nesakinter wrote: »

nsmurfer wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I am actually genuine worried that some one might see this build and think that NB is OP or something and use this build as an "ammo" for a nerf NB agenda campaign. Call me paranoid, but I am simply sick of nerfs at this point...

That is exactly what's going to happen. He claims stamblades are in a great position while 99% stamblades are no threat. The class got nerfed to be a shadow of its older self and can't fight back against magplars or any of the other stamina classes. Sure, one or two guys with cheesy toxic builds might be able to dominate but that does not to give them any right to speak about the vast majority of the people using normal builds there were good before nerfs.

Some people just do not understand the difference between good builds and downright cheesy toxic builds. They call themselves 1vXers and believe killing bad players makes them good. The style of play he shows only works against noobs and any decent opponent will counter any form of escape a NB has.

I don't understand some people like to bash others who are trying to share something good. Maybe the reason your stamblade is weak is because you don't adapt and are using an old build that you probably copied from someone else without even bothering to understand how it works.

Toxic cheesy build? Dude, this is clean as it gets with zero damage procs and pure stat based damage in a short window that takes skill to use. Anything unique is probably toxic to you.

If you believe that an NB can only beat noobs, then you should check the video before commenting. There were some great PvPers who are themselves 1vXers get killed. @Dottzgaming Emasculate ,Rage ,Dark Shady, Chapopk, Synozeer, Chief engineer are some I could recognize. Probably missed several others I couldn't recognize as he uses Character name instead of username.

And if you really think an NB can't escape from decent opponents, I suggest you read his post about Shadow Image where he goes in detail about it. In the gameplay, there was several parts where he jumped in the middle of a zerg to kill a few players and teleported away. In fact, the good amount of the video was him attacking organized groups, getting a few kills and getting away only to come back after he regains ulti. In the upper IC section, there was a part where he attacked Pelican's group head on, consisting of Pelican, lyser, Jordaen, markel, Thogai ( @Thogard ?) and possibly some others. though he could not commit long enough to kill, he escaped easily even though he did not have a Shade before attacking. They are easily some of the best PvPers in the game, so don't come with the BS that NBs cant escape from decent players.

nsmurfer wrote: »

The reason this game is in such a sad state is balancing around the minority of the people. If 1% of all stamnbs can escape or can beat other classes that does not make Nightblades good at escaping or solo combat. Also everybody knows "1vxers" don't fight each other.

Emma_Overload wrote: »

I love that this video shows Imperial City footage! You don't see that very often here on the forums for some reason.

I actually show up in this video for half a second at 14:45. I come up from behind you wearing Imperial Physique, and it looks like I just threw a Curse at you... then the video cuts to somewhere else. I wonder what happened next?

Sandnessen wrote: »

Very interesting build! I'll be taking a swing at this setup, and probably only tweek it a little to fit my playstyle.

I've tried to locate your unbuffed WP. Did I miss it somewhere along the writeup?

Thanks for sharing this!

nublife01 wrote: »

@susmitds dude you're clipping yourself killing noobs with an aoe gank build meant for just them. Like your clips prove very little. If you actually 1vx'd good players you'd surely die or at least come nowhere close to killing them and your build doesn't do enough damage to kill through the healing of a heavy fury/nma dk or anything like it for that matter. But knowing zos they're probably going to think that nightblade is still broken or something and just nerf us harder. You clearly must be a brilliant individual goodjob.

Oldaraness wrote: »

@susmitds
Wow I love this build! Your numbers are awesome but I can't reach all of these...

I've tryed to follow your build but...
if I get decent WD (5k without continuos attack and don't reach 7k as you wrote here) I haven't the right Stamina rec.
If I have good WD and SR don't get the right penetration...
However I can't get your max numbers in any skill...

How can you reach these numbers? My main is a Khajit, vampire, with the right sets... the only one thing I don't have is Master Bow but I don't think it is the reason I can get high numbers...
Can you help me to understand where I get wrong?

Sorry for my bad English ^^

susmitds wrote: »

IRON(Defense Explanation and Guide)

This build has some ridiculous self-healing due to the high Weapon Damage and Critical Healing Modifier with Vigor and Rally that can both go over 25k tooltip as your Weapon Damage rises and critical heals are huge, which we can guarantee for a short period with Acuity. The high magicka sustain of this build gives a lot of freedom to fully use the evasion combo of Shadowy Disguise+Shadow Image+Race over Time combined with dodge. Having the choice of fighting at range can help minimize risk. Having two different sources of Major Expedition results in very high uptime of buffs as we use bow dodge defensively and RAT usually offensively(for the Minor Force when we are not snared), resulting in consistently high mobility. There is just enough mitigation in the builds via resists, crit resists, Undeath, Relentless Focus, etc to survive a burst and slip away when in execute range. These things combined gives the build huge battle resetting power to survive as long as you keep an eye on resources. Below are some ways to effectively survive in combat.

Evasion of Damage - This is the primary way to survive. With proper usage of Cloak(i.e. Shadowy Disguise) and dodge roll, single-target abilities will be a non-issue. Use the Shadow Image teleport constantly to misdirect the enemy and make it harder to aim AoEs, especially conal cones on you as well as pull you out of AoE spammables or ultis like Permafrost.

Mitigation - So even if we have perfect evasion skills, we will still take damage all the time, which we need to limit. As long we keep Major Ward up with Shadow Abilities(which should not be an issue as we use Cloak/Shade a lot) and Minor Maim from Shadow Image, we have enough health and mitigation to survive long enough to break out of enemies' combos.

Breaking Out of An Enemy Combo - Once a NB gets caught in someone's offensive combo, often the results are that they get burst down fast or they get locked in a healing, cloaking spiral, while their resources get burnt and they die a slow death. Only way to survive is to break out of the offensive combo. If the enemy is using purely single-target abilities and has no Cloak counter, we can easily break out with Cloak and dodge. However in many engagements, you will get CCed, hit with heavy burst, get multiple debuffs and DoTs on you and get AoE spammed to death. In fact, this is how most templars, wardens, necros and DKs operate. The way to survive is to drop a Shadow Image just when you expect the combo to come, dodge away from it. When the actual combo hits you, break free, use Rally or Vigor and block cast Teleport to Shade. This will pull you out of trouble majority of the times. Even if you fail to get the Shadow Image down before the CC hits you, you can break free and try to do it right. (Some examples in the video, here, here, here)

Self-Healing - Keeping up Vigor like a shield of sorts gives you a pretty good effective defense thanks to the build's high weapon damage. Rally, even when "charged" for a few seconds has enough healing capabilities to sufficiently burst heal you out of execute ranges, especially when it crits. The self-healing of this build is ridiculously high.

Kiting/Maneuvering with Shadow Image - Shadow Image opens up worlds of possibilities as far as kiting is concerned and to be honest, it will require its own guide to showcase what Shadow Image can pull off like the previous Shading out of enemy combos application. Some possible applications are pre-placing for planned escape(here),circular kiting/outranging to force a reset(here), outmaneuvering to escape(here,here), vertical LoSing(here,here) or even taking a delayed burst like Meteor in a safe place to waste enemy ulti(here). There are many more applications and I have shown some others in the gameplay, but to be fair it is such a great skill that it requires its own video to show what it can do.

Movement and Jumping - Constant movement and jumping makes you very hard to target and hit without even dodging due to mobility as well as the engine's limitations. One particular movement that is very effective in melee range fights especially for this build(and other builds as well), is constantly tap forward and backward keys in a motion while you move in to attack in such a way that you move in to hit your light attack on 2H bar at it's maximum distance, move back around 1-2 meters while casting your spammable or whatever and move in again for the next light attack+spammable hit. You may need to adjust to enemies' movements and elevations and repeat this every 1sec cycle. This will make it harder for enemies to hit you with melee skills, cast timed ultimates without CCs and also certain skills like Frags will straight up disappear at times. I constantly do this so much that it is second nature to me, which you can see if you closely in the gameplay. Jumping makes it harder to target you with ranged abilities and can help your skills targeting in certain situations. Between the in-out movement while melee-range attacking and jumping while retreating, you can avoid a significant amount damage especially when fighting inexperienced enemies.

Block-casting and Dodge-cancelling - When you are trying to burst down an enemy or are trying to finish off a vulnerable target, but are yourself at the risk of getting caught in a counter-attack, a safe option is to dodge-cancel your combo and get outside immediate melee range and blockcast your skills from range(every offensive skill in this build is ranged). We have so much damage that our spammable hits above 10k regularly and light attacks are a rather small part of our damage. So by skipping LAs out for block, we get enough mitigation to buy us time to finish off the target.

The Uno Reverse Card - When getting totally overwhelmed by burst, our biggest ace is believe-it-or-not Ballista. Not only does it have a huge tooltip in this build, meaning the huge surge of incoming damage will force the attacker to back off or die(even without Hawk Eye and max Balorgh, it is well over 100k), it will immediately give you at least 1300 weapon damage by proccing Infused Berserker+Balorgh which immediately give a massive boost self-heals. Additionally the dodge bolts of Ballista are direct damage that hits four times per second and hence will proc Acuity, making your heals crit, giving you ridiculous healing power. Now you can easily use this chance to turn the fight in your favor and go full out in offense while block-casting. Or you can use this window to get away or relocate to a more advantageous spot.

Defend with Offense - Sometimes the only way to survive is to kill the target before they kill you. Fortunately we pack so much damage, we are well equipped to do just that. In a head-on smash, if both our target and we go all out on each other, as long we have a bow proc and Ballista available, almost always we will end up as the one standing. More details on this later on.

Defending with CC - With Manifestation of Terror, you can put traps of the ground pre-emptively if you are being chased. Almost always, one of the two traps will CC the chaser. You can also use to hold your ground and camp the traps. You can put traps on the Shadow Image to secure your teleport exit. You can also use Magnum Shot defensively by spamming it on whoever is trying to open on you and break off their combo. Turn Evil is a bit trickier to use on mobile enemies but when used defensively in melee range, it is hard to avoid.

Escape Combat - If nothing goes right for you, you can always use Shade and Cloak to escape and slip back into stealth fast with Dark Stalker passive. Usually this will also drop you out of combat, letting you change skills to get the perfect setup for that counter.

CANNON(Offense Guide)

This build's primary strength is the crazy amount of damage, it can push. Unlike a gank setup, which packs every bit of damage into the opening shot, this build maintains its burst over 5 seconds, can push damage for around 10 seconds and you can get that back in another 10 secs. This means, unlike gank builds, that is a goner if their initial burst fails, you can go on and on with your burst. But the method of burst in this build involves multiple set procs, buffs, enchants, poisons, Bow proc and ultimate, which means it requires precisely lining up everything up for that one perfect window where you use the perfect combo for that situation to utterly destroy your target. Below I describe the combos used by this build and offensive setup in detail.

Mechanical Acuity - This is the set that is the primary enabler of this build. It is easily the strongest damage set in the game to choose as the second damage set, as crit works multiplicatively, meaning the higher your damage outside Acuity, the more will it be amplified by Acuity. EWP of this build is around 22k without Acuity proc, which is in itself a very respectable EWP for a build. That means Mechanical Acuity is providing over 8k EWP for its 5 sec window for this build, which is a lot higher than any set in the game(For comparison, Balorgh at 500 ultimate gives only 3.3k EWP and that's the second highest damage stat proc in the game after Acuity). This means, if you can't properly line a damage combo in the Acuity window, you won't be able to make any real use of this build. It is very easy to control the proccing of Acuity and once you get a hang of it, you should be able to almost proc it at will. Many times though, you will have scenarios where the Acuity will accidentally proc before the Ultimate recharges or before you can build up the Bow proc. In these situations, it is better to wait off till the next proc. Also the Acuity proc time is part of its cooldown, so for the next proc, you will need to wait just 13 seconds after your last proc, not the entire 18 seconds. You can track it with the Acuity addon in PC.

Understanding the offense of the build - We have a high number of every damage stat in the game, be it Penetration, Weapon Damage or Crit Damage. As such, we such we are well equiped to counter all kinds of defense. That means, apart from pure troll tanks, we should be able to kill everybody with some combo or the other. If someone countering one of our combos, they should be vulnerable to some other combo. The range is a substantial advantage of this build. That means, we don't need to wait to gap close before bursting a target and we can move in while bursting, making it possible to work with smaller burst windows if necessary. Also the ranged nature means that target will have a hard time escaping with sheer mobility and we don't have to deal with attacks whiffing if target keeps moving out of range mid-combo and our attacks will go straight homing towards them.

Damage Combos

All these combos assume that you have a bow proc ready at least by the time it is used and the required ultimate available.

Primary Ranged/Melee Damage Combo - LA+Poison Injection->LA+Ballista->LA+Magnum Shot->Bow Proc->Silver Shard spam.
You will want to get as many bow LAs as possible upto 5 to gain Hawk Eye stacks before bar-swapping to 2H bar, when performing this combo, which will max out the Ballista damage. The LAs will also help gain Relentless Focus stacks and proc Acuity before the combo. Also, keep note that Ballista is direct damage and hits four times per seconds, so if the LAs does not proc Acuity, unless you are very unlucky that time, Ballista will proc Acuity. This is our general combo, when we need someone dead asap and it is the hardest hitting of all combos. When used ranged, only thing you miss is the 2H LA during Silver Shard spam, which means you won't get to proc poisons/enchants but even then, the damage is very high. A good way to use it is to start it when in range and move in for the kill during the Silver Shard spam phase. If you have Manifestation of Terror as your CC, then time your Ballista just before the enemy is about to enter or start Ballista and pull them in the trap. The bow proc is not needed against any build that is not very tanky.
Pros: Hits super hard if you can use the Magnum Shot knockback to force the enemy to eat the burst from Ballista and bow proc. Continues high burst for 5 secs.
Cons: Costly for a single-target combo.
Good against: Everything except Stamden, Wings using MagDK and Magden. Almost always a guaranteed kill against even the best MagSorcs and Magblades.
Bad against: Wings and other anti-ranged setups. You can still use it against such builds, if you time it at the tail end of anti-ranged skills.

Incapacitating Strike Kill Combo - Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->LA+Magnum Shot/Turn Evil->LA+Incap Strike->LA+Bow Proc->LA+Silver Shard spam(used if you don't want the Silence or if you need the knockback to guarantee the hit). Or Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->Medium Attack+Incap Strike->LA+Bow Proc->LA+Silver Shard spam(Medium Attack hides part of the spinning animation of Incap Strike). Or Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->Shadowy Disguise->Incap Strike->LA+Bow Proc->LA+Silver Shard spam(Better with the 120 ultimate version when you want to use the element of surprise to two shot the enemy and probably the best combo against other stamblades).
This is the standard NB combo, which now needs you to use either a knockback or Cloak or medium weave to land Incap Strike. The 70 ulti version is great for cheap burst. 120 ulti Silence is good in certain scenarios but you avoid it by using another CC before using Incap. The bow proc is not needed against squishies.
Pros: A fast, cheap and effective combo that is recharged almost after every kill, making it great for solo 1vX.
Cons: A long bloated animation and cast time, making it unreliable against experienced players.
Good against: Anything not very tanky.
Bad against: Very tanky targets.

AoE Combo - Shadowy Disguise->Dawnbreaker of Smiting->LA+Silver Shard spam. Or LA+Poison Injection->Dawnbreaker of Smiting->LA+Silver Shard spam. Great against groups, where you can jump in, drop the combo, kill a few people and walk away. If you hit multiple people, DBoS also procs Acuity itself most of the time. Can be used in single-target as well, if you mix in a bow proc.
Pros: Can kill multiple people at once in a single swipe.
Cons: The cast time is so bad that the skill misses a lot against moving targets and often straight up dissappears. Only around 75% of the time, does it hit.
Good against: Cluster of two-five targets. Vampires+Werewolves.
Bad against: Single tanky target.

Onslaught Damage Combo - Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->LA+Magnum Shot/Turn Evil->LA+Onslaught->LA+Bow Proc->LA+Silver Shard spam. Or Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->Shadowy Disguise->Onslaught->LA+Bow Proc->LA+Silver Shard spam. Or Stealth->Onslaught->Silver Shard spam(against ultra-closely packed zergs).
This is the combo that we use when everything else fails. The problem solver combo. We have 100% crit, 100% penetration, 8k+ weapon damage to deal the biggest burst and try to finish the fight.
Pros: Great against anything Ballista or DBoS can't solve. Has higher burst than the Incap combo. Can stun out of stealth(not invisibility)
Cons: Vast majority of the time, Ballista is better for the cost.
Good against: MagDKs, Stamden, Stamcro, Magden. Stacked zergs of five+ targets in a small spot.
Bad against: Mobile targets.

Basic Combo without Ultimate - Heavy Attack+Poison Injection->LA+Magnum Shot->LA+Silver Shard spam->Bow proc when available. I am surprised at the number of people that die to this.

Creating a Offense Window - No matter how hard you hit, it is useless if you can't make it hit. There are various ways to open an offensive window. In my opinion, easiest is to kite and finish them with a hard hitting combo while they are closing on you. Against someone that dodges, cloaks or turtles up a lot, best option is to not attack at all apart from LAs to build up the bow proc and wait till they start their offense combo. As soon as they start attacking you, bait out their ultimate and immediately counter-attack with the biggest combo you have while block-casting if necessary. They are less likely to go defensive and will probably attempt to finish you before they die, which is a fatal mistake against this build.

Miscellaneous

Potion Usage - Use tri-pots for general potion usage in combat. Use immovable pots before doing something risky or if you need to assure your offense combo is not interrupted. Spam trash stamina pots outside combat to keep building ultimate. Use invisibility during escape in bad situations where you need to conserve magicka to spam RAT.

Stamina Sustaining - This is this build's one primary pita. Many successful open world rollerblades have at least 2500 Stamina Recovery unbuffed and buffs takes to 3k+, which lets them use dodge without worrying about running about. I consider 2500 Stamina Recovery buffed or stamina proc sets like Shadow Walker or Trapping Invigoration for lesser Stamina Recovery standard practice for my rollerblade builds. This build is also a rollerblade but has around 2050 Stamina Recovery only self-buffed without Continuous Attack, which means you will need to be more careful with your dodges. You will find yourself fighting with low stamina bars a lot and will need to conserve stamina by picking out perfect attack windows than constantly attacking. However, this build has great magicka sustain which covers up a lot of stamina issues. When you really need stamina, use Shadowy Disguise and heavy attack to regain a chunk of stamina.

How do I deal with X class?

Magsorc - Play around LOS and burst them with Ballista combo.
Stamsorc - Setup from range and burst them with Ballista combo or Onslaught. Shade away when they closein.
MagDK - Play at range as much you can and burst them from range with Ballista combo if they don't use Wings or use Onslaught combo and back off after the ultimate and blockcast the rest from range.
StamDK - Bait out the leap and burst them with Ballista combo.
Magplar - Get away from Jabs with Shade and burst them with Ballista combo.
Stamplar - Get away from Jabs with Shade and burst them with Ballista combo.
Magblade - Play around LOS and burst them with Ballista combo.
Stamblade - Get them to waste their resources, then burst them with Ballista combo. If that fails, Incap Silence them from Cloak to disable their Cloak and finish them with the Bow Proc.
Magden - Not really a threat if you don't get caught in Deep Fissure+Vamp Drain+Meteor/Northern Storm combo. Burst them with Ballista combo or Onslaught.
Stamden - Not much of a threat if you don't get caught in their Shalks+Ult+execute combo. Burst them with Onslaught combo. Or finish them when they are going on the offense with Ballista combo. Worst case scenario, you can't kill them but they can't kill you.
Magcro - Manifestation of Terror will make sure their burst never reaches you. Burst them at your leisure.
Stamcro - Manifestation of Terror will make sure their burst never reaches you. They can be very tanky so try to bait them into attacking you before the Ballista combo.

Changing Skills Fast in Combat according to the situation
Use Cloak and Dark Stalker to get into stealth and you should leave combat fast enough to change skills. If you are on PC, you can use addons like Alpha Gear to queue skill changes even while in combat that will automatically change them the moment you leave combat even it is like for a few seconds, which happens a lot when you go in stealth.

Alternate Gear Setup
I occasionally use an alternate gear setup when I don't want to really to rely on ultimate use for Weapon Damage, like when I am tower farming. I change one piece of Balorgh for one piece of Kena and keep one extra set of Acuity with Stamina enchants instead of Prismatic and use maximum FG skills on front bar to make the damage loss mostly. This is purely for when I am farming pugs and I don't need crazy stats and I don't need to wait for ultimates for every kill. You can use the previous trick to swap gear fast in combat with Dressing Room/Alpha Gear if you want to go on a tower farm. The normal gear is just as good but this way my non-ultimate combo hits harder.

How effective is this build against enemies with super high Critical Resistance?
Even on a build with 5k crit resists, this build deals more damage than other builds featured in the comparison. Any balanced build with high Critical Resistance, will have lower resists instead and we have high penetration and Weapon Damage as well. Also, it will take 7400 Crit Resists to fully nullify the critical damage of this build, which can't reached in normal conditions if at all possible.

Is this build effective in BGs?
Yes, but depends on the exact composition of your teammates and opponents. If the opponents get spread up or are not countering stealth, it is a full buffet. But if they are countering stealth and stick together, you will need to have tanky teammates for bodyshield and distraction. It is generally a good idea to start BGs with 500 ultimate and DBoS and drop it first time the other two teams clash, getting multiple kills early. Later change to Incap, if enemies spread up. Otherwise stick to DBoS. This build can do tons of damage and a lot of ranged kill-stealing provided your teammates keep attention off you.