General Discussion

Nightblades tend to be squishy to start with, I would reccomend trying to get some good gear with training to help get levels and give you a bit of a defense. You could also get health glyphs for the armor to help as well.

[quote]Frankly the biggest problem is if two enemies attack me at once, I always die. I'm level 12, should this still be happening?[/quote] ESO is a pretty complex MMO with loads and loads to learn, so unless you're having a grip on some of the game's fundamental rules and quirks, it's pretty normal. You can out-damage solo content enemies pretty well if you know how to spec your character, and if you have the right gear. To give you a pointer, the amount of stamina and weapon damage influences the damage of your damaging stamina abilities. The same goes for magicka damage abilities, except it's the amount of magicka and spell damage. If you want to be more tanky, then your attribute point distribution is much more nuanced, because it depends mostly on what abilities you use and from what pool they draw. Of course, health is going to be your main attribute, and you always want to get your spell and physical resistances up, I think ~30k on both is on the optimal side of things. You can also ditch damage abilities in favor of healing power, but those two kind of go hand in hand, as your spell damage and magicka will also influence how much you heal so making a hybrid of both works pretty well. As ford dodging, bashing, and blocking, there's three things you always want to watch out for. First, yellow charge attack. You see gold/yellow lines being drawn into your enemy. You should block or dodge that. Secondly, red charge attack. Same as yellow but red, you can bash the enemy and interrupt the attack. AoE, or area of effect, which are damaging/stunning effects on the ground, usually telegraphed in red. [u]Always [/u] stay out of it if you're not tanky. It's extremely important to do these things if you don't have good gear and want to stay alive. Now, personally, I'd recommend going for a magicka damage dealer with some healing abilities. Reason being that stamina characters generally have 1 reliable heal, and you only get it from PvP. As a magicka Nightblade, there's three abilities you should keep in mind. First, Strife. Heals you for 50% of the damage caused, it's a good spammable. Soul Shred for its morph, Soul Tether. Damages all enemies in the area and gives you a healing over time for each, while stunning non-boss enemies. Shadow Cloak and its morph Dark Cloak, the latter healing you while reducing damage taken. Also if you're using first person, ditch that and use third person instead, as first person will limit your situational awareness tremendously. Well, there's a whole lot more to everything and I skipped over a lot of detail, but I think this is enough to get you on the right track. If you're on PC EU, I could send you my in-game ID and help you out directly.

Another fellow ESO player here. Technically my main is a high elf sorcerer but I stopped playing her and spend more time on other classes now.

I notice one of the quests you're struggling with is a Dark anchors quest. Those ones should be done with a group if you're new! Those involve tackling Dark Anchors/Dolmens, which are meant to be done as a group and they are definitely not something I'd recommend trying to solo as a new player. Unfortunately, there's some maps with less traffic so dolmens won't necessarily be a priority for the people and you might not get anyone in map who is running them but it never hurts to ask in zone! A small group can tackle them fairly easily as they won't be scaled up a lot.

Other than that, Nerumar has a pretty good list of tips. I definitely second trying out a magicka nightblade build, as they would use more siphoning skills which will absolutely increase survivability. On top of that, if you run a magicka build, you don't lose much running a restoration staff on your backbar while leveling in open world once you unlock weapon swapping at level 15 which would also open up more skills to help your survivability.

Other than those tips, if you're on PC, there's a lot of nice people who are willing to craft people gear while they're leveling so keep on the lookout if you ever see anyone mentioning that! A lot of people will do it for free while they're leveling up their crafting. If you're on PC NA, I can make you a set of armor personally if you can't find anyone else and probably give you assistance in some quests depending on the time of day.

@UselessReptiles

Oh, I play a DPS nightblade atm! Yeah, they're pretty hard to start out with. They get a lot better as you level up and unlock new skills.

My suggestion for a nightblade playthrough is to make ample use of the stealth mechanic! Basically, if you sneak up behind enemies and remain undetected, you do bonus damage. There's an ability that I use that I'm pretty sure is nightblade specific, which stuns enemies if you hit them from stealth. That plus the invisibility spell which gives you auto-crits after you cast it, and you'll have no problems. >:)

I wish I could remember the names of all the abilities I've found useful! There's one in Siphoning which makes normal light and heavy attacks heal you, which I highly recommend using as soon as you can unlock it.

For multiple enemies, make good use of that invisibility spell, and focus on one enemy at a time. Cast invisibility, get behind one, use the stealth-stun ability I already mentioned, then you can take them out easy while they're stunned. Try not to engage more than three at once, and use your invisibility to escape if you're overwhelmed - you don't have to get too far away before the enemies lose interest.

It's also worth keeping in mind that some parts of ESO are made to be played in a group - like dolmens, for example. You're gonna have a really hard time doing those alone, and that's not gonna change until you reach CP300 or so (I can just barely take them alone). If you find there's something you're really stuck on, lurk around the area until someone else shows up (most people will dive into any ongoing battle for that Sweet Loot, so just start fighting and hope they tag along), or go out and ask for help in chat!

If you want, I can go make a list of the abilities I use so you have an idea of a successful build you could try. ^^

Hm, what else... well, as a nightblade you'll do best leaning into the stealthy/assassin kind of build, so trying to be tanky as well won't work out as great as with other classes. I recommend using medium armour and really just,, sneaking around everywhere, ahah.

I hope this helps! c: