The Nightblade class in The Elder Scrolls Online is a damage-oriented class, with three skill trees that either add supportive abilities or change how damage is dealt. Like other Elder Scrolls Online classes, it is not restricted to its primary role, though, especially when it comes to the Siphoning skill tree.

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The Assassination skill tree focuses on damage and enemy control, the Shadow tree is all about stuns and area-of-effect attacks, and the Siphoning tree focuses on damage over time as well as party-wide buffs. Each has its place in a Nightblade's arsenal, but it's generally best to have one as the primary focus to make full use of ability-specific passives.

Assassination Skill Tree

Assassin Nightblade Elder Scrolls Online Skills

The Assassination skill tree in The Elder Scrolls Online is all about reducing enemy power and defense while dealing damage and moving rapidly. The Assassin's Blade and Teleport Strike, which both inflict special debuffs on enemies, are the first of many hybrid abilities in this tree.

This skill tree is great for a player who wants to solely focus on enemies, and who doesn't want to worry about providing direct support for their team.

Incapacitating Strike - Ultimate

The Assassination skill tree Ultimate ability is Death Stoke, which deals massive Magic damage and increases personal damage against the target. It's powerful and can be used relatively often in battle, but one morph lets it power up even more.

The Incapacitating Strike is unlocked at Death Stroke Rank IV and changes the damage to Disease damage and also stuns. When cast with more than the default Ultimate amount, it also silences them, and if that's not enough, as long as the player has it slotted, melee attacks restore extra resources.

Hemorrhage - Passive

The Hemorrhage passive ability for Nightblades gives a bonus to critical damage totals and provides Minor Savagery, a critical strike buff, on a successful crit. At Its second rank, it gives a whopping 20 seconds of extra critical strike chance.

Hemorrhage unlocks at Assassination Rank 39, at which point the player should spec into it as fast as possible. The jump in power for critical strikes is just massive.

Merciless Resolve - Morph

The ability Grim Focus is a self-healing and powerful retaliatory ability that Nightblades unlock late into progression. It increases critical damage and healing by 2% for each attack, up to 5 times, and allows the Nightblade to shoot a spectral bow when reactivating the ability.

The Merciless Resolve morph adds a boost to the damage of the spectral bow attack, which procs with every five melee hits. It unlocks at Grim Focus Rank IV.

Shadow Skill Tree

Shadow Nightblade Elder Scrolls Online Skills

The Nightblade's Shadow skill tree is home to abilities that deal damage in an area, control combat, and sneak up on enemies easily. The Veiled Strike and Shadow Cloak abilities synergize, setting foes off-balance through invisible attacks, and its other available skills similarly take enemies unawares.

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The Shadow skill tree is especially good in group settings where one can expect to take on a huge number of enemies all at once. The ability to stun, cause fear, and control enemy movements makes it a perfect complement to the other two skill trees.

Veil of Blades - Ultimate

The Ultimate ability in the Shadow skill tree is Consuming Darkness which protects allies, gives them invisibility and healing when the synergy is activated and reduces enemy movement speed. It's a great way to slow things down for a second and help the party recover.

The Veil of Blades morph, though, adds a high damage-over-time effect to the area of effect, which unlocks at Consuming Darkness Rank IV.

Shadow Barrier - Passive

The passive ability Shadow Barrier gives the Nightblade Major Resolve whenever they use a Shadow ability, which increases based on Heavy Armor equipped. This lasts for three seconds, but the boost to physical and spell defense is absolutely massive.

It unlocks at Shadow Rank 14, and it's a great one for players keen on soloing the game or just to complement other slotted Shadow abilities.

Mass Hysteria - Morph

The Aspect of Terror ability is a powerful crowd control skill that lets the Nightblade run from combat for a few seconds, giving a moment of recovery time. The Mass Hysteria morph simply increases its effectiveness.

Mass Hysteria unlocks at Aspect of Terror Rank IV and lets the player fear twice the number of enemies for 50% longer. When against a large number of mobs, it's one of the best ways to, well, control the crowd.

Siphoning Skill Tree

Siphoning Nightblade Elder Scrolls Online Skills

The Siphoning skill tree for Nightblades in The Elder Scrolls Online is as close as the class gets to having a support and healing role in the party. It's low in terms of damage, but can be super useful as a side skill tree – or, as the main one, if the healer in a party is similarly not primarily oriented towards the role.

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The Strife and Malevolent Offering abilities are a player's introduction to this skill tree; one steals an enemy's life, the other sacrifices the player's own to heal allies. It's a versatile skill tree that also comes with party-wide buffs.

Soul Tether - Ultimate

The Siphoning Ultimate ability Soul Shred destroys nearby enemies for huge damage and also stuns them for a lengthy four seconds. The synergy ability deals extra damage and heals the player for damage caused, but it's worth improving.

The Soul Tether morph unlocks at Soul Shred Rank IV makes the damage heal on its initial hit, not just when the synergy is used, and also deals extra damage. It's worth unlocking unless the player is dead set on healing, in which case Soul Siphon is the right choice.

Soul Siphoner - Passive

The Soul Siphoner passive ability is very basic but very effective. For every Siphoning ability slotted in the player's action bar, the Nightblade will have a base 2% or 3% increased healing effectiveness, depending on the rank.

It unlocks at Siphoning Rank 22 and is a required passive ability for Siphoning Nightblades who are serious about maximizing their healing output.

Leeching Strikes - Morph

The Siphoning Strikes ability lets the player heal from melee attacks for 20 seconds, while heavy attacks heal double. It's super useful, but it's far from perfection. There are two morphs for this ability, the Magicka-restoring Siphoning Attacks and the Stamina-restoring Leeching Strikes.

Because so much of the Nightblade's toolkit is oriented around stamina, Leeching Strikes tends to be more useful, but Siphoning Attacks can be great for support-only Nightblades too.

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