Nightblade: Assassination, Shadow, or Siphoning?

I am planning on rolling a Nightblade and was wondering if any of you knew which was the easiest to play( Assassination, Shadow, or Siphoning)? 

I've used a combination of skills from each. You don't have to choose only one.

Assassination and Shadow are more melee focused, but can be useful from any range, especially when considering their passive skills.

Siphoning works well from any range, and also provides some self healing, which can be great in certain fights.

Greetings Jacob,

I played 3 NB in the betas and found that the Shadow/Assassin was the most entertaining.
This is how I build my first-strike spike-damage killer

Female Dark Elf Nightblade in medium armor with two daggers - The character looks and plays exactly like a witch elf from Warhammer Online... aside from the clothing which is definitively more conservative in TESO

Skills: (1) Teleport strike -> Ambush

          (2) Assassin Blade -> Impale

         (3) Shadow Cloak

         (4) Veiled Strike

         (5) Twin Slashes -> Blood craze

         (U) Death Stroke (mostly to put another assassination skill on the bar, I have never had to use it)

Passives: Master Assassin (+dam from steath), Pressure points (+crit) (Hemorrage eventually), Slaughter (+dam low health), Ruffian (+dam disable), Twin blades (with dagger +crit), Dexterity (+crit)

For comfort I also took improve sneak, Shadow barrier (armor when decloaking), Dark veil (increase duration of shadow cloak)

So you just sneak fairly far away from your target toward its back/backside, then directly toward it until in range of teleport strike.

Then you do:
Teleport strike from steath - jump to the back of target and get steath backstab bonus + Master assassin bonus= Target stun and at 50% heath (less if you add a crit on it - I have seen 90% of HP down after that stage)

Assassin blade - You hit a disabled target at low heath, activating slaughter and ruffian + the 300% damage bonus from Assassin Blade + the 30% bonus from morphed Ambush,

At that point any standard mob is a corpse. On a player or a boss mob you now do:

Shadow cloak - You disappear

Veiled Strike - You strike again from steath, activating bonuses from Master assassin, Slaughter, Ruffian, and the target is re-stuned for 4 sec.

If something is still alive it's time to try restealthing or switch to Twin slashes/blood craze to spend some stamina, get health and regenerate magika while circle-straffing your victim before restarting the cycle (Teleport strike can be done from the front without steath)

For PVE, I don't think Shadow is worth spending many (if any) points in - at least for the content situations that I've either experienced or read about.  Assassination & Siphoning are pretty strong components that are not just good for DPS, but I've played with Nightblade tanks using them to effect.

However, for PVP, Shadow really is quite useful.  It's hard not to appreciate the abilities shadow gives you in a PvP environment.

 I played a couple Nightblade setups during the last couple betas, and focused heavily on experimenting with NB quite a bit.  Very fun no matter what you end up with.

I agree with Lysylya. I've played several different NB builds and they were all fun.

I haven't played any Betas yet (going to try and get on when I'm not working this weekend-stinks to work weekends)...but could shadow be useful in PvE to get passed certain areas if you just wanted to get somewhere without fighting every mob?  (I was thinking the Shadow Cloak and Consuming Darkness skills)  I was thinking about my main crafter doing that to get to gathering sites, or if you are soloing a lot doing a hit and run tactic?  Again, I would appreciate first hand knowledge if this is a feasibility.

"could shadow be useful in PvE to get passed certain areas if you just wanted to get somewhere without fighting every mob"

Yes - you could definitely play the Shadow skills that way.

There are some locations where you'd really rather not fight things along the way so having Shadow would be good.  I can recall at least a few quite good places where that condition would occur.

Honestly, give it a shot and see how it feels ;)

Give some deep thought to how you will mostly be playing your NB. There are some really non-traditional builds you can make happen BIG time in TESO. 

Are you mostly planning to play solo for precision attacks or as a scout for the team? (If so, Kajit w/ Medium armor may be a good choice with their stealth range bonus, REALLY nice crit bonuses to crit chance and crit dmg, add in solo target damage skills on your hotbar, and at least one escape skill ready. Bow might be your choice for an alt weapon for range. Heck, a Resto staff makes for a nice secondary wep when things turn south, AND Resto is not just for healing....it can do some dmg too)

Some people prefer Dark Elf for the dual wield bonus.

Maybe you like fighting on the outskirts of large battles, picking off back line healers or sneaking in to burn siege and escape. Big dmg burst build, knockdowns, stuns + multiple escape skills may be in order. Siphoning is very handy in this regard too w/ HoTs and a 'mezz.'

Do you prefer to be in the thick of things in PvP with your NB? You may want to focus on sustained survivability, less on stealth,  more on group bonus effects, AoE skills, and group synergies. (ie: Sword & Board, Heavy Armor-wearing toon that uses either a Resto staff for group support, or destro staff w/ AoE skills slotted...be careful how you drain your stamina, as you may prefer to use Magicka attacks primarily in this much close combat, and use Stam for your dodge rolls, sprint, etc....this is just one off the beaten path build, among many, with fantastic race selections from the pre-order in any realm) 

I tend to be more PvP-minded, but these suggestions can apply to your PvE grouping experiences as well. For example....your siphoning 'mezz' is only useful if no one else attacks your target (unless its morphed to still give a self-healing effect upon breaking). Not really always handy in the thick of things, but if you are on Raidcall, you can call out to your group when you are going to 'mezz-pull.' With so few skills on the hotbar, you have to really pick and choose what to bring to the fight: more single target burst, more AoE, more self supporting skills, or more team-oriented skills & synergies.

TESO gives a lot of play in regard to builds....consider what you have always wanted to do with your NB, then from that perspective look at each skill line in the various weapon and ability lines, mage/fighter's guild, and guild abilities, etc.

Will there be enough skill points to try out all 3 trees?  Or do we need to be selective in how we spend our points?

There will be enough skill points, yes.

A note about "could shadow be useful in PvE to get passed certain areas if you just wanted to get somewhere without fighting every mob"- Every class can use sneak and bypass mobs, although the Khajiit and wood elf have sneak bonuses that allow you to pass closer to the mob without being detected, which is convenient in tight situations. Shadows is great because it allows recloaking in combat, which seemed impossible to do using sneak for me in the beta. There is also a medium armor passive I believe which allows you to sneak closer and use less stamina (Improved Sneak). Finally I really enjoyed the passive "Shadow Barrier" as I was basically coming in/out of sneak constantly.

For the first time, i briefly played the NB and it has jumped high on my decision list for primary class.  As noted above, i can see the diverse paths you can take based on a role you want to take.

Had a blast playing the NB briefly.  Mostly pointed into siphoning and assassination trees.

Shadow is going to be a staple of DW dps nightblades I'm afraid. The sneak bonuses for DPS applies to shadow as well. and if you look at some of the character building tools you can find every time you pop shadow and then attack from stealth it gives a damage bonus.

I had a mix of all three and it was a blast to play 

 check out the tamiel foundry fourms they have a few class threads going  with many diff types of builds per class listed to give you a few ideas if you need to come up with a build that suits your playstyle .

I concur - the forums on tamriel foundry have some very good class / build discussions.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/forum/classes/nightblade-class/

On a side note, although most of the build discussions are broken down by class, it might also be interesting to see what people have done from weapon perspectives.  Like, what have people done with the restoration staff or the 2H Weapons with each class.