If you’ve spent hours grinding through Skyrim’s Thieves Guild questline, you’ve definitely gotten your hands on the sleek, shadow-infused Nightingale Blade. It looks cool, has solid base stats, and comes with a sweet life steal enchantment right out of the box. But a lot of players ask, can you improve the Nightingale Blade, or is it stuck at its base power once you pick it up? I’ve tested every possible upgrade path for this weapon across 3 different playthroughs, so I’ve got all the answers you need to get the most out of this iconic blade.
Can You Improve the Nightingale Blade Without Breaking Its Enchantments?
A lot of players assume that unique enchanted weapons like the Nightingale Blade are locked at their base stats, but that’s not true at all. You absolutely can upgrade it, and the process won’t remove its existing enchantments, which is a huge win for anyone who loves its built-in health and stamina drain effects. You must have the Arcane Blacksmith perk unlocked under the Smithing skill tree to get the full upgrade bonus for this weapon, though. A lot of players skip this perk if they’re running a pure stealth or magic build, but it’s 100% worth the 1 extra perk point if you plan to use unique weapons long-term.
The only minor downside of unlocking Arcane Blacksmith is that it requires you to get Smithing to level 60 first, which might feel like a waste if you don’t plan to craft any other gear. But even for pure stealth builds, the boost to the Nightingale Blade is worth the small time investment to level Smithing up a bit. Without Arcane Blacksmith, you can still temper the blade a tiny bit, but you won’t get the full stat boost that makes it viable for late-game play on higher difficulty levels.
Best Materials to Upgrade the Nightingale Blade for Maximum Damage
The Nightingale Blade is classified as a ebony-grade weapon, which means you only use ebony ingots to temper it, no other rare materials like dragon bones or daedra hearts required. That’s a huge plus compared to other endgame weapons that force you to grind high-level bosses just to get a single upgrade. Once you have your ebony ingots and Arcane Blacksmith perk, upgrading the Nightingale Blade is as simple as heading to any blacksmith’s workbench and selecting the temper option.
If you’re early in the game and don’t have easy access to ebony ingots, there are a few reliable spots to farm them without fighting high-level enemies:
- Gloombound Mine, southeast of Windhelm, has 16 ebony ore veins that respawn every 30 in-game days, and you can clear it easily even at level 20 if you sneak past the orc guards
- The Blacksmith in Markarth usually sells 2-3 ebony ingots every time his inventory resets, and he charges far less than wandering Khajiit caravans for the same material
- Killing ebony warriors that spawn randomly in the wilderness after level 30 almost always drops at least one ebony ingot, plus high-value armor you can sell for extra gold
You don’t need any other Smithing perks besides Arcane Blacksmith to get the full upgrade bonus, but higher Smithing skill levels will make the tempering effect stronger. If you boost your Smithing skill to 100 with fortify Smithing potions and enchanted gear, you can get the Nightingale Blade’s base damage up to 78 per hit, which is on par with most unmodded daedric swords. If you don’t want to spend time mining ebony ore, you can also buy ebony ingots from the Khajiit caravans that travel between holds, though they usually charge 2x more than the Markarth blacksmith for each ingot, which can add up if you plan to upgrade the Nightingale Blade multiple times as you level up.
How to Tweak the Nightingale Blade's Enchantments for Your Playstyle
The base Nightingale Blade comes with 10 points of health absorption and 15 points of stamina absorption per hit, which is great for stealth and melee builds, but you can make it even better if you know the right tricks. You can’t disenchant the Nightingale Blade to get its unique enchantment for other weapons, but you can recharge its enchantment faster using soul gems that match the weapon’s level. Common or greater soul gems work just fine for small recharges when you’re fighting low-level enemies, so you don’t have to waste your rare grand soul gems on routine top-ups.
If you’ve unlocked the Extra Effect perk at level 100 Enchanting, you can add two more custom enchantments to the blade without removing the existing effects. Popular options for extra enchantments include frost damage to slow enemies, or fortify sneak to make your stealth attacks even stronger. If you’re playing a build that focuses on spellcasting, you can add a fortify magicka enchantment to the Nightingale Blade to make it do double duty as a utility weapon for close-quarters fights. Just make sure you use grand soul gems for these new enchantments to get the maximum possible effect, because lower-quality soul gems will only give you a weak, barely noticeable bonus.
Playstyle Tricks to Make the Upgraded Nightingale Blade Even Deadlier
Even with max upgrades, the Nightingale Blade works best when paired with build choices that play to its strengths. It’s designed for stealth play, so you’ll get the most out of it if you’re running a thief or assassin build. Pair it with the full Nightingale armor set to get a 25% boost to one-handed weapon damage and 15% extra sneak attack damage. That set bonus stacks with the blade’s enchantments, so you can one-shot most non-boss enemies with a sneak attack even on Legendary difficulty.
If you prefer a more aggressive melee playstyle, combine the blade with the Vampiric Drain spell or the Savage Strike perk under the One-Handed skill tree to double the life steal effect when you land a power attack. You can also use the Slow Time shout to land multiple hits in quick succession, which lets you regen almost all your health and stamina in just a few seconds against large groups of enemies. You don’t have to limit yourself to stealth builds with the upgraded Nightingale Blade either. I’ve used it effectively on a werewolf build, where the stamina drain enchantment lets me land more power attacks before I run out of stamina, even when I’m in werewolf form.
One small tip most players miss: The Nightingale Blade’s enchantment gets stronger as you level up when you first pick it up, so if you grab it at level 40 instead of level 20, its base enchantment will be far more powerful. If you already picked it up at a low level, don’t worry—your upgrades will still make it viable for late game, even if the base enchantment is a bit weaker. If you’re playing on PC, you can also use console commands to adjust the blade’s level to match your current progress, but that’s entirely optional if you want to keep your playthrough vanilla.
At the end of the day, the Nightingale Blade is one of the most versatile unique weapons in Skyrim, and it’s absolutely worth investing time to upgrade it if it fits your playstyle. You don’t need to grind hundreds of hours to make it viable, just a single perk point and a few ebony ingots are enough to turn it into a late-game powerhouse. So the next time someone asks can you improve the Nightingale Blade, you’ll know exactly what steps to take to make it one of the deadliest weapons in your loadout.
