP of various popular sets combinations at default UESP settings. You can click on the build to open a UESP build editor page to see the EWP of the build, its stats, active buffs and other details. Further details in the spoilers.
We are using the default enemy resists stats in UESP build editor and same buffs across all builds (i.e. all buffs available solo in this build like Minor Berserk, Major Brutality, etc as well as Continuous Attack and class passives like Minor Savagery, etc) to standardize the comparison. To make the comparison fair one-to-one, I will establish the minimum requirements for the non-damage stats like health, magicka and stamina recovery so they remain constant while the damage stats change as well making sure the build is actually viable at least theoritically and not just a tooltip build.
After that, I will pick the setup that has the highest EWP while maintaining high uptimes for max proc of its set combinations(i.e. not something that you can't realistically keep up like Fury+Ravager, especially on a build with low mitigation). Then I will remove the mininum non-damage stats requirement for that build and focus every last thing into damage for that build to get the maximum possible damage for the strongest glass cannon setup.
Mininum Stat Requirements - 24.3k HP, 15K Magicka, 2k Stamina Recovery, 900 Magicka Recovery buffed but without Continuous Attack (2.25k Stamina Recovery, 1040 Magicka Reovery buffed with Continuous Attack)
All setups have all weapon damage jewelry enchants, weapon damage enchants on maul, etc as these by default have far better raw damage stats than any alternatives. All builds are using Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice food to reach the minimum stamina recovery and all Prismatic enchants on armor. The remaining magicka and health for the minimum is gained by either using Triune instead of Infused or by using attribute points, depending on which way is giving the higher EWP for that particular build. The things being changed are the two 5-piece sets, for which we try combinations of the best damage sets in the game. Also keep in mind the 2,3,4-piece set bonuses can affect EWP so certain sets with very similar 5-piece bonuses can end uo with fairly different EWP.
After that, I will pick the setup that has the highest EWP while maintaining high uptimes for max proc of its set combinations(i.e. not something that you can't realistically keep up like Fury+Ravager, especially on a build with low mitigation). Then I will remove the mininum non-damage stats requirement for that build and focus every last thing into damage for that build to get the maximum possible damage for the strongest glass cannon setup.
Mininum Stat Requirements - 24.3k HP, 15K Magicka, 2k Stamina Recovery, 900 Magicka Recovery buffed but without Continuous Attack (2.25k Stamina Recovery, 1040 Magicka Reovery buffed with Continuous Attack)
All setups have all weapon damage jewelry enchants, weapon damage enchants on maul, etc as these by default have far better raw damage stats than any alternatives. All builds are using Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice food to reach the minimum stamina recovery and all Prismatic enchants on armor. The remaining magicka and health for the minimum is gained by either using Triune instead of Infused or by using attribute points, depending on which way is giving the higher EWP for that particular build. The things being changed are the two 5-piece sets, for which we try combinations of the best damage sets in the game. Also keep in mind the 2,3,4-piece set bonuses can affect EWP so certain sets with very similar 5-piece bonuses can end uo with fairly different EWP.
EWP of Permanent Stat Increasing Viable Setups
Spriggan's Thorns + Hunding's Rage + Balorgh + Master's Bow 22442
Spriggan's Thorns + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23284
Temporary Stat Increasing Viable Setups
Spriggan's Thorns + Armor of Truth + Balorgh + Master's Bow 22710
Spriggan's Thorns + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23179
Clever Alchemist + Warrior's Fury + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23299
Clever Alchemist + Armor of Truth + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23462
Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23593
Twice Fanged Snake + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23799
Ravager + Night Mother's Gaze + Balorgh + Master's Bow 23959
All of these builds have ridiculously high damage at nearly twice that of the average stamina nightblade setup. The average EWP is 23303 and the highest build is barely below 24k. Some of them are very unrealistic like the Fury build. Some of them have very long cooldowns like Clever Alchemist setups, resulting situations you may need to wait pretty long for that sweet burst. Some of them is very wonky to pull off in combat like the Ravager+NMG combination, which will take a minimum of 5 seconds to fully proc if you get a critical hit every second and since one of the sets will need to front-barred meaning you will need to be on front bar exclusively to gain Ravager stacks.
The build is highest EWP of these setups as well as realistically high uptimes is Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte(+Balorgh+Master's Bow which was constant) at 23593. So I am going removing the Mininum Stat Requirements and convert it to a fully glass cannon build with zero sustain, zero mitigation by using all Infused jewelry, all attribute points in Stamina, Stamina enchants, pure Stamina food instead of Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice to get the ultimate damage stats. This adds further 360 Weapon Damage, 4k stamina to the build after buffs at the cost of 3k Magicka, 4k Health and 1k Stamina Recovery. So let's look the new EWP.
EWP of Unviable Highest Damage Pure Glass Cannon Setup
Armor of Truth + New Moon Acolyte + Balorgh + Master's Bow(Full Glass Cannon) 24952
The build gets 1359 more EWP, which is a pretty bad deal for the loss of 3k Magicka, 4k Health and 1k Stamina Recovery essentially killing the viability of the build.
So the Unviable Highest Damage Pure Glass Cannon Setup still has lesser than 25k EWP. Take a wild guess of the EWP of the Iron Cannon build in these exact same settings and conditions. 25k? 26k? 27k?
EWP of Iron Cannon build
Iron Cannon is over 30K EWP while maintaining Mininum Stat Requirements for all variants. Three variants are shown.
Mechanical Acuity + Spriggan's Thorns(2xInfused+1xTriune+Nirnhoned Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30039
Mechanical Acuity + New Moon Acolyte(3xTriune+Sharpened Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30444
Mechanical Acuity + New Moon Acolyte(2xInfused+1xTriune+Sharpened Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30908
The first variant is more stamina sustain oriented, the most balanced variant and the one I used for the video. The second one has higher magicka sustain, slightly higher damage on paper but worse stamina sustain, lesser healing power across both bars. The third one has the highest damage on paper and the setup I am currently using, but stamina sustain is significantly lower with cost increase on front bar and a much smaller stamina pool. Essentially there is not really much feel-able difference in actual play in damage between the builds as all of them have over thrice the damage of the average PvP builds and this being a fairly unforgiving build, added stamina strain or lesser healing power is not really a good thing if you are not used to the build's playstyle so I would suggest using the first variant(all the first gear choices).
You can get around a further 2k more EWP by dropping things like Prismatic enchants, Health Attribute points for max damage alternatives but you will give up so much Health, Magicka and Stamina Recovery that it will kill the viability of the build
Mechanical Acuity + Spriggan's Thorns(2xInfused+1xTriune+Nirnhoned Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30039
Mechanical Acuity + New Moon Acolyte(3xTriune+Sharpened Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30444
Mechanical Acuity + New Moon Acolyte(2xInfused+1xTriune+Sharpened Maul) + Balorgh + Master's Bow 30908
The first variant is more stamina sustain oriented, the most balanced variant and the one I used for the video. The second one has higher magicka sustain, slightly higher damage on paper but worse stamina sustain, lesser healing power across both bars. The third one has the highest damage on paper and the setup I am currently using, but stamina sustain is significantly lower with cost increase on front bar and a much smaller stamina pool. Essentially there is not really much feel-able difference in actual play in damage between the builds as all of them have over thrice the damage of the average PvP builds and this being a fairly unforgiving build, added stamina strain or lesser healing power is not really a good thing if you are not used to the build's playstyle so I would suggest using the first variant(all the first gear choices).
You can get around a further 2k more EWP by dropping things like Prismatic enchants, Health Attribute points for max damage alternatives but you will give up so much Health, Magicka and Stamina Recovery that it will kill the viability of the build
Anyway, let's stick to talks of builds, funny stories (like the time I got jumped by 8 AD as I rode across the bridge and they bashed me to death as I fell out of my chair laughing), map strategy, which in game snacks you prefer, and of course... Ice trebs.