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Elder Scrolls Online Bunny Thumper Build

Written by "Pinkeh" (George Wong)

www.georgeckwong.com

First Edition published 18 March 2014

Version 1.0

Written for my friends of The Devil's Gauntlet and The Older Gamers.

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Contents About this guide ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................... 4

Author's note ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Copyright notice ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Revisions ................................................................................................................................................... 5

Abbreviations & Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 6

The Bunny Thumper ...................................................................................................................................... 7

Racial Skills .................................................................................................................................................... 8

Summary ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Imperial ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

Nord .......................................................................................................................................................... 8

Red Guard ................................................................................................................................................. 9

Orc ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Night Blade Skills ......................................................................................................................................... 10

Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 10

Assassination ........................................................................................................................................... 10

Siphoning ................................................................................................................................................ 11

Heavy Armor Skills ...................................................................................................................................... 12

Two Handed Weapon Skills ........................................................................................................................ 13

World Skills .................................................................................................................................................. 14

Skill Points Summary ................................................................................................................................... 15

Rotations & Usage ...................................................................................................................................... 17

Legend ..................................................................................................................................................... 17

Solo: Single target ................................................................................................................................... 17

Solo: Two targets .................................................................................................................................... 17

Solo: Three targets .................................................................................................................................. 17

Solo: Four targets .................................................................................................................................... 18

Group: Public instances .......................................................................................................................... 18

Group: Dungeons .................................................................................................................................... 18

PVP / RVR ................................................................................................................................................ 18

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Add-Ons ...................................................................................................................................................... 19

Note to reader ........................................................................................................................................ 19

Installation directory ............................................................................................................................... 19

Useful add-ons ........................................................................................................................................ 19

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About this guide Abstract This is a melee damage build for the game Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). I focus on the advantages and disadvantages of racial, class, armor, weapon skills for a Nightblade melee build. It's designed to smack your targets around the battlefield which will greatly assist your team in pve adventures, pvp and solo game play. This starting guide is designed for players up to Level 10. At which point it's up to you what you want to do with your skills. Bunny thumping will work with any class, race or armor selection. The only prerequisite is a two handed weapon. This guide is written based on the following skills selected:

SKILL ATTRIBUTE REASON EFFECT Race Imperial Health

Stamina +4/8/12% +4/7/10%

Class Night Blade Siphoning (Life taps) Assassination (Finisher)

Weapon Two Handed Weapon Uppercut morphed into Wrecking Ball

Sends your target flying and Wrecking Ball deals extra damage.

Armor Heavy Armor You'll take lots of damage.

More armor the better. Either all 7 pieces or 5 heavy / 2 light. Your choice as you may want some magicka recovery.

World Soul Magic Soul Trap morphed into Consuming Trap

Restore health, magicka, and stamina if an enemy dies while affected

Author's note Information provided in this guide is 'as-is'. The Elder Scrolls Online is scheduled for release in April 2014. Alterations and additions after the release of this guide are not anticipated or accounted for, as such any advice or recommendations may only reflect the condition of the game on the date this guide is made.

Skill duration and damage values change with your character level. Any exact values provided in this guide are mostly level 1, with no gear bonuses calculated into the total figure.

This start up guide is designed for players up to Level 10. I expect you'll find new ways of playing the game by the time you reach this threshold. A more detailed guide up to level 50 is not planned at this time. Level requirements to unlock abilities are lightly considered in this guide.

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Copyright notice This guide is my own work. Written by George Wong © 2014. All rights reserved. It is digitally distributed only. You may share this guide if you find it helpful. If you have any questions, you can contact me on the TOG forums or by my website. Images, screenshots, logos and other assets related to the Elder Scrolls Online belong to Bethesda, Zenimax and their licensors.

Revisions Revisions may be made from time to time:

VERSION DATE NOTES 0.1 4 March 2014 First draft 0.2 17 March 2014 Added rotations, usage, addons 1.0 18 March 2014 First edition released

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Abbreviations & Glossary

TERM DESCRIPTION Altmer The name given to High Elves in ESO. They are part of the Aldmeri Dominion. Argonian The name given to Lizard folk in ESO. They are part of the Ebonheart alliance. Bosmer The name given to Wood Elves in ESO. They are part of the Aldmeri Dominion. Breton A faction of Humans in the Daggerfall Alliance. Bunny thumper A hard hitting melee damager with hard crowd control abilities. CC Crowd control Dunmer The name given to Dark Elves in ESO. They are part of the Ebonheart alliance. ESO Abbreviation for "Elder Scrolls Online". The game name is a mouthful. Health The life blood of your character. When it reaches zero, you die. Imperial A faction of Humans that serve the Daedra. They do not serve any other

alliances. Khajiit The name given to Cat-like folks. They are part of the Aldmeri Dominion. Magicka The resource most of your racial skills and spell casting weapon skills use to

execute a magical ability. Mana Same as Magicka Nords A faction of Humans in the Ebonheart Alliance. They are the main residents of

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Orc Seriously does this need an explanation? Redguards A faction of Humans in the Daggerfall Alliance. Their skin is described as more

tanned than the Bretons. Stamina The resource most of your physical weapon skills use to execute an ability. It is

also consumed through movement actions such as sprinting, blocking and rolling away.

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The Bunny Thumper The Night Blade Bunny Thumper is primarily a single target melee damager with strong interrupts and crowd control. You're a front line shock trooper so you'll need to be able to absorb damage. You want to be capable of healing yourself to a degree and not become a burden to your team/allies behind you. Your primary role is to literally knock your targets off their feet. Keeping opponents on the ground lets you pulverize them before they can become a serious threat to your allies.

The key to this role is not high damage min/maxing, but rather providing some hard knockbacks and controlling the flow of battle. You need to consider taking extra health and stamina passive bonuses because it'll greatly assist in your ability to execute your thumps.

There are tactical problems to be aware of. You'll need to close some distance between you and the target quickly. Either pull your enemy towards you (line of sight), or have an ally Dragon Knight yank them into combat distance. Your heavy plate should absorb a fair amount of damage but you're far from invincible. It's recommended that you focus fire with your team in public instances/dungeons as this way you can quickly eliminate opponents rather than fighting separate battles individually.

You're also susceptible to knockdowns, blocks and interrupts. You'll use a lot of stamina per thump. If you're using your siphons and finisher properly, you will regain most of your health, and a little bit of your magicka when you deal the finishing blow.

Bear is sent flying with Uppercut

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Racial Skills Summary Its recommended that you pick a race with survivability bonuses because it'll let you absorb more damage in battle. The weapon bonus isn't really that important because it is just a bonus to experience gain. I leveled my Two Handed Weapon just fine without the experience bonus. Imperials, Nords, Red Guards and the Orcs provide racial passives that'll benefit this objective. I picked the Imperial class for my build. This obviously requires you to have purchased the Imperial Edition of the game at release.

Imperial ALLIANCE RACE BONUSES EFFECT SKILL PTS Any Imperials Shield Affinity

Increases experience gain with the One-Handed and Shield skill line by 15%.

0

Conditioning Increases Max Stamina by 4/7/10%. 1/3 Toughness Increases Max Health by 4/8/12%. 1/3 Red Diamond Melee attacks have a 10% chance to

restore 2/4/6 Health. 0/3

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 2

Nord ALLIANCE RACE BONUSES EFFECT SKILL PTS Ebonheart Nord Two-Handed

Expertise +15% experience from Two-Handed skill line.

0

Robust +5/10/15% health regeneration in combat. 0/3 Resist Frost +10/20/30 cold resistance.

+1/2/3% maximum health. 0/3

Rugged +2/4/6 armor rating. 0/3 TOTAL SKILL POINTS 0

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Red Guard ALLIANCE RACE BONUSES EFFECT SKILL PTS Daggerfall Red

Guard Shield Affinity

Increases experience gain with the One-Handed and Shield skill line by 15%.

0

Vigor +3/6/9% stamina recovery in combat. 0 Conditioning +4/7/10% maximum stamina. 0 Adrenalin Rush Damaging enemy with melee attack

restores 1/2/3 stamina. Can only occur once every 3 seconds.

0

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 0

Orc ALLIANCE RACE BONUSES EFFECT SKILL PTS Daggerfall Orc Heavy Armor

Expertise +15% experience from Heavy Armor skill line

0

Brawny +2/4/6% maximum health and stamina. 0 Robust +5/10/15% health regeneration in combat. 0 Swift -4/8/12% sprint cost.

+3/6/9% sprint speed. 0

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 0

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Night Blade Skills Summary In this class we're taking one skill from Assassination tree and two from Siphoning. We dont need anything from Shadow because you're not going to sneak into battle. It's recommended that you morph your siphoning abilities before trying to morph Assassin's Blade. You get more health from Siphoning naturally. You'll need to level up your skills to rank 4 before you can morph.

Assassination ABILITY TYPE DESCRIPTION COMMENT SKILL PTS Assassin's Blade

Active Deals a variable amount of magic damage. Plus Targets with low health take +300% of base damage. I.e. if base is 30, a stab at "low health" will do 90.

This is your finisher. Take this as soon as you have skill points because you'll want to level up this skill. It's best if you take the Foundry Tactical Combat add-on which prompts you when your target is at low health.

1

Killer's Blade (Morph)

Active Morph from AB at rank 4. Heal 15% of maximum health when killing enemy with this ability.

When your enemy is at low health, use this ability to finish them off. You're gaining health back for executing this finisher.

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Executioner Passive Killing enemy with Assassination ability restores a variable amount of magicka over 6 seconds.

Same as KB above, now you gain magicka back as well.

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Death Stroke

Ultimate Deals a monstrous amount of damage and reduces healing on the target by 50%. Damage will also increase with more Ultimate charges.

This ultimate is a monster damage spike. Not sure if a synergy is available but the morphs aren't that great. Up to you if you pick this or the Siphoning ultimate.

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TOTAL SKILL POINTS 4 Note: Other active and passive abilities are locked until further progression in the skill tree (beyond level 15).

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Siphoning ABILITY TYPE DESCRIPTION COMMENT SKILL PTS Strife Active Deals a variable amount of

magic damage. Plus caster is healed for 30% of damage done every 2 seconds, for 10 seconds.

This is your most important skill and combat opener. Use this on all your enemies before you attack. It has a decent amount of range too so you can use this to draw enemies towards you.

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Funneling Health (Morph)

Active Morph from Strife at Rank 4. Two nearby allies will also be buffed with this spell.

This is handy for your nearby party members who'll benefit from this life tap.

1

Agony Active Stun a single target for 12 seconds. Damage over time for a variable amount after effect ends. Effect can be broken by any source of damage to the target.

This is basically a root. It's a very strong single target crowd control ability. You'll love this for both solo and party game play. Take it as soon as you can because it'll help your survive 2-3 mob encounters. The morphs aren't worth it.

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Soul Shred Ultimate At level 12 you unlock your ultimate ability. This does a variable amount of damage and stuns the target for 3 seconds. If your allies are nearby they can mash their synergies button and deal damage by stealing some health.

It's up to you if you want to take this or the Assassination's ultimate. This one adds life tap, and the morphs either heals nearby allies or extends the stun duration by a small amount.

0

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 3 Note: Other active and passive abilities are locked until further progression in the skill tree (beyond level 15).

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Heavy Armor Skills You'll take a lot of damage in this role. Upgrade your armor as soon as you can, as a mere two levels of difference between your armor rating and your opponent's level will be the difference between life or death. Equip heavy armor for damage reduction. 7 pieces is recommended but 5/2 should also work if you need a bit of stamina/magicka recovery.

ABILITY TYPE DESCRIPTION COMMENT SKILL PTS Resolve Passive Increases a variable

percentage of armor per piece of heavy armor equipped, from your base armor value. Increases a variable percentage if spell resistance per piece of heavy armor equipped, from your base spell resistance.

Useful. Not a noticeable difference at Level 10, but values are much more significant at Level 50. Further rank upgrades are level locked. You will only be able to take one point between 1-15.

1/3

Constitution Passive (Rank 1) +2% health regeneration per piece of equipped Heavy Armor.

14% increase of 10 is only 1.4. 14% of 50 (estimated base value at Level 50) is 7. Your total health at end game is in the realms of 2000-4000. Does 7 bonus combat health recovery make that much difference if it tick every 2 seconds? Further research is needed but not recommended at the early levels.

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Juggernaut Passive (Rank 1) +0.5% melee attack power per piece of equipped Heavy Armor.

Up to 3% damage increase at Rank 1, assuming all 7 pieces equipped are heavy armor. Take it if you can spare the points, but I favor Resolve.

0/2

Bracing Passive With a full set (5+ pieces) of heavy armor, -10% cost for blocking.

Unlocked at later levels 0/2

Rapid mending

Passive +0.5% healing received per piece of equipped Heavy Armor.

Unlocked at later levels 0/2

Immovable (Morphs available)

Active Increases variable amount of armor and spell resistance for 8 seconds, immune to knockbacks or stun.

Unlocked at later levels 0/3

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 1

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Two Handed Weapon Skills You have a choice of Great Swords, Two Handed Hammers or Great Axes. Whichever weapon you choose doesn't really matter. They all do the same base damage at the same level. However the Great Swords tend to have a small weapon % damage increase from one of your passive abilities. Other weapons have their own unique effects.

ABILITY TYPE DESCRIPTION COMMENT SKILL PTS Cleave Active Deal a variable amount of

physical damage to all enemies within radius, and adds a bleed DoT for 10 seconds on them.

Useful early on as the bleed is quite effective. You'll also need this to level up the weapon skill to 14 before you can take Uppercut, your primary weapon skill as a bunny thumper! The morphs aren't worth it.

1

Uppercut Active Deals a significant amount of physical damage to one target, and sends them flying off their feet. After being thumped, your target is stunned for 3.5 seconds and knocked back 4 metres.

This is your key weapon skill. Use it to both dish damage and control the flow of combat. May not work on some opponents who're immune to knockdowns or stuns. You may be blocked or interrupted in the middle of activation of this skill.

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Wrecking Ball

Active Morph of Uppercut at Rank 4. Your next attack deals additional damage.

More damage on top of your Uppercut. The other morph decreases your enemy damage for a short amount of time.

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Heavy Weapons

Passive Axes: 10% chance to bleed for 0(?) physical damage over 10 seconds. Maces: Attacks ignore 40 armor. Swords: +3% damage.

This passive adds additional effects to your choice of weapon. I think Great Swords are better. 3% overall damage across the board sounds pretty good.

1/2

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 4 Note: Other active and passive abilities are locked until further progression in the skill tree (beyond level 15). You don't really need to have cleave, the weapon will level itself up as you use it. So you may be able to save one point.

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World Skills Soul Magic becomes available as part of your main story line. You'll get access to Soul Trap immediately after you finish the tutorial. Soul Gems are needed for Soul Trap spell to work. Filling a Soul Gem is done by casting Soul Trap on an enemy opponent and killing them before the spell expires naturally. You'll need to do it to charge your weapons and resurrect yourself or allies.

ABILITY TYPE DESCRIPTION COMMENT SKILL PTS Soul Trap Active Deals a variable amount of

damage over time. Fills one soul gem if an enemy dies whilst the effect is active.

Useful DoT early on but it's not needed once you have morphed your Siphoning abilities like Strife or Funneling Health. Soul Trap uses the same amount of magicka as FH but doesn't do as much damage. It's primary purpose is to fill soul gems anyway.

Free

Consuming Trap

Active Morph of Soul Trap at Rank 4 Recovers 7% health, magicka and stamina if an enemy dies whilst the effect is active.

Useful to recover stamina or magicka but sort of a waste of a point early on because it's only stamina you're recovering. You get health and magicka through Siphoning and Assassination skills.

0

TOTAL SKILL POINTS 0 Note: Other active and passive abilities are locked until further progression in the skill tree (beyond level 15).

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Skill Points Summary SKILL ABILITY EFFECT RESOURCE SKILL PTS Imperial Conditioning Stamina increase None 1 Imperial Toughness Health increase None 1 Assassination Assassin's

Blade Finisher Magicka 1

Assassination Killer's Blade Finisher, life tap Magicka 1 Assassination Executioner Magicka recovery None 1 Assassination Death

Stroke Monstrous damage, synergy

Ultimate 1

Siphoning Strife DoT, Life Tap Magicka 1 Siphoning Funnel

Health DoT, Life Tap, Buffs 2 allies

Magicka 1

Siphoning Agony CC or Root, DoT Magicka 1 Heavy Armor Resolve Increase base armor total None 1 Two Handed Weapon

Cleave Small damage, bleed DoT, front AoE.

Stamina 1

Two Handed Weapon

Uppercut High damage, knockback, stun.

Stamina 1

Two Handed Weapon

Wrecking Ball

Monstrous damage, knockback, stun.

Stamina 1

Two Handed Weapon

Heavy Weapons

Depends on weapon used None 1

World Soul Trap DoT Magicka 0 TOTAL SKILL POINTS 14

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Attributes at Level 10

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Rotations & Usage All your rotations begin with an opener, some sort of damage in between, and a finisher. For public groups, trash mobs don't last long enough for you to complete your rotations so stick with your Siphoning opener as it has range to reach your opponent before it dies. For bosses you'll need to renew your life taps and DoT, reserve your finisher when they're low health. If there is no need to block an attack, dont waste your health and stamina. Just run out of range from the telegraph (not roll). Rolling, blocking and sprinting consumes stamina.

Legend FH Funnel Health KB Killer's Blade Ag Agony Cl Cleave WB Wrecking Ball ST Soul Trap HP Health Points

Solo: Single target 1. Open with FH. 2. Bash them with WB. 3. When low health, use KB.

Solo: Two targets 1. Use Ag on the archer/spell caster (if available). 2. The melee opponent will rush towards you. 3. Open with FH. 4. Bash them with WB. 5. Pulverise them until their health is low and use KB. 6. Open with FH on second target. 7. Bash them with normal/heavy attacks. 8. When low health, use KB.

Solo: Three targets 1. Use Ag on the archer/spell caster (if available). 2. Use FH on the first weaker target (usually it's the one without heavy armor/shield). 3. Bash them with WB. Use KB when they're low. 4. Bash second attacker with WB. Use KB when they're low. 5. Third target will be out of Ag. Your stamina is probably too low by now, so open with FH. 6. Bash them with heavy attacks. Interrupt if necessary. 7. Use KB to finish them off.

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Solo: Four targets 1. You're going to die. Flee!

Group: Public instances 1. Open all fights with FH. You probably won't close the distance between your target before it

dies. Repeat as required. 2. If you're with another melee ally, use any of abilities that have synergies. It'll let the nearby ally

execute a synergy attack unique to that ability. 3. For bosses, use the single target rotation as well as your ultimate. 4. Keep enemies off your casters if you're free. Use WB liberally because it's funny as.

Group: Dungeons 1. Your role is DPS and off-tank. Keep the trash off your squishier allies and follow the solo

rotations as necessary. 2. Get the hell out of telegraphs because healing is difficult and everyone in this game needs to

look after themselves in battle.

PVP / RVR 1. Same as solo rotations. Players will however try to block your WB. Mix up your rotations too.

Focus fire is best so work with your team.

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Add-Ons Note to reader I don't own any of these add-ons. They're provided in this guide to assist you. If you have trouble with these add-ons, contact their authors.

Before you mess around with add-ons: for goodness sake back up your game directory regularly! It's 30GB of files that may randomly corrupt for no reason. In this day and age there is absolutely no reason that you don't have enough space on conventional hard drives to make multiple backups of files. Update your backups after each patch!

Installation directory Add-ons are typically installed on a Windows 7 OS at

C:\Users\<computer name>\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\AddOns\<mod name>

You can install them yourself without any utilities. Just unzip the packs into the directory above.

Useful add-ons ADD ON SOURCE TYPE COMMENT Loot Drop vers 1.2.3 by Pawkette

ESOUI http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info35-LootDrop.html

User Interface

Useful to see what drops you receive.

Foundry Tactical Combat vers 0.13 by Atropos

ESOUI http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info28-FoundryTacticalCombat.html

Combat interface

Throws damage numbers up on your screen. Shows your buffs/debuffs in the bottom right corner. Indicates when target is low health.

Inventory Grid View vers 0.18 by Ingenious clown

ESOUI http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info65-InventoryGridView.html

Inventory Displays your inventory as a grid instead of detailed list.

insMobs2Level vers 0.1 by instant

ESOUI http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info58-insMobs2Level.html

User interface

Provides an estimate of the amount of quests or kills it takes for the next level. Perfect for those who like to do just one more quest/kill X mobs before logging off.

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insMobs2Level FoundryTacticalCombat