2H advice for VR 14 NB?

tintin_milou · June 2015

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

SeptimusDova · June 2015

Dont sneeze with the blade in front of your face. You will lose your nose.

Xael · June 2015

tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

Brawler/Carve is your AoE as 2h. Unfortunately it is not a 360 degree attack, it is a frontal cone cleave. This and caltrops is your only option unless you have DW on your other bar with Steel Tornado.
IF you are a stam build you should have Rally for your Weapon Damage buff, this is a must. You obviously want your self buffs, Grim Focus morph, Mark, Rally, Evil Hunter, etc. From there decide which skills you want and which weave to use. Which will more than likely be spamming heavy attacks with Wrecking Blow. If you are using a lot of weapon damage gear (ravager etc), this will be hitting hard as hell. Executioner is the other skill.

So for 2h bar it should look something like Wrecking Blow, Piercing Mark, Evil Hunter, Rally, Executioner and Flawless Dawnbreaker. Bar 2, I recommend as DW for AoE. On this bar Steel Tornado, Razor Caltrops (for proccing ravager), Relentless Focus (or Double Take), Siphoning Strikes, last slot you can add Flying Blade or some other Utility. For this ult you can Shooting Star unless your group needs Veil. This build works in everything from DSA to SO. You can tweak to your liking obviously, but make sure you understand weaving and resource management and are fully geared before you begin picking it apart.

4 pc Morag Tong, 2 pc Red Mountain, 5 pc Ravager, your DW weaps are up to you, a few people I know use 2 fang, anything with a good 2pc works. Have everything enchanted for stam, stam reduction on jewelry, all your attributes into Stam, champ points - at least 30 into Mighty under the Ritual (blue), somewhere between 20-30 into Warlord under the Tower (green), if you only have 30-40 points per tree available split your green between Warlord (tower) and Mooncalf (Lover). Red trees are entirely up to you.

Hope this helps.

Johngo0036 · June 2015

@Xael - Good advice,

I would run sap essence or morph with steel tornado,

Xael · June 2015

Johngo0036 wrote: »

@Xael - Good advice,

I would run sap essence or morph with steel tornado,

You already have Rally which gives Major Brutality so it's kinda moot. Unless you just wanna give major sorcery to your group, which probably already have it from one of their abilities like Entropy or Surge.

I really need sleep

you darn late nighters...

cosack_falx · June 2015

I use 5 medium and 2 heavy armors..5 hunding rage, 2 dreught king + neck for the 3 option wich is 175+175 atack, 2 bands of shadow walker and 2 daggs of morag tong + 1 great sword or dreugh king slayer and im nb dunmer ww
for aoe i use dual w and for single target sword...hope it helps

cosack_falx · June 2015

cosack_falx wrote: »

I use 5 medium and 2 heavy armors..5 hunding rage, 2 dreught king + neck for the 3 option wich is 175+175 atack, 2 bands of shadow walker and 2 daggs of morag tong + 1 great sword or dreugh king slayer and im nb dunmer ww
for aoe i use dual w and for single target sword...hope it helps

do you think is worht swich hund with air set of 5 pc for stam recovery?

tintin_milou · June 2015

Xael wrote: »

tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

Brawler/Carve is your AoE as 2h. Unfortunately it is not a 360 degree attack, it is a frontal cone cleave. This and caltrops is your only option unless you have DW on your other bar with Steel Tornado.
IF you are a stam build you should have Rally for your Weapon Damage buff, this is a must. You obviously want your self buffs, Grim Focus morph, Mark, Rally, Evil Hunter, etc. From there decide which skills you want and which weave to use. Which will more than likely be spamming heavy attacks with Wrecking Blow. If you are using a lot of weapon damage gear (ravager etc), this will be hitting hard as hell. Executioner is the other skill.

So for 2h bar it should look something like Wrecking Blow, Piercing Mark, Evil Hunter, Rally, Executioner and Flawless Dawnbreaker. Bar 2, I recommend as DW for AoE. On this bar Steel Tornado, Razor Caltrops (for proccing ravager), Relentless Focus (or Double Take), Siphoning Strikes, last slot you can add Flying Blade or some other Utility. For this ult you can Shooting Star unless your group needs Veil. This build works in everything from DSA to SO. You can tweak to your liking obviously, but make sure you understand weaving and resource management and are fully geared before you begin picking it apart.

4 pc Morag Tong, 2 pc Red Mountain, 5 pc Ravager, your DW weaps are up to you, a few people I know use 2 fang, anything with a good 2pc works. Have everything enchanted for stam, stam reduction on jewelry, all your attributes into Stam, champ points - at least 30 into Mighty under the Ritual (blue), somewhere between 20-30 into Warlord under the Tower (green), if you only have 30-40 points per tree available split your green between Warlord (tower) and Mooncalf (Lover). Red trees are entirely up to you.

Hope this helps.

Wow! Thanks for that lengthy and detailed advice Xael!

Yeah, the single-target bar you suggested looks like a big winner. Too bad 2H doesn't have a true AOE skill, good thing I still have DW to rely on.

Good luck fellow NBs!

Kerioko · June 2015

Use surprise attack instead of wrecking blow.

Surprise attack procs shadow barrier, making you more defense. It applies armor debuff, meaning more damage, and it does not have a cast time.

I have also found a surprise attack rotation to slightly out dps a wrecking blow rotation.

Also, wrecking blow has a tendency to make some melee dps mad in pve when you are fighting mini bosses that are not cc immune. Try keeping up good dps when your target is knocked away every 5 seconds!

Jeckll · June 2015

tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

Many people are wrong

In a serious note, if you plan to get the maximum damage for trials, you should stick to dual wield and bow. If you just want to play along and enjoy 2h, you can obviously play whatever you want to and I guess for Vet Pledge and DSA, you'll be fine. If you seriously want to max out your DPS, I'd have to self-advertise my Nightblade Guide.

DW just gives you more Weapon Damage and Surprise Attack is far superior to Wrecking Blow in terms of DPS plus it gives you awesome defense which enables you to do hardmode trials with way less Nirnhorned Gear. Also without DW, your AoE DPS is screwed. I could go into more details but I basicly wrote every bit of important info in the guide.

Hope that helps.

Kerioko · June 2015

Jeckll wrote: »

Many people are wrong
In a serious note, if you plan to get the maximum damage for trials, you should stick to dual wield and bow. If you just want to play along and enjoy 2h, you can obviously play whatever you want to and I guess for Vet Pledge and DSA, you'll be fine. If you seriously want to max out your DPS, I'd have to self-advertise my Nightblade Guide.

Hope that helps.

Jeckll's guide is awesome and I greatly recommend it. My stam NB is only VR4 in not-so-great gear and I can already pull 10K in dungeons. I tend to run DW/two-handed when on my own, but my two hand bar is just for utility and execute (rally and executioner). I tend to prefer executioner to killer blade for the stam regen on kill! For content where you don't need the self heals and can run pots, definitely run DW and bow.

I have tried his build on my V14 argonian (hence why I now have a new bosmer NB).The poison dot from master bow combined with surprise attacks with around 4K weapon damage is nuts!

tintin_milou · June 2015

Jeckll wrote: »

tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

Many people are wrong
In a serious note, if you plan to get the maximum damage for trials, you should stick to dual wield and bow. If you just want to play along and enjoy 2h, you can obviously play whatever you want to and I guess for Vet Pledge and DSA, you'll be fine. If you seriously want to max out your DPS, I'd have to self-advertise my Nightblade Guide.

DW just gives you more Weapon Damage and Surprise Attack is far superior to Wrecking Blow in terms of DPS plus it gives you awesome defense which enables you to do hardmode trials with way less Nirnhorned Gear. Also without DW, your AoE DPS is screwed. I could go into more details but I basicly wrote every bit of important info in the guide.

Hope that helps.

OK just read your excellent DW/Bow guide! WOW, the trick I learned there is to use "10" skills by swapping weapons frequently! Never thought of that before. Thanks for sharing!

tintin_milou · June 2015

Kerioko wrote: »

Use surprise attack instead of wrecking blow.

Surprise attack procs shadow barrier, making you more defense. It applies armor debuff, meaning more damage, and it does not have a cast time.

I have also found a surprise attack rotation to slightly out dps a wrecking blow rotation.

Also, wrecking blow has a tendency to make some melee dps mad in pve when you are fighting mini bosses that are not cc immune. Try keeping up good dps when your target is knocked away every 5 seconds!

"Major Fracture," the debuff from Surprise Attack, now only procs off Stealth or Invisible attacks. ESO nerfed it sometime ago.

Kerioko · June 2015

tintin_milou wrote: »

"Major Fracture," the debuff from Surprise Attack, now only procs off Stealth or Invisible attacks. ESO nerfed it sometime ago.

Out of stealth is when I usually use it if I am solo or in pvp, so thats when I want the debuff. In raids and dungeons, as a dps, I don't need to apply the armor debuff because our tank is usually running pierce armor. However, if it is up to me to apply debuffs, I still have reaper's mark...so it is fine that the debuff is only out of steath!

Xael · June 2015

tintin_milou wrote: »

Jeckll wrote: »

tintin_milou wrote: »

Hi expert NBs!

I am a VR14 Stamina NB, and grew up with DW and Bow. Recently I decided to level up 2H since many people recommend it. My question is, for trials/vet pledge/DSA what is a good 2H single-target bar and rotation? Also, what is a good 2H AOE bar (though I don't see any true 2H AOE skill)?

Thanks so much for your help!

Many people are wrong
In a serious note, if you plan to get the maximum damage for trials, you should stick to dual wield and bow. If you just want to play along and enjoy 2h, you can obviously play whatever you want to and I guess for Vet Pledge and DSA, you'll be fine. If you seriously want to max out your DPS, I'd have to self-advertise my Nightblade Guide.

DW just gives you more Weapon Damage and Surprise Attack is far superior to Wrecking Blow in terms of DPS plus it gives you awesome defense which enables you to do hardmode trials with way less Nirnhorned Gear. Also without DW, your AoE DPS is screwed. I could go into more details but I basicly wrote every bit of important info in the guide.

Hope that helps.

OK just read your excellent DW/Bow guide! WOW, the trick I learned there is to use "10" skills by swapping weapons frequently! Never thought of that before. Thanks for sharing!

Something you should also consider is it is highly dependent on potion chugging for the weapon damage buff. This will get quite expensive unless they are selling cheap now. I make my own so I dunno.
I gave you a 2h build I used to use with great sucess (as well as others including esomax) because I thought you wanted to be 2h.

Regarding Wrecking Blow, there are intelligent ways to use skills that do not require you to spam one thing or send non cc immune mobs flying away from the group. If you want to be 2h do it, you don't need to be bow/dw. Implying Bow/DW is the only way to pull top or high dps is just false. You can make 2h work, several of us have. That's not to say you can't hit 18-20k with the dw/bow build, so just try them all.

I do highly recommend you keep your bow for encounters you are uncomfortable doing melee in. Having an addon that quick switches your gear and skill bars is good for this.

I personally use variations of dw/bow, or dw/2h. Just experiment with things and find whatever you are most comfortable with. Just remember though, if you want to be competitive dps, you will want Ravager and Caltrops. Both are going to require some Cyrodiil farm.

tintin_milou · June 2015

Yes of course, I will experiment with all three skills DW/Bow/2H to see which combinations work best for me.

High DPS is a goal but simplicity too is important. With so much movement required in boss fights, it would be difficult for me to keep up the timing of complicated rotations.

Thanks everyone (especially X & J) for sharing!

If you see a little Bosmer running around in Cyrodiil towns doing PVE quests, please considering ganking someone else...

SienneYviete · June 2015

Power extraction is a million times better stam based aoe than carve, with stacked weapon damage you get the major brutality buff so you don't need rally and it's a proper aoe not a frontal cone attack like carve.

Lynx7386 · June 2015

SienneYviete wrote: »

Power extraction is a million times better stam based aoe than carve, with stacked weapon damage you get the major brutality buff so you don't need rally and it's a proper aoe not a frontal cone attack like carve.

I would still rotate between the two, power extraction will deal more damage to a larger area but brawler (as opposed to carve) will keep a shield on you. Alternating between the two, i.e. power extraction -> brawler -> power extraction -> brawler, etc. will keep the damage shield up and allow you to survive when the enemies you're fighting arent being tanked.