Elder Scrolls Oblivion: Best Nightblade Build

As an ardent enthusiast, I’ll guide you through unraveling the secrets of the top-notch Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Glean essential knowledge, along with handy hints and strategies to refine this build to its full potential.

As a devoted fan, I embark on an exhilarating adventure through Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s Imperial Province of Cyrodiil, wielding the formidable Nightblade class. This build is all about dealing high damage with both enchanting blade weapons and powerful magic.

As a nimble and cunning Nightblade, I boast the attributes of Speed and Willpower, granting me agility for swift movement and stealth, as well as the ability to cast an array of spells that inflict harm, repel, absorb, heal, or shield in combat. My arsenal includes quick weapons such as daggers and the most potent spells from diverse magic schools, making enemy elimination a breeze.

In the heat of battle, I seamlessly switch between wielding weapons and casting spells to maintain control over the battlefield. Mastering the balance between Magicka and Health is crucial for my survival, ensuring that I make use of defensive skills when needed and heal myself in critical moments. The Nightblade’s versatility allows me to engage with numerous NPCs, encounter a multitude of enemies, and conquer Cyrodiil with style!

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the success of your Nightblade character is significantly influenced by your choices. From selecting your faction, specialization, and weapons to armoring up, every decision matters for an effective Nightblade build. Picking the optimal race for your Nightblade is essential to maximizing its potential. The right blend of skills, race, and weapon selection can make you a fearless Nightblade. This guide will delve into the best Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion, highlighting the top skills, weapons, and armor options.

Everything About Nightblade Build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion

The Nightblade Build primarily focuses on swiftly deploying appropriate spells in combat for crowd control and defeating opponents through a mix of damaging spells and melee attacks. Since Willpower is a key attribute for the Nightblade, it’s crucial to employ spells strategically to outsmart enemies. Progressing your main skills enables access to potent spells tailored for enemy elimination. Destruction spells will become your primary toolbox, allowing you to cast various elemental effects on foes. Additionally, Alteration spells can provide benefits such as reducing incoming damage with a Shield, enhancing mobility by making you lighter, or even supporting the use of Heavy Armor.

The Nightblade Build involves using spells and melee attacks to take down enemies effectively in combat. The Willpower attribute is important for outsmarting opponents with spells. As you level up your main skills, you’ll unlock powerful spells. Destruction spells will be your go-to for casting different elemental effects on enemies, while Alteration spells can help reduce damage, increase mobility, or let you wear heavy armor.

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion, mastering a Nightblade build significantly relies on your early choices regarding Race and Birthsign. Among all races, the Bretons are particularly beneficial for Nightblades since they provide magic resistance as well as the Dragon Skin trait. Furthermore, this race boosts all key abilities, enhancing your overall performance in the gameplay. For the Birthsign, the Mage is highly recommended because it allows you to cast more spells from the get-go. The Mage Birthsign bestows 50 permanent Magicka points on you.

Without a doubt, making wise decisions regarding Major Skills, Minor Skills, Specialization, and armor selection is absolutely vital for this character setup. Selecting inappropriate options could potentially undermine the effectiveness of your build.

Build Key Aspect

Below are all the essential aspects of the Nightblade Build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

• Class: Nightblade
• Race: Breton
• Birthsign: Mage
• Specialization: Magic
• Attributes: Speed, Willpower, Intelligence
• Major Skills
  • Blade
  • Destruction
  • Alteration
  • Acrobatics
  • Athletics
• Minor Skills
  • Armorer
  • Mysticism
  • Conjuration
  • Mercantile
  • Sneak
• Weapons: Daedric Shortsword and Daedric Dagger
• Armor: Glass Armor and Shrouded Armor
• Faction: Mage Guild
• Trainer: Falion

Class

To create a Nightblade character in this game, you’ll need to make several key decisions during your first hour of play. Before venturing into Cyrodiil, you must choose and finalize your race, birthsign, and class. Your chosen class significantly shapes your character within Cyrodiil. For a Nightblade build, the optimal choice is the “Nightblade” class itself. Although you can create a Custom Class and pick your own attributes, the Nightblade class naturally offers Speed and Willpower attributes, making it an ideal starting point to build a robust Nightblade character.

To add on, choosing the Nightblade class grants you access to its primary skills: Acrobatics, Alteration, Athletics, Blade, Destruction, Light Armor, and Restoration. Most of these abilities enable you to unlock spells from diverse magic disciplines in combat and exploration. It’s essential as a Nightblade to employ most spell types during both conflicts and explorations to address threats or challenging situations. Notably, Blade, Light Armor, and Athletics fall under the Combat branch, while Acrobatics is the major skill for Stealth. By mastering these combat and stealth skills, you can adopt various playstyles, such as aggressive or stealthy gameplay.

Instead of focusing on a single playstyle, you’ll need to pick one and then tailor your build accordingly. Along with the primary skill, you’ll also want to leverage the minor skills to boost other characteristics such as Intelligence, Agility, and potentially Strength. For more information about Minor Skills, please refer to their dedicated section below.

Best Race

To get the most out of your character in the Nightblade Build, it’s crucial to pick an appropriate race. We suggest you opt for the “Breton” race. This race, among the Human options in Elder Scrolls Oblivion, is particularly advantageous for spellcasters. The Breton has a hint of elven heritage, making them exceptionally skilled mages and casters. Choosing this race offers benefits across all key Nightblade skills. Additionally, this race boasts impressive stats for Intelligence, Luck, and Willpower attributes – all vital components for a successful Nightblade build.

The Breton character boasts four distinct advantages:

1. Fortify Magicka – this bonus awards an additional 50 Magicka points and also offers 50 points towards Magic Resistance. Furthermore, it enhances Disposition when interacting with other Bretons.
2. Additionally, it grants a Dragon Skin trait that boosts armor rating by 50 for 60 seconds each day. This trait operates like a shield, improving our resilience in challenging encounters. Though we’ll primarily be using Light Armor and Robes, this trait will enhance our survivability during tougher battles.

On the other hand, this race does come with some downsides. Primarily, it affects your Agility significantly, which in turn reduces your abilities in Marksman, Security, and Sneak skills. Additionally, the male Breton has a lower Speed attribute, while the female form has less Strength. To start off with a bit more strength and speed, we suggest choosing the Male form of Breton.

Best Birthsign

The optimal major decision for optimizing the Nightblade Build lies in selecting an appropriate Birthsign. You’ll be able to make this selection early in the game before venturing out of the sewers into the world. For the Nightblade build, the most effective Birthsign is the Mage. It grants a +50 points boost to Magicka, which is essential for spellcasting, without any notable downsides. However, this Birthsign doesn’t offer other significant bonuses or drawbacks, making it a reliable, all-around choice. This Birthsign emphasizes Agility, which enhances skills like Sneak, Block, and Lockpicking.

Instead, opt for the “Shadow” Birthsign for your Nightblade character. With the agility and shadowy nature of the Nightblade class, choosing the Shadow Birthsign will significantly boost your character’s stealth capabilities. This sign bestows the Moonshadow ability, which offers one daily application of Invisibility that lasts for 60 seconds. This Invisibility duration can be advantageous for launching surprise attacks, maneuvering in tougher fights, or slipping past enemies, making escapes from challenging situations more feasible.

Best Specialization

For a Nightblade Class, the fundamental specialty lies in Magic, granting you proficiency in various techniques across all magic disciplines. In essence, the optimal specialization for a Nightblade Character Build is undeniably Magic. If you’ve opted for a custom class, then it is advisable to select the Magic specialization. The reason being, Magic offers both buffs and versatility to your character. Mages can employ Illusion magic to manipulate enemies, inciting them to fight one another. Restoration magic, on the other hand, offers the most beneficial buff for this specialization as it enhances attributes such as increased strength, armor, or health regeneration for your character.

As a devotee of magic, I can attest that it offers an array of unique playstyles, enabling me to subdue foes with enchanting spells. Yet, beware, as wielding magic can deplete my Magicka reserves rather swiftly. The specialization I select greatly influences the trajectory of my skills’ development, so I must choose carefully based on my preferred style and character setup. Skills linked to my chosen specialization advance more rapidly than those not affiliated with it.

Best Attributes

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion’s Nightblade Build, it’s advantageous to focus on three key attributes: agility, determination, and intellect. Boosting these attributes significantly improves your build’s effectiveness. Agility is essential as it impacts the speed of movement and jumping ability, enabling smoother navigation and easier repositioning during combat. It also influences skills like Acrobatics, Athletics, and Light Armor.

Determination plays a crucial role in how swiftly you regenerate magical energy, which is vital for a Nightblade to cast spells consistently. Running out of magical energy can be detrimental, particularly during intense battles. Additionally, determination increases the overall fatigue level and governs skills such as Destruction, Alteration, and Restoration – all essential skills for a Nightblade.

Since these three attributes directly impact the Nightblade’s speed, magical regeneration, and mastery of magic spells, it’s recommended to invest wisely in them to make your Nightblade Build more powerful and versatile.

Your intelligence significantly impacts your total Magic points and ability to perform magical feats. Having a larger Magic pool means you’ll be able to cast spells more frequently. Furthermore, this attribute also controls the proficiency of Conjuration and Mysticism skills, enabling you to conjure allies for support during exploration and utilize diverse magic spells.

Besides possessing these traits, you additionally have the option to boost Agility, Speed, Strength, and Fortune. Yet, it’s important to note that these characteristics are not related to the Nightblade. The sole method to amplify these extra attributes is by elevating the Minor Skills of the Nightblade.

Major Skills

Choosing the Nightblade class gives you seven essential Major Skills for your character. For the optimal Nightblade Build, I recommend focusing on enhancing five key skills: Alteration, Acrobatics, Athletics, Destruction, and Blade.

Alteration is beneficial in both exploration and combat scenarios. You can use spells like Feather to reduce your weight when your Strength is low, and Shield spells to mitigate damage received.

Acrobatics boosts the height of your jumps and falling from high places. As you progress with Acrobatics, you’ll be able to attack with weapons while in mid-air or during falls.

Athletics is vital for increasing running and swimming speed as a Nightblade, making you swift on your feet. Additionally, enhancing Athletics will help you regenerate Fatigue faster when running.

Lastly, Destruction and Blade skills are important for combat, allowing you to deal more damage with magic or melee weapons respectively. Improving these skills will make your Nightblade a formidable force in battle.

In this game, your primary means of inflicting damage on enemies using direct magic is through destruction. You’ll be able to cast various spells based on elements that can deplete an enemy’s health, stamina, or magical energy. Additionally, you can impose elemental weaknesses onto the enemies, making it easier for you to inflict extra damage with corresponding elemental spells.

For melee combat, Blade is your go-to skill. This allows you to dish out more damage with sharp weapons like Daggers, Shortswords, Longswords, or Claymores. However, for optimal results, it’s best to opt for lighter melee weapons such as Daggers and Shortswords.

Lastly, as a Nightblade, you can also utilize Restoration magic spells. These will aid in restoring your health, stamina, and magical energy, absorb these resources from targets, boost them, cure diseases, and grant resistance to various elemental effects.

While playing the game, focus on improving your primary abilities since they tend to develop more quickly than secondary ones. To achieve this, ensure you perform appropriate actions related to each ability for its growth.

All Major Skills for a Nightblade Build

Here is a brief overview of all the Major Skills for a Nightblade Build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

• Alteration: Allows you to alter the physical world. Gain a shield to negate incoming damage.
• Acrobatics: Allows you to jump higher and fall from great heights without taking any damage.
• Light Armor: Wearing Light Armor provides decent defensive stats.
• Destruction: Use it to deal direct damage to the enemies with various elemental spells.
• Athletics: Allows you to run and swim faster. Moreover, it regenerates Fatigue faster while running.
• Blade: Increases the overall damage for sharp weapons like daggers, shortswords, longswords, and claymores.
• Restoration: Use it to restore health, fatigue, and magicka and boost other attributes.

Minor Skills

In a nutshell, less significant abilities (Minor Skills) only contribute modestly to the total efficiency of your Nightblade setup. Unlike Major Skills, these skills can be tougher to enhance and often relate to characteristics other than your primary ones. Yet, there are still essential Minor Skills that you can make use of to fine-tune your Nightblade Build. Here are some Minor Skills worth focusing on to maximize the Nightblade setup:

[List of recommended skills]

• Armorer: Maintain weapons and armor at top efficiency.
• Conjuration: Allows you to summon various minions to assist you in combat.
• Mercantile: Get better deals when buying or selling goods.
• Mysticism: Allows you to open lockboxes, move objects, detect life nearby, and more.
• Sneak: Allows you to move around undetected, pick pockets, and do more damage to targets while sneaking.

As a devoted enthusiast, I’ve noticed that finessing abilities like nimbleness, swiftness, stamina, and charm all play a significant role. Enhancing these traits not only boosts your performance but also unlocks additional advantages down the line.

Equipment

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion, players utilize an assortment of items such as weapons, armor, clothing, and miscellaneous gear to enhance their character’s attributes. These items can be equipped to boost the character’s abilities and stats. Weapons are fashioned from various materials, each featuring distinct stats and appearances. Additionally, weapons can be enchanted with magical properties, such as damage, debuffs, or health regeneration. To recharge these enchanted weapons, use soul gems. Armor is another important piece of equipment that safeguards you against attacks by enemies. Each armor item has an armor rating, which determines the amount of damage it can block. You can equip up to nine pieces at once. The Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion benefits most from Light Armor or Robes.

Best Spells

Here are the best spells to use as a Nightblade in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

1. Detect Life: Reveals all visible and invisible creatures with a soft purple glow.
2. Soul Trap: Trap the soul of a creature in an empty soul gem.
3. Summon Skeleton: Summon a Skeleton for 40 seconds to fight beside you.
4. Guard: Shield 30% for 30 seconds on self, reducing the incoming damage.
5. Flash Bolt: Deals 20 Fire Damage to a target on impact.
6. Lightning Bolt: Deals 35 Shock Damage to a target on impact.
7. Weakness to Fire: Makes a target weaker to Fire by 25% for 30 seconds.
8. Weakness to Shock: Makes a target weaker to Shock by 25% for 30 seconds.
9. Fortify Magicka: Fortify Magicka 30 points for 60 seconds.
10. Night Mother’s Caress: Restore health for 10 points for 2 seconds.

As a gamer, I love customizing my character to fit my unique playstyle. Upgrading my main abilities opens up even stronger versions of those spells. When I’ve got plenty of magical energy (Magicka), I like to grab the newest spells for maximum impact!

Best Weapons

We suggest equipping a Nightblade character with agile, pointed weapons such as daggers or short swords for optimal performance in close-quarters fighting and stealth situations.

1 Daedric Dagger

• Damage: 19
• Health: 532
• Base Value: 2700
• Weight: 10

In the game, the Daedric Dagger stands out as a swift, one-handed melee weapon boasting the highest base damage among all daggers. Being the speediest melee tool, it allows you to administer enchantments more rapidly. This blade is perfect for both close combat against enemies and stealthy takedowns. You can infuse the Daedric Dagger with various effects such as poison, damage, or fatigue. Despite its lightweight nature, it deals less damage compared to swords or maces. To maximize its potential, combine it with skills like Blades to boost its performance.

2 Daedric Shortsword

• Damage: 21
• Health: 508
• Base Value: 1500
• Weight: 22

The Daedric Shortsword stands out as the top choice among one-handed melee weapons after daggers for Nightblade builds, thanks to its impressive damage potential. To maximize damage in challenging situations, consider using it together with the Daedric Dagger. This combination offers increased flexibility during battles. It’s worth noting that Daedric Shortswords are frequently wielded by Zealots in the Shivering Isles. The weapon boasts high base damage and a swift swing speed, enabling stealthy approaches and rapid attacks. By enchanting a Daedric shortsword, you can greatly boost its effectiveness. Compared to longswords, shortswords are quicker and lighter, making them a suitable choice for the Nightblade build.

Best Armor

Here are a couple of best Light Armor to use for the Nightblade Build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

1 Glass Armor

• Armor Health: 5275
• Base Armor: 50
• Base Value: 5300
• Class: Light Armor

Opting for Glass Armor is highly recommended for a Nightblade character. It delivers robust protection without weighing you down, ensuring mobility and stealth are at their best. As a Nightblade, prioritize light armor to boost your stealth capabilities and movement speed. Glass armor boasts a high armor rating, vital for withstanding enemy attacks during close-quarters combat. Equipping this armor increases your survivability in battles as it minimizes the impact of incoming enemy attacks. Additionally, wearing Glass Armor contributes to leveling up your light armor skill, crucial for enhancing your armor rating. Enhance your Glass Armor with potent spells to offset the drawbacks of donning armor.

2 Shrouded Armor

• Armor Health: 520
• Base Armor: 17.5
• Base Value: 0
• Class: Light Armor

A great alternative for Nightblade characters in Elder Scrolls Oblivion is the Shrouded Armor set. Comprising of the Shrouded Armor and the Shrouded Hood, this two-part armor provides advantages for stealth-focused characters. The Ancient Shrouded Armor can be easily obtained. Essentially, the Shrouded Armor is a full-body equipment piece excluding the head. Its stats and enchantments remain unchanged regardless of level, becoming more effective as your character progresses in the game. This armor set also features an enhancement that boosts backstab damage and offers resistance to poison.

Leveling Strategy for the Nightblade Build

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion, concentrate on honing your Nightblade’s magical abilities for effective leveling. Employ spells from Alteration, Destruction, and Restoration to reap a +5 boost at each level. Utilize Alteration magic to fortify yourself and traverse the environment. Heal yourself and allies with Restoration spells to maintain your skill usage. Also, employ melee weapons to augment your Blade proficiency. Navigate on foot and leap about to improve Athletics and Acrobatics skills. Allocate points in attributes that will bolster your key abilities.

As a gamer, I find that progress in this world is all about enhancing my Skills and developing my Attributes. Each time I reach a new level, I get the chance to boost three of these attributes. It’s essential to concentrate on attributes that match my preferred gameplay approach. My Birthsign bestows a substantial bonus to my stats. To advance, I must rest in a bed. Leveling up in Oblivion can be a gradual process, so it’s crucial to maintain a balance between exploration, combat engagements, and honing my skills.

Factions

The Mage Guild is an ideal selection for a Nightblade character in Elder Scrolls Oblivion as it emphasizes magic and talents that enhance a Nightblade’s prowess. With skills such as Destruction for causing damage, Alteration for enhancing abilities, and Restoration for healing, the Mage Guild aligns perfectly with the Nightblade’s playstyle, giving you an edge over your enemies.

Trainers

In the Elder Scrolls Oblivion game, Falion is a highly-recommended trainer for the Nightblade build. He’s a Redguard mage living in Morthal, where he specializes in studying vampires and offers a cure for vampirism. You can find him in Morthal, which is located near the north end of the map, to the southwest of Ustengrav. To be cured by Falion, you’ll need a filled black soul gem. Trainers like Falion allow you to spend gold to boost your skill levels, helping you advance more quickly. Each trainer has a unique limit on how many times they can train a specific skill per character level.

How to Play the Nightblade Build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion

Improve abilities such as Alteration, Destruction, and Restoration, while also focusing on skills like Blade and Athletics for this Nightblade setup. In battle, utilize magic for scouting and weakening opponents, but don’t forget your stealthy melee attacks for taking down enemies swiftly. This approach will facilitate leveling up your primary skills more efficiently. If your Magicka depletes in close-quarters combat, switch to melee and employ defensive boosts. Remember, Magicka is essential for spellcasting, so conserve it smartly. Always cast useful buffs before engaging any enemy.

In battle situations, make sure to don appropriate medium armor and empower it with defensive enchantments for character safety. Develop character attributes such as Determination, Agility, and Wisdom to amplify your offensive capabilities while utilizing this setup. Utilize elevated positions to maximize the potency of your spells. It’s advisable to concoct potions that boost your character and weaken opponents. Equip Daedric Dagger for substantial close-quarter damage. Use daggers for melee strikes or stealth assassinations in combat. Maintain a safe distance and cast spells to eradicate adversaries if they’re at a distance, engaging you in ranged combat.

Best Gameplay Tips and Tricks for Nightblade Build

Here are the best gameplay tips and tricks for Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

• Use magic to weaken the enemies from a distance, then switch to melee when required.
• You need to use stamina wisely, or else you can become vulnerable in most combat situations.
• Use your weapons wisely, as equipping a lower damage-dealing weapon gives room for the enemies to attack you.
• Use Speechcraft and your charisma to avoid unnecessary conflict.
• Use Alteration spells to increase the armor rating for enhanced defense.
• Choose the faction, race, and specialization that complements your playstyle and synergizes with the build.
• Use potions to heal your character from time to time in combat, so carry them in your inventory.
• Joining the Mages Guild is a great choice as a Nightblade in ESO, as it provides access to magical resources, training, and spells.
• Focus on leveling your Destruction, Alteration, Restoration, Conjuration, and Mysticism for casting higher level magic spells.

FAQs about Nightblade build in The Elder Scrolls Oblivion

What is a Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion?

In Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the Nightblade build is a versatile approach that combines powerful attacks from both magic and physical combat. This strategy empowers you to weaken foes or attack them from afar with spells, and it also grants impressive speed for swift movement. Stealthy takedowns using melee weapons are another advantage of this build.

Which is the best weapon for a Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion?

For a Nightblade character, the optimal armaments tend to be agile and sharply edged ones. This category encompasses tools such as daggers and short swords. In confronting physical skirmishes, opt for the Daedric Dagger while also incorporating magical incantations into your strategy.

Which is the best race for a Nightblade build in Elder Scrolls Oblivion?

In the game Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the Breton race is highly recommended for a Nightblade character because it offers 50% magic resistance and the Dragon Skin trait.

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