As a stam Nightblade you need to focus on avoiding the damage in the first place. mark target and killers blade will heal you on enemy death, but they are not so good in boss fights without adds. If you mark a target and kill it when you need the hp, you can sustain very well. I also recommend blur to avoid damage. It won't mitigate everything, but you will be grateful when it does.

Rally is your only good option as stamina until you get Vigor from PvP. One of the morphs for the first DW skill leaches from the DoT, but it's lackluster. Funnel Health won't do much on a stam build. I switched to magicka for leveling for that exact reason. Funnel Health spam hits as hard as Force Pulse and costs less than my mp regen, and you trade the elemental effects for healing. Funnel Health + Mutagen + Healing Ward + Sap Essence for large packs has let me solo every public dungeon, world boss, and dolmen so far up to VR3. Swapping out Retreating Maneuvers for Healing Springs lets me heal in instances as well (I use Retreating Maneuvers + Concealed Weapon + Dark Cloak on my back bar when leveling to permanently invis and move at 165% move speed...looks like speed hacking, honestly, and my mp regen out of combat is faster than cloaking every couple seconds). I just invis past everything, assassinate target/boss, turn in quest, all moving at super speed. I plan on going stamina again at max level, but magicka is just sooooo much more effective for leveling and soloing in general.

mcurley wrote: »

Reaper's Mark and Killer's Blade are pretty decent ways to heal yourself by killing enemies. Killer's Blade kills will also give you a some magicka back via the Executioner passive.

Yes, these are good for trash mobs, but won't help you against a world boss. Since they require you to kill something, they do nothing on a boss that isn't dying yet. Executioner is also a better finisher than Killer's Blade since it starts scaling sooner and gives you a damage boost on everything when they're at low health. For PvE I'd use Reaper's Mark + Executioner over Killer's Blade since it's already a 60% heal on kill. You're still going to have trouble with bosses no matter what you do as a stamina build NB unless you have enough stam regen and cost reduction to perma-dodge roll just about everything while spamming Venom Arrow to interrupt casters.

mcurley wrote: »

Power Extraction would be pretty helpful for fighting groups.

Only Sap Essence has the heal attached, and it's the magicka morph. It also has a high cost. You'll be out of magicka extremely fast on a stamina build, plus it will do low damage and barely any healing on a stamina build.

mcurley wrote: »

Don't forget about skills that help you avoid damage all together too. Mirage is a sweet little buff that could prove helpful if you're taking lots of hits. You can use the Medium Armor version if you are worried about the magicka costs as a stamina user.

20% dodge would be nice if it really meant an average 20% damage reduction overall, but it seems some things can't be dodged, so it ends up being less than that in practice. It's not a bad idea, but to me it has never been worth using up a slot for it. I'd rather use Mass Hysteria as a magicka-based skill to avoid lots of damage, but you won't be able to use it as often with a stam build, and it won't work on most bosses.

mcurley wrote: »

Switching to 2H will give you Rally which is also a solid heal on top of the bonus damage it gives.

I wouldn't suggest switching to a Restoration Staff since you are focusing on stamina.

Agreed on both of these. I tried resto on my back bar while using a 2h stamina build and Rapid Regen was lower than Rally and Healing Ward even at extremely low health capped at around 2500 when i was at 10k health so it wasn't really worth it.

Thanks, folks, for all the suggestions. I will certainly be doing some experimental playing with some of the ideas put forth in this thread.