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61 NB PvE DPS Guide
Overview
Nightblade plays like a hybrid melee/ranged soul. Its strengths are high initial and 1 minute burst, ability to keep dealing respectable dps during melee disconnects and good dps during the last 30% of target's health. Its main weakness is somewhat poor ability to switch targets. NB is also not viable dps unless you can hit your target with Living Flame, this happens if your target has a big hitbox and its center is located in a place where you can't go.
NB dps graph is like a wave, you have high burst and then low dps between them. Sometimes this is to your advantage and other times it is a disadvantage. NB can also stealth but for PvE DPS this is only used for the initial opening and not used at all after that unlike assassin. NB also has some AoE but it's not a real AoE build and should not be used for any sustained AoE fights with lots of targets. It does however work well for two target dps if they are close together.
Specs
This is the best overall spec for PvE.: http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree/p...4/!agxg/t|X_P0
Selfbuffs: Ebon Blades, Smoldering Blades
If you don't have shadeborn soul then you can use this:
http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#w...l4/z8E/tf|X_P0
Since this spec doesn't have any of the shadeborn abilities you can just ignore whatever the guide says about using them.
Gear
Get your CP to softcap first. Once you have max or close to max CP then stack AP. If you are tier 3 geared then crit is also good. Use Slayer's synergy crystal.
Main abilities and mechanics
Heat Retention
Every time you use a combo point builder ability you will gain a stack of Heat Retention. Each stack increases your damage by 3% and once you reach 5 stacks your next finisher will do 30% more damage.
If you hit multiple targets with Fiery Chains you will gain a stack for each target and you also get one stack of HR per target that Living Flame hits. Hitting multiple targets with Weapon Flare does not give you multiple stacks of HR.
Primal Strike and Twilight Force
Primal Strike is your main melee combo point builder ability and Twilight Force is your ranged combo point builder. Their damage is about the same but Twilight Force has a much higher energy cost so it should not be used in melee range.
Dusk Strike
Dusk Strike is your high damage combo point buider ability. Each time you use it you will also get 1 stack of Emptiness debuff which increases the damage and energy cost of Dusk Strike. This mechanic is your way to transform energy into more dps.
Fiery Spike
Fiery Spike is an absolutely mandatory dot to have ticking on your target, not only does it do a lot of damage when it reaches 5 stacks but it also gets recast after Blazing Strike or Flame Thrust if it is on the target. This recast also gives you a combo points. Flame Blitz also recasts Fiery Spike but does not give a combo point. Unless you need to switch targets there should never be a need to use Fiery Spike manually.
Dusk to Dawn
Dusk to Dawn does a lot of damage, awards 2 combo points and buffs your damage with Blazing Strike and Flame Thrust by 20%.
Death from the Shadows
DftS does a lot of damage, awards 2 combo points and casts a Fiery Spike on your target.
Scourge of Darkness
SoD is an extremely high damage ability and should be used as often as possible, even small delays will cause a big drop in dps. When you use SoD you will get 25 charges which are then consumed as additional damage whenever you use other damaging abilities. Note that SoD does not refresh Fiery Spike on your target.
Living Flame
Living Flame is an AoE ability but it is also very good for single target since every tick of it casts a Fiery Spike on all the targets it hits. This is also very important ability in your opening rotation since it's your fastest way to build up Fiery Spike stacks. If the fight has target switches then it's best to save Living Flame for those instead of using it in normal rotation.
Living Flame only damages targets if it can reach the center of the target's hitbox and its radius is 10 meters. This is important to know on fights where the target has a large hitbox and you can be in melee range but still quite far from the center. On fights where you can't use Living Flame it's best not to use NB at all, NB without Living Flame is bad dps.
Dark Descent
When you use Dark Descent your next 3 finishers will not use combo points.
Ebon Fury
Ebon Fury is a 1 minute cooldown ability which removes the energy cost from Twilight Force and Dusk Strike and therefore allows you to regenerate to full energy and transform that excess energy into more dps through the use of more Dusk Strikes. Try to build up 4 or 5 Emptiness stacks before using Ebon Fury and optimally time it so that the SoD+3*Blazing block of your rotation does not fall inside it to get the most out of this cooldown.
Touch of Darkness
For the next 6 seconds weapon ability attacks deal additional death damage and drains the target's energy/power/mana. Most noteworthy thing here is to know what counts as an attack. SoD charges, autoattacks, trinket/weapon procs do not count. Each ability such as Primal Strike or Dusk Strike counts as one attack. First tick of Fiery Spike also counts as an attack, so finishers are actually two attacks each since they also cast a Fiery Spike through Lingering Flame mechanic. Each tick of Living Flame counts as an attack, and because Living Flame casts a Fiery Spike on each tick that means Living Flame does 2 attacks per second to all targets for 6 seconds. For this reason Touch of Darkness is always best used with Living Flame.
Consuming Depths
You get procs that make Consuming Depths instant when you use finishers. Use them without clipping them. The proc has a 5 second internal cooldown which means that if you get a proc, then use Consuming Depths, DtfS and Dusk to Dawn then only 4 seconds pass between finishers and you miss out on a chance to proc. Therefore it's best to use DtfS and Dusk to Dawn in different buildups.
Strangulate and Mirrored Strike
Strangulate gives you Blackout stacks (not the same Blackout that increases SoD stacks). Each stack refunds a combo point when you use a Mirrored Strike. Track these stacks and use Mirrored Strike to get from 1 combo point to 5 and use a Blazing Strike. It's best to do this after your previous Blazing Strike fails to proc Consuming Depths. Recast Strangulate whenever it drops, don't clip it.
Rotations
Single Target Rotation
Build up to 5 combo points and then use a finisher. Every 30 seconds use Dark Descent+SoD+3*Blazing Strike. Use Consuming Depths procs when you get them. Always keep SoD and Dark Descent synced,the benefit there is that you never drop to 0 combo points this way and the followup Blazing Strikes will refresh Fiery Spike automatically without having to worry about it. Use the Strangulate/Mirrored Strike mechanic to time your 30 second cooldown blocks so they don't get delayed and fall out of sync with raid cooldowns.
Due to how Boundless Energy mastery works you can't really plan an rotation based on how much energy you will have since there is a random element to it. Best way to handle energy management is to make sure you never reach max energy other than during Ebon Fury. Keep using Dusk Strike as your builder as long as you can without bottoming out so much that you lose time from your rotation and then ideally let all the emptiness stacks fall. However it is more important to spend all the surplus energy you have than to let all the stacks fall.
Use Living Flame together with Touch of Darkness when they are available right after Dark Descent+Sod. This allows Touch of Darkness to get extra hits from the Fiery Spikes cast by the finishers through Lingering Flame. Ideally you should also sync Death from the Shadows to be used here since it will provide an extra hit of ToD but if it doesn't sync then it's not a huge loss, it's more important to use DftS as often as possible.
You will often find yourself in a situation where you have 5 combo points but SoD is still 1 second away from being available. I find that it's better for sustained dps to use an extra combo point builder rather than use Blazing Strike and end up delaying SoD by 3 seconds past the 30 second cooldown. However this is for sustained average dps only and which one is actually better depends on what part of your rotation the fight will end.
You can also use Fiery Chains in single target rotation for the 50% chance to gain a combo point and this can allow you to reach 5 combo points with a better timing for when Dark Descent and SoD come off cooldown.
Your ideal fight ends right after your SoD stacks have been consumed, if you happen to delay SoD 3 times in such a fight you will end up completely missing out on one burst. On the flipside your absolute worst fight duration is when the fight ends right before your big burst, in such a fight delaying SoD would not have changed the amount of SoDs you had time to do and therefore if you used those extra combo point builders you ended up losing some dps.
AoE Rotation
Build up to 5 combo points with Fiery Chains and Weapon Flare, then use Flame Blitz. Try to use Fiery Chains when you are at low combo points, otherwise you will end up wasting the extra combo points. Macroing Fiery Chains and Weapon Flare is not very optimal because you then lose the ability to time Fiery Chains. Every 30 seconds build up to 5 combo points and use Dark Descent+SoD+3*Flame Blitz.
Use Living Flame+Touch of Darkness on cooldown, it's by far your highest dps aoe attack. Your AoE dps has a huge ramp up time unless you manage to start it with Living Flame. In fact unless you have Living Flame available it's generally best not to aoe at all.
Cleaving Rotation for single target dps increase
This is all about Fiery Chains. Use Fiery Chains right after finisher so you have more time to react to the extra combo points which come with a delay. Fiery Chains allows you to build combo points quicker and that means more finishers and therefore more dps.
You also need to know that any aoe abilities you use will also spend your SoD charges on the adds instead of main target. Since you only want to improve your single target dps with the adds you should wait 10 seconds or so after SoD before using Fiery Chains.
Also in these situations Living Flame right after SoD is a bad idea since it will cause your SoD charges to be wasted on adds. Instead use it when you don't have SoD charges.
If you know you will be AoEing then you should also change your level 65 mastery to Planar Variation. It's a very strong aoe dps channel.
Ranged Rotation
Ranged rotation is very simple. It's exactly like melee rotation but you just don't worry about Dusk Strike or Living Flame since you are out of range to use them and you can't use Mirrored Strike for combo points. Your ranged dps is roughly 80% of your dps in melee range which makes this an excellent spec for fights with disconnects.
Even though you have 1 or 2 blinks in your spec you should not use them as gap closers to get to melee. The gcd you use for the blink loses you a full second of dps and to accumulate similar loss in dps by being at range but within 20 meters takes 7 seconds. You can always run back into melee from there in less time than that so never use the blinks as gap closers when you are within 20 meters of the target. If you are further away then they are good. Shadow Shift also does not break stealth so it's useful for getting closer at the pull before using Dark Malady.
Shadeborn subsoul gives you Sudden Appearance which is a charge, that one can be used to get back into melee.
Under 30% target health rotation
Exactly the same as normal rotation. Twilight Force gets a big dps boost but its high energy cost causes it to not really improve your dps if used instead of Primal Strike as the main builder. Try to save at least one Ebon Fury for this phase of the fight.
Target Switching
The main weakness of NB is its target switching ability. You need to build up Fiery Spike stacks and stacks of Ebon Blades on your target.
If you need to switch then you would be best off doing it with Death from the Shadows or starting with a Living Flame burst, this saves you from using manual Fiery Spikes.
If neither is available then you need to do Fiery Spike manually. Do not spam 5 stacks of Fiery Spike on the target, it's not worth it. Going beyond 3 manual stacks is a waste and if it's a short switch then just use it once and let finishers build it up further than that.
If it's a switch that includes a switch back to the previous target then keep the old target as your focus and manually refresh Fiery Spike on that target after using a finisher on the temporary target.
Opening Rotation
There's a few options for opening rotation here, which is better depends on circumstances. For raiding I recommend C.
Option A (starting from 0 combo points)
Dark Malady, Living Flame+ToD, Dusk to Dawn, Death from the Shadows, Dark Descent+Sod+3*Blazing Strike
Option B (starting from 0 combo points)
Dark Malady, Fiery Spike, Dusk to Dawn, Blazing Strike, 2*Dusk Strike, Death from the Shadows, Dark Descent+SoD, Living Flame+ToD, 3*Blazing Strike
Option C (starting with 2+ combo points)
Dark Malady, Fiery Spike, Blazing Strike, Dusk to Dawn, Death from the Shadows, Dark Descent+SoD, Living Flame+ToD, 3*Blazing Strike
Option A is maximum burst from standstill but the downside is that raid debuffs and cooldowns are not all up at that points but the burst happens inside your Dark Malady buff. Option B delays the burst enough that raid dps cooldowns such as Orchestra of the Planes/Wild Growth/Flaring Power should be up by then but can't fit the burst inside Dark Malady. Option C is a combination version of them which you can use if you have existing combo points or have time to generate them with for example a sab or phys spec.
Macros
NB can macro quite a few abilities together to save some buttons. These are the macros that I use. It would be possible to put Blazing Strike and Flame Thrust to the SoD macro but it is a bit dangerous since many times you will hit 5 combo points at the exact moment or a fraction of a second before SoD comes out of cooldown and in those cases you can not be certain what your macro decides to do so I do not recommend doing that.
Builder macro
Dusk Strike macroCode:#show primal strike suppressmacrofailures cast primal strike cast twilight force cast @self energy manipulation
Finisher macroCode:#show dusk strike suppressmacrofailures cast dusk strike cast @self energy manipulation
SoD macroCode:#show blazing strike suppressmacrofailures cast blazing strike cast flame thrust cast @self energy manipulation
Manual Fiery Spike refresh macroCode:#show scourge of darkness suppressmacrofailures cast dark descent cast scourge of darkness
ToD+Living Flame macroCode:#show fiery spike suppressmacrofailure cast [shift] @focus fiery spike cast fiery spike
KaruulAlert SetCode:#show touch of darkness suppressmacrofailures cast touch of darkness cast living flame
These are the alerts I use for NB, use them if like, do your own or track stuff some other way. What ever works for you.
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Originally Posted by Gunzip 
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