Vampire NB vs DK in Blackwater advice

Yasha · May 2015

Can anyone give me some advice on how to fight DK's as a vampire NB in the BB (non vet) campaign. I find they can pretty much kill me just with talons. If I try and roll out of talons they use it again and I seem to be out of stamina before I can get away.

Dark cloak doesn't seem to remove the snare (or the burning?), so I can't spam that either to get away. If I try and fight them head on in the talons I get enormous burning damage and my heal over time does not keep me up, while if I do manage to dent the DK's health they just heal up with green blood (I am guessing).

I can't get away with mist form either, because the talons roots mist form- it does protect me quite a bit, but I quickly run out of magika and am not doing any damage just sitting there in mist form (mist form breaks if I try to dodge roll out of talons while in mist form).

I am running resto staff and one hand+shield.

Sacadon · May 2015

Have you unlocked the alliance support skill purge? It's cheaper than spamming cloak and this to remove the root then use to immovable or retreating maneuvers with mist to help you escape. Make sure you've CPs in elemental defense but this just buys you time. Make sure you don't feed either, you want to stay in stage 4 for the mitigation. Vamps have higher regen, so you may have a cost reduction problem too. Just rambling lots of things since I don't know much about your armor and stats.

Offense is even more dependent upon your build and style. I used to use reverberating bash and Duroc's for debuff, then burst dps.

kijima · May 2015

Y U NO PHEER!

I've always been an NB, now I'm rolling a few DK's in Blackwater. Honestly, as a DK I find NB's fear hard to deal with being on the receiving end of it, that and shades. Not a fan of being on the pointy end of suprize attack either.

Yasha · May 2015

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah I sometimes use fear and that helps get away if the DK is slow on the cc break, but I don't slot that all the time. I don't use surprise attack.

Purge is actually nearly twice the cost of dark cloak (although if it removes roots that would be a plus); mist form upgrade already gives the speed boost and I am not sure if immovable makes you immune to roots- but that is worth a try- or maybe the medium armor active shuffle is the way to go.

The problem is against any good DK I break talons and then mist or dark cloak but they just talons again as soon as I roll out and I am stuck. If only I could duel some friends it would be so much easier to work this out.

Sacadon · May 2015

Yasha wrote: »

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah I sometimes use fear and that helps get away if the DK is slow on the cc break, but I don't slot that all the time. I don't use surprise attack.

Purge is actually nearly twice the cost of dark cloak (although if it removes roots that would be a plus); mist form upgrade already gives the speed boost and I am not sure if immovable makes you immune to roots- but that is worth a try- or maybe the medium armor active shuffle is the way to go.

The problem is against any good DK I break talons and then mist or dark cloak but they just talons again as soon as I roll out and I am stuck. If only I could duel some friends it would be so much easier to work this out.

interesting on purge, I must have a cost reduction that I forgot about.

technohic · May 2015

Sacadon wrote: »

Yasha wrote: »

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah I sometimes use fear and that helps get away if the DK is slow on the cc break, but I don't slot that all the time. I don't use surprise attack.

Purge is actually nearly twice the cost of dark cloak (although if it removes roots that would be a plus); mist form upgrade already gives the speed boost and I am not sure if immovable makes you immune to roots- but that is worth a try- or maybe the medium armor active shuffle is the way to go.

The problem is against any good DK I break talons and then mist or dark cloak but they just talons again as soon as I roll out and I am stuck. If only I could duel some friends it would be so much easier to work this out.

interesting on purge, I must have a cost reduction that I forgot about.

He's looking at just the base purge. You probably have the efficient purge morph which is cheaper than cloak by a little.

SturgeHammer · May 2015

kijima wrote: »

Y U NO PHEER!

I've always been an NB, now I'm rolling a few DK's in Blackwater. Honestly, as a DK I find NB's fear hard to deal with being on the receiving end of it, that and shades. Not a fan of being on the pointy end of suprize attack either.

This is pretty solid advice, in BWB as an NB fear is you best weapon against DKs because it enables your burst or gives you a valuable second or two to escape. Double take is also a great skill for getting out of bad situations as it will let you put some distance between you and the DK after rolling out of talons.

Alternatively a resto + 1h shield vamp NBs can be extremely tanky in BWB, I like the following set up:

Use a few Shadow abilities like cloak and fear to increase your max health passively.

Rapid Regen and swallow soul for heals. Absorb magic morph of defensive posture is a great heal for BWB too and reduces block cost. Healing ward is also good.

Impale, concealed weapon and ult (swarm or soul tether) for damage.

Use drinks for for resource management, you can also use siphon strikes for this but it hurts your damage.

Armor sets like whitestrakes and death's wind can give you additional survivability, and can be gotten cheaply.

Magicka Cost reduction on jewelry, the reward for the worthy rings are fine for this on a budget.

Get some cheap pots, really anything that increases a regen rate because anything is better than no pots.

Combine all these and you will be extremely hard to kill. When you do fight a DK with this build you have to keep them constantly Breaking your cc to drain their stam. The 1v1 against a DK will end one of two ways: You drain their resources pools and go in for the kill, or you die after your hands get exhausted 15 minutes into the fight. Hopefully this info helps.

Edit: I seen this style of NB done in heavy or light armors, so either or both would work.