Getting ready to make a dark elf nightblade. I know the basic skill set for a nightblade is sneak, illusion, destruction, and one hand. I know any build will work but I also know I can only plan on maybe maxing two skill trees before leveling drastically slows to a crawl. So I'm wondering how much into illusion, sneak, and destruction should I go into? I figure I should probably max sneak so there's one tree. I have no idea at all what to do between destruction and illusion. Please give me some guidance. I don't want a build that requires 70 levels to be fully realized. My last question: What kind of armor should I be using? At first I thought about the dark brotherhood armor for those gloves to help my sneak attacks cause I definitely see this guy using a spell in one hand and a dagger in the other. But the dark brotherhood armor wouldn't help the magic side of this character. So should I maybe wear robes like from the mages college? I've just really had a hard time figuring out what to do with this dude. Thanks in advance for any help. Peace

Wow! Bumpity bump bump

Bumping your own thread is against forum rules.

Also, There's no point in making customized min/max "builds" in Skyrim..just play what you want. RP is the key. Use what skills help you RP what you want better.

My bad. I didn't realize that was the case. I'm not looking for a min/max build. I just need some basic direction. I don't have a sense of vision for this build. If I did, I wouldn't be posting here...lol.

Well, a Nightblade is defined as this by Morrowind:

Nightblades are spellcasters who use their magics to enhance mobility, concealment, and stealthy close combat. They have a sinister reputation, since many nightblades are thieves, enforcers, assassins, or covert agents.

So the skills you'd be focusing on are Illusion, Destruction, Alteration, One Handed, Light Armor, and Sneak. That's just what I think. You could focus less some and more on others, but that's what i'd use.

Regardless of what the previous games say (and in Oblivion, they have restoration but no illusion), destruction seems an odd choice for such a character when there are no on-touch spells. Personal preference, I would save the amount of perks you have to invest in destruction to get the best from it, and get maybe the poison perks, or max out your blade skills with some dual wielding. Remember you will need quite a few perks in illusion for it to affect higher level enemies at all. If destruction is that important, maybe a straightforward spellsword would make more sense, fireballs and stealth make odd bed fellows, perhaps.

I fail to see why an assassin would be required to use on touch spells since there is a perk that makes ALL spellcasting silent, thus allowing for archery style assassin kills with lightning and fireballs.

Silent casting doesn't stop light from spells. And there is no sneak bonus for spells. All I am saying is destruction, while I disagree with many of the threads saying it is nerfed, is not the one hit killer it could be in previous games. There are better tools for an assassin. Also in Morrowind, Illusion was a major, destruction a minor, and the initial destruction spell was on touch. I appreciate being a spellcaster is probably the main difference between assassins and nightblades, but there have been huge changes to the magic system, and some classes may not work as they did before.

Nightblade npc classes in Skyrim are skilled in One-Handed, Sneak, Alteration, Destruction and minimum Light Armor. Seems like since Oblivion, Bethesda intended Nightblades to be more Jack of all trades instead of a complete illusion/sneak type.

Well the idea of using some skills for better or worse is what defines your 'class' . Nightblades have always used Destruction spells. One Handed is there for the sneak attacks.

To directly answer your question, I think a Skyrim Nightblade needs Sneak, Destruction, Illusion, One Handed, Light Armor in that order of importance. I included Alchemy for poisons, but I don't think that was necessarily part of the standard job description.

But from someone who has always loved playing nightblades and has tried one in Skyrim, I just personally feel Skyrim is just not geared towards a class like a nightblade.

No chameleon, no sanctuary, no silence, paralysis and invisibility are relatively inaccessible (and frankly, I never liked invisibility, it just isn't as much fun as chameleon), so the illusion arsenal is just too diminished.

A nightblade really does not cast a big explosive fireball. And because magic does not scale the spell types that feel appropriate for a Nightblade just aren't effective. The complete absence of touch spells is the main factor in this.

I also feel that the nightblade was essentially a shortsword and not a dagger wielding class but this is just a matter of personal taste and I won't claim that as canonical.

I encourage you to try it out and disagree with me, but (shockingly) I think it's the cutbacks to the magic system that just makes the nightblade feel like a spellsword abusing the sneak skill and thus, not a nightblade.

I will give them props for muffle, which would have been a great addition but at this point is like whipped cream on a cake that has collapsed.

Guys, thanks a bunch for the feedback. I've been trying like crazy to get this guy to feel like a true nightblade and he just doesn't for some of the exact reasons you listed.