Introduction
Welcome to our Niss Night’s Edge build guide. In this build, we pair Niss with her signature weapon, Night’s Edge, to act as a DPS with tons of damage output that is paired with fantastic mobility allowing you to avoid damage while dishing it out.
Weapon – Night’s Edge
We will be using Niss’s signature weapon, Night’s Edge. This will allow us to amplify the burst damage of the build by utilizing the weapon’s ability, Daggerfall. When you trigger the Daggerfall ability you will form multiple daggers that float around you and fire towards enemies as attacks when the enemies come within range. Pairing this with an ability like Niss’s Shadow Step, will enhance your damage output by a good amount. The weapon ability will be pivotal to the rotation of the build in order to maximize DPS.
In order to trigger the weapon ability you will need to build flourish points. Flourish points can be obtained by landing a 4th consecutive melee attack. You can build up to 3 flourish points at once. Whenever you spend a flourish point it will progress your weapon ability meter. Once the meter is full you can then activate your weapon ability. You can learn more about each weapon category and their passives that trigger the weapon abilities by checking out our Weapon Categories guide.
Key Passive
Lingering Shadow – Dodging will trigger Niss’s passive. This paired with her Archetype and weapon passives make for a combination that will dish out tons of damage. It’s important to manage your stamina appropriately in order to obtain the attack power buff at the right time to maximize damage output.
Skill Progression
Below is the progress in which to apply your skill points as you level up. For this build you will be relying heavily on mobility for your survivability. Most of your abilities will give you some mobility and additional I-Frames.
Attribute Priority
Weapon Power -> Ability Power -> Crit Rating -> Crit Power -> Health
Offense
For this build we will be prioritizing weapon power. Utilizing your light and heavy attack combinations will be key to getting tons of damage out of the build. The Night’s Edge daggers come with the Twin Strikers and Blade Dance weapon passives. So, with this weapon class you will be able to perform the following:
- You can perform a parry, and when timed correctly, will stagger attacking enemies and avoid damage.
- Can perform flourishes for powerful attacks that also grant a short window of invulnerability.
- Benefits greatly from heat of battle. You’re able to build up to a 3x multiplier over 20 hits, rather than a 2x multiplier over 10 hits like other melee weapons.
- Your damage starts low, but ramps up greatly over the course of a dagger combo.
Your combo will be a pivotal part of your build. You will want to perform the full combo in order to take advantage of the increased damage multiplier and to earn flourish points. Spending the flourish points will also grant you additional damage boosts and eventually trigger your weapon ability, Daggerfall.
Flourish Points
- Build flourish points with every 4th consecutive melee attack.
- If you tap the heavy input you will spend all the stored points.
- You can perform different flourishes depending on how many flourish points are spent:
- 0 flourish points: A weak spin attack.
- 1 flourish point: Deals moderate damage and grants a small window of invulnerability during the attack. Also grants a 15 second weapon power buff.
- 2 flourish points: Performs a powerful direct attack, refreshes weapon power buff, and grants a small window of invulnerability during the attack.
- 3 flourish points: Performs a powerful area attack, refreshes weapon power buff, and grants a small window of invulnerability during the attack.
- Each flourish point spend increases the blade dancer meter. When the meter is filled it allows the usf of the weapon ability.
- Performing the weapon ability will also trigger blade dance, causing all weapon attacks to hit twice for a short period of time.
This build is a very fast playstyle. You will be utilizing Shadow Step and Umbral Aura to dash in and out of combat while weaving in light attacks to build up your combo meter. The goal is to have the combo meter full most of the time in order to take advantage of the additional weapon power you’ll be stacking.
Defense
This build is heavily centered around dealing out a ton of damage, so you will not be focusing on a lot of defensive attributes. Your defense will come in the form of a parry that you will receive from your weapon class passive.
You will also be incredibly mobile. You will not be able to tank a bunch of damage, but will be able to avoid damage with your parry and your mobility.
Mobility is key because your key passive Lingering Shadow will stack attack power with each dodge as well.
Affinity
COMING SOON
For more information on the Wayfinder Affinity system please reference our Affinity Guide.
Echoes
COMING SOON
For more information on Echoes, please reference our Echoes Guide.
Weapon Mastery
COMING SOON
When determining the best path for Weapon Master, please reference our Weapon Mastery Guide.
How to Play Night’s Edge Build
DPS
This Niss build centers around dealing as much damage as possible. However, bear in mind that this build has low break damage. Therefore, it’s best paired with someone who is running a high break damage build. They can break the resilience bar of the enemies and you can melt them after the bar is broken.
You will be relying on your light and heavy attacks to deal tons of damage, while utilizing your abilities for additional damage and mobility.
It’s recommended that you do not use your heavy attack (flourish points) when it’s at 0. Although you can heavy attack with 0 flourish points you would be much better off stacking light attacks to build additional flourish points and filling your damage multiplier. It’s recommended that you fill the meter to 3 flourish points and then utilize it for maximum effect. However, do not sit on the three flourish points because it will be waste of your weapon ability cooldown. You can build flourish points very quickly so there’s no need to sit on them and wait for the perfect time to utilize them.
Always be aware of your stamina and your ability cooldowns because you will need to be highly mobile in order to survive, so use your mobility options wisely.
Ability Priority List
- Umbral Aura – Before entering a fight you can active Umbral Aura in order to gain some additional damage as your dodging in and out of combat. This ability should be activated as much as possible in order to take advantage of the additional damage you’ll receive upon dodging.
- Lingering Shadow – You can enter a fight by dashing into it in order to trigger an additional damage boost from lingering shadows. However, be mindful of your stamina use whenever doing so. You should also have Umbral Aura activated.
- Light attack combos – Once in combat you will want to build up your flourish points and weapon power multiplier by landing light attack combos. Therefore, in between enemy attacks you should be stacking light attacks.
- Shadow Step – Whenever the enemy attacks you can utilize Shadow Step to quickly damage another nearby enemy, or avoid the damage, deal damage with Shadow Step, and get back into the fight.
- Vengeful Shade – You can utilize this ability to do some nice AoE damage to many enemies. If you take aggro of several enemies you can also utilize this ability for a nice I-frame, and can either trigger a light attack at the end of the animation for additional damage or get out of a sticky situation by triggering a dodge at the end of the animation. The dodge will allow you to disengage from a fight.
- Flourish Points – Once you have your flourish points built up you will want to spend them. This will allow you to deal a lot of burst damage and fill up your weapon ability meter.
- Weapon ability – You should utilize your weapon ability when you need additional burst damage. Pairing your weapon ability when you have full weapon combo power is recommended. This will allow you deal quite a lot of damage in a short amount of time.
- Gloom Shroud – This ability will give you tons of damage and tremendous mobility for a short duration. This is best utilized when there are several enemies around, or during a boss fight when you need to deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time. It’s not recommended to waste the cooldown on single mobs.
Group Utility
Niss’s build is not built around group utility. This particular build is meant to melt enemies as quickly as possible. However, the Arcanist mechanic called Intervention Orbs will allow you to enhance the ability power of your allies. Defeating enemies has a chance to spawn an intervention orb, which can be consumed by the Arcanist or their allies to increase ability power. So, make sure you and your group members are picking up the orbs as they spawn.
Conclusion
That concludes the Niss Night’s Edge Build. For more on Niss, be sure to check out our Niss Beginner Guide.