ESO Nightblade Tank Guide

Table of Contents

ESO Nightblade Tank Introduction

Welcome to our ESO Nightblade Tank Guide. On this page we’ll be taking a deep dive into everything you need to know about the NB Tank, including the skills, passives, strengths and weaknesses.

The Nightblade Tank is not a common Tank Class in The Elder Scrolls Online, even though they posses some of the best enemy debuffing capability, they don’t really offer much group DPS benefits and everything they offer can be provided by any other people in a group being a Nightblade.

This doesn’t mean they can’t be used, they are good at Tanking damage but are not too beginner friendly, and struggle a little with crowd control.

See more: Tank Class Overviews, Skills, Passives & Information

ESO Nightblade Tank Class Skills and Passives

Assassination

Incapacitating Strike → Morph of Death Stroke
(Optional)
This is a good passive Ultimate to use on your front bar. If you tie it in with Siphoning Strikes then each Light and Heavy Attack will return a lot of resources. You need to know fights reasonably well for this however since you need to know exactly when it’s safe to use Light and Heavy Attacks. If you are experienced enough then this is a good additional resource tool you can use for a Nightblade.

Assassin’s Blade
(Unnecessary)
This could be used as a Nightblade Tank/DD Hybrid for doing damage otherwise not needed.

Lotus Fan → Morph of Teleport Strike
(Vital)
This is a gap closer which are rarely needed, but the main use of this skill is the Area of Effect Minor Vulnerability, you can Lotus Fan into an add stack to cause them all to take 5% more damage. This is a very good skill for add pulls, if you don’t have any other source of Minor Vulnerability in your group then you would need it on boss fights also but you have to be careful as it will cause you to drop block during the teleportation animation.

Mirage → Morph of Blur
(Vital/Situational)
This gives you Major Evasion which is great for any fights where you have to deal with Area of Effects it will reduce AoE damage by 25%, you also get Minor Resolve to increase your resistances which will help for some high damage fights. You would use this morph when you need the additional resistances.

Phantasmal Escape → Morph of Blur
(Vital/Situational)
This is the other morph of Mirage, you lose the Minor Resolve which is not always essential and you might be able to top up resistances in other ways including using Resolving Vigor. You gain immunity to snares and immobilisation and it will remove any that are already applied to you which makes this really strong for a lot of fights where these things may happen such as in vHoF.

Mark Target
(Situational)
This can be used in any fights where you are range Tanking or want to pre apply Major Breach, but you’d benefit more from Weakness to Elements.

Grim Focus
(Unnecessary)
This would be used as a Nightblade Tank/DD Hybrid for doing damage otherwise not needed.

Master Assassin
(Unnecessary)
Increased Weapon and Spell Damage is hardly noticeable as a Tank as you have such a low base starting value and you’ll rarely ever be flanking.

Executioner
(Vital)
This is a sustain passive which would be useful in add pulls or bosses with adds.

Pressure Points
(Vital)
This is needed to help towards proccing the Hemorrhage passive.

Hemorrhage
(Vital)
This is the group buff you are expected to bring to a group. This is only useful for DDs who stack Weapon Damage, and it will increase your groups Weapon Critical. To proc this passive, you need to cause Crit damage which shouldn’t be too difficult when you have all of your abilities ticking on the target. If you have another Nightblade in a group, then the NB Tank loses a lot of the functionality as this passive is one of the main and only reasons to use one.

Shadow

Bolstering Darkness → Morph of Consuming Darkness
(Optional)
This is a passive Ultimate slotted for gaining an extra 2% Health. It can be good for emergency situations, reduces damage taken by 30% for everyone stood inside but you will usually be using Aggressive Horn.