VR12 character keeps being annihilated in groups or by bosses.

Swindy · August 2015

Ok,
Essay here...sorry.

Played every Elder Scrolls incarnation, as I'm nearly 50 years old...retired early & I'm an utter ES addict. I play 12-17 hours a day, every day.
Long time lurker here, but I can't find the advice I need so I'll just ask and perhaps someone can point me to information/assistance.
I've watched many tutorials posted mostly by Mage characters, or groups.
Tried ordering a gaming manual but it never arrived here in Australia.

Got my Imperial Nightblade to VR12 so far & imho he sucks. (Thinking the Imperial was a mistake as you'll see.)
Maxed every skill (and about 2/3 of their sub-abilities) except bow @ 47, ledger man @ 9, undaunted @ 2, enchanting @ 48, restoration staffs are @ 1, destruction staffs @ 10.
Werewolf (only from VR10) so still maxing those sub-attributes...it'll take another few days.
Yes I've spent a lot on respefication in the crown store. (Hey they put it there to be used.)
Champion Points are blade expert 20, elemental defender 20, mooncalf 20.

I have only played Pve so far, & have no "groups" or friends as I always adventure solo since because I'm an old man playing computer games lol.

Issue is when I'm against a group (Bosses, Anchors, Skull groups etc) or now some single gold line and most dual gold line, no combination I put together of armour/weapons/skills, base attributes & associated fighting techniques (crown store spending where necessary) makes me anywhere near as useful in these fights as other peoples magic using characters I encounter...or the very occasional dual, two handed, or sword with shield character.

I also notice that most Dragonstar arena champs (yes I know it's a group thing to get there so I can't) I see are magic based, one was dual sword female, two other guys who were VR14 had killed all the named minions of Bal and used a shield and sword.
Obviously I suck badly in Craglorn also.
I've solo closed almost very anchor I've found so far (in Reapers now after starting in the Pact) but I do it usually by dying a lot, using soul gems and armour repair packs, and repeating until I find a way to destroy the last dude.
Skull groups are mostly beyond me solo (thank God for other gamers generosity in joining combat lol).

I live longer as a sword & shield heavy armour tank, duh, but can not build significant damage into that, and magic still obliterates me.
I'm a great assassin with dual & medium, however, protracted encounters see me dying easily as the stamina &/or stealth runs low and they strike back (hard), or cast something. (Soul cage, ice cage, & hurricane are banes of my existence.)
Two handed & heavy stuns well but again magic, & lag time between power strikes, cripples me.

I prefer an assassin type (should've built a cat I now know), as I built the character in anticipation of the Dark Brotherhood & thieves guilds, but then my natural instinct thereafter is to fight (& often lose) more like a tank...that's what over 30 years of role playing adventure games does to your gaming psyche I guess.

My point is this was built as a solo game replacement, and I'm watching others with (usually) lower level characters than mine clean house in situations I can not.
So to save me deleting a VR12 NB and building a High Elf Mage from scratch, can I gather, source, beg, borrow, or steal information to explain how not to suck so badly in ESO?
I'm usually a smart man & a very experienced gamer, but I'm honest enough that I'm missing something here.
The gaming enjoyment is waining at every annihilation I suffer.

Thanks for reading my essay.
Any and all assistance/direction would be greatly appreciated.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Swindy wrote: »

Played every Elder Scrolls incarnation, as I'm nearly 50 years old...

I have only played Pve so far, & have no "groups" or friends as I always adventure solo since because I'm an old man playing computer games lol.

I find that there are a lot of players around your age or even higher. I'm 44 myself but in MMO's it doesn't really matter. I have been playing with people a lot younger than me and a lot older than me (one of our guild members is in his 60's) and age (imo) is never an issue.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Oh, by the way I have an Imperial Nightblade stamina build at V14.

Few questions:

What gear (armor/weapons) do you use?

What's your skill rotation?

Swindy · August 2015

The Uninvited wrote: »

Oh, by the way I have an Imperial Nightblade stamina build at V14.

Few questions:

What gear (armor/weapons) do you use?

What's your skill rotation?

I've tried all different combinations of skills & armour & weapons.
It seems I die the least easily in heavy with two handed...but I suceed in lesser opponent fights with dual & medium for a more efficient finish.
Always use 5 items Hundings, and four Ashen in dual, or 4 & 4 in two handed...trying to maximise critical chance.
Also have thief and either mundus or enchantment effect build perks (don't have all mundus available in any set so far).
Having said that I'll change to any spec to win more whilst dieing less often lol.

I enchant all armour fully stamina, and play fully health spec'd, then eat health food before combat.
This enables the Werewolf to do his best work.
I eat stamina pre fight in dual mode to have enough to finish using rapid strikes /ambush, and always have evil hunter, reapers mark, & relentless focus to maximise critical & stamina regen.
I replace relentless with malefic wreath on occassions to freeze one group member a while.

Nice to know I'm not the eldest for a change on these games.
Thanks.

jebuspowers · August 2015

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/202926/blood-knight-my-nightblade-tank/p1

Or you can look in combat and character mechanics for blood knight. I was VR2 when I tanked Dragon star and the only time I die is when the healer dies and I'm getting dropped by a ton of trash or bosses. Mostly, gear and build are half of the battle, but mechanics is the other half. On trash, just tank and spank. On bosses, do whatever is necessary. Check out the post and replies, tons of good information.

The Uninvited · August 2015

You are at least wearing the right sets, but try and keep the 5 Hundings at all times (weapon damage is your friend).

Once you reach 50% critical it should be enough, no need to get over that percentage as it won't make much of a difference.

As for skills, I use the following: Ambush, Surprise Attack (your main dps skill), Steel Tornado (this is the highest damage aoe in the game at the moment).

Use something like Swallow Soul skill and an Ultimate like Soul Tether or Veil of Blades to survive the hard fights (nightblades don't have real self healing skills, but these help).

As for attributes, I have about 65% in stamina and 35% in health. This way, I am over 20k stamina and about 18k health at V14.

I am doing more damage with this than on my High Elf dragonknight in regular pve (though I haven't checked that in trials yet).

On the other hand, the whole setup around Nightblades is that we do very high damage but have lower survivabilty. It's more of a "kill them before they kill you" class, so that makes it a bit more difficult to play.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Oh, @jebuspowers build seems like a good one if you're looking for a tank build so check that out if you want to go that way.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Also, for champion points these are more effective than Blade Expert:

Mighty Increases your physical damage by (0-25%)
Precise Strikes Increases the critical damage of your physical attacks by (0-25%)
Piercing Increases the amount of armor your physical attacks ignore by (0-25%)

jebuspowers · August 2015

The build is pretty legit for taking. I have only made minor changes to it since I wrote it which I posted later.

The Uninvited · August 2015

jebuspowers wrote: »

The build is pretty legit for taking. I have only made minor changes to it since I wrote it which I posted later.

I know, I bookmarked it a while ago for when I feel like taking my nightblade out for tanking.

jebuspowers · August 2015

Oh cool.

jebuspowers · August 2015

If you are wanting to dps, but still having trouble staying alive is to use 2h weapons I think. That skill line seems to be designed as an alternate weapon for tanks

Swindy · August 2015

jebuspowers wrote: »

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/202926/blood-knight-my-nightblade-tank/p1

Or you can look in combat and character mechanics for blood knight. I was VR2 when I tanked Dragon star and the only time I die is when the healer dies and I'm getting dropped by a ton of trash or bosses. Mostly, gear and build are half of the battle, but mechanics is the other half. On trash, just tank and spank. On bosses, do whatever is necessary. Check out the post and replies, tons of good information.

What a read. Kudos & thanks to yourself & all the others whose responses & links I've read in full.
Try altering my CP to thanks Uninvited.

Few things I need to research as I'm not up with the mechanics of how the game stacks or replaces attributes, and wasn't aware there is an armour hard cap??? (I've never got close to those number even with all blue/green V12 heavy gear.)
I also attempt to tank groups one at a time from the outside, regenerating health on each kill (reapers mark)...so keeping out of the groups centre has been my mantra so far.
Never even attempted the shadow path nor the syphoning (as it drops damage inflicted) & have no undaunted ability at all, not even sure how to as yet.

Couple of attributes there I can't see in my trees, so I'll study up and need to spend some time building a few attributes you all use that I've not tried...I fell for the base form sucks so don't try it ploy apparently.

As an aside, has anyone built a NB into anything BUT a tank?...or is tanking the solo answer for successful (non Mage) warfare?
I do great work when there is a tank (or floating magic user reducing boss max health) around, attracting boss/group attention, and I'm left to attack enemies somewhat major damage free with dual in medium, I simply rock at that lol, but as a solo that's just not possible.

I'm off to respec medium into heavy, build a shield, and get (I imagine for some time) annihilated a lot learning to tank differently. Good thing there's plenty of wayshrines near groups in Craglorn I guess.

Cheers.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Swindy wrote: »

As an aside, has anyone built a NB into anything BUT a tank?

Yeah, I do. The build that @jebuspowers is using is a tank build, but I am specced more or less like this build (except I use Hundings/Ashen Grip and I'm not a vampire):

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/2-0-the-cutthroat-dwbow-melee-stamina-pvp/

Winterpsy · August 2015

I encourage you to try a guild. There are so many mature guilds, so many players over 30-40.

I once aided this way a DK. He mentioned similar probs, running out of stamina, being anihilated or simply just too slow with the "grinding". I traveled to him to check out how he's doing the things. Turned out he was using a lot of stamina burning skills non-stop, was not using any type of food/drink buffs, was using merely reward items, no crafted ones, was not exploiting enemy conditions, was not taking immunities into account just using wrecking blow, wrecking blow, wb, wb... etc.

So, crafted him a new gear, sent him some crafted food, and we talked a lot about skill rotations and stamina management, exploits, skill weaving.

There are a lot of little things that can be adjusted, for more damage output, survivability.
Would be the best if you can get into a guild and ask someone to be your trainer.

My two cents.

Swindy · August 2015

Winterpsy wrote: »

I encourage you to try a guild. There are so many mature guilds, so many players over 30-40.

I once aided this way a DK. He mentioned similar probs, running out of stamina, being anihilated or simply just too slow with the "grinding". I traveled to him to check out how he's doing the things. Turned out he was using a lot of stamina burning skills non-stop, was not using any type of food/drink buffs, was using merely reward items, no crafted ones, was not exploiting enemy conditions, was not taking immunities into account just using wrecking blow, wrecking blow, wb, wb... etc.

So, crafted him a new gear, sent him some crafted food, and we talked a lot about skill rotations and stamina management, exploits, skill weaving.

There are a lot of little things that can be adjusted, for more damage output, survivability.
Would be the best if you can get into a guild and ask someone to be your trainer.

My two cents.

Thanks.

I've no idea of players guilds, so I'll go investigate.

I've no issue with younger players, I'm just preferable as a stealth character and I've noticed the full speed frontal assault (usually in a pack) seems the most common approach...which doesn't suit my character, hence trying the tank build.
But the game also dictates stealth as less useful against groups or bosses...at least as a NB.
DK perhaps would've suited my style better in hindsight, and probably not an Imperial.

The tank builds offered all have sub skills that I am yet to acquire, spent today starting that long arduous process.
As such I'm below morph in several so it's tough for now but I'll get them and see how much easier they make tanking.

I went through that phase of stamina dehydration using continuous power strikes (That was with WB too lol)..it's a bottomless pit of death through exhaustion in serious battles as you mentioned.

Cheers.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Swindy wrote: »

Thanks.

I've no idea of players guilds, so I'll go investigate.

I can invite you into Kyndred, we are a very friendly helpful guild. Just send me your login in a private message.

Winterpsy · August 2015

Funny thing is, every time I go out adventuring solo with my DK tank , I wish I was a NB rangering around. I wanted it so badly I eventually picked up medium armor and bow. Initiating fights from stealth.
Then I thought: man, if stealth attack with bow on a HP based character is so powerful, what a NB can do with it? Killing Harvesters and dread daedroth with a single shot?

Then I found a couple of nice armor pieces like the Draugh killer and Red mountain sets, upping the normal damage with like hundreds. Then figured out I use stam buffs for further damage and it became much easier to anihilate groups. Then I wanted to be a NB even more, dreaming about a full dps build. Then so overwhelmed with my OP-ness I headrushed a dolmen. With bow. And medium armor. The shortest fight in my ESO career. And it was not me winning.
So I realized, heavy armor is a nice thing to wear. Along with a shield

Swindy · August 2015

Winterpsy wrote: »

Funny thing is, every time I go out adventuring solo with my DK tank , I wish I was a NB rangering around. I wanted it so badly I eventually picked up medium armor and bow. Initiating fights from stealth.
Then I thought: man, if stealth attack with bow on a HP based character is so powerful, what a NB can do with it? Killing Harvesters and dread daedroth with a single shot?

Then I found a couple of nice armor pieces like the Draugh killer and Red mountain sets, upping the normal damage with like hundreds. Then figured out I use stam buffs for further damage and it became much easier to anihilate groups. Then I wanted to be a NB even more, dreaming about a full dps build. Then so overwhelmed with my OP-ness I headrushed a dolmen. With bow. And medium armor. The shortest fight in my ESO career. And it was not me winning.
So I realized, heavy armor is a nice thing to wear. Along with a shield

I've lost more fights against harvesters than I think anything else.
And @ 47 my bow does diddly against dolmen types or bosses.
Again I may have the wrong sub attributes morphed up.

I so love my medium & dual...until it's boss, group time...then I'm mostly fodder, taking them out one at a time as the others kill me off...only the crown store saves me, which really isn't the idea of existing.

But as a tank I an truly sucking so far. Can't get any serious group damage done before their magic & multiple npc hits kill me.
Oh, and I failed dismally several times in the arena...I could kill one, occasionally two, but their re spawning through the portals was too fast for me to recuperate...probably why it's a group challenge eh?

Can't get that path of darkness working at all so far.
It is nice to smack some critter in the gob with a shield & not die on the second strike from a boss though I must say.

Winterpsy · August 2015

Man, I heartily despise Harvesters. Wish there were more monsters like those, hehe.

Yeah, tanking is not really about damage. It's more a game of endurance. Will it be them or you whittled down first. Luckily DKs have a lot of skills that can help them to manage tanking duty easier. (I just drop a few cinder storms, talons and banner) No idea about the other classes.

Anyhow, I learned that I have to pick a role where I could shine. Because: CPs and gear. I am either doing damage or soak up damage. I guess though after a while when you have more CPs that flies on a dungheap it wont matter that much really.

So I take tanking and settle with the compromise that every battle will be much longer.

Swindy · August 2015

The Uninvited wrote: »

Swindy wrote: »

Thanks.

I've no idea of players guilds, so I'll go investigate.

I can invite you into Kyndred, we are a very friendly helpful guild. Just send me your login in a private message.

Very thankful for the offer, though I'm not sure how that works, as I'm on XBox Europe Server.
Also, I apparently don't have permission to message you on this board.
Ok it's time to go kill some stuff in Reapers, Craglorn is wearing thin on my pathetic solo v group expertise lol.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Ah, too bad. I play on PC so that's not possible then...

Well, good luck to you and keep having fun. By the way, try buying potions/food/respec in game without the crown store. It will be cheaper.

Respeccing can be done at the Mournhold bank for instance. You can respec skills, morphs and attributes for a fee (the more skillpoints you have used, the higher the fee).

Winterpsy · August 2015

The Uninvited wrote: »

Respeccing can be done at the Mournhold bank for instance. You can respec skills, morphs and attributes for a fee (the more skillpoints you have used, the higher the fee).

I read you can respec for free. Wishful thinking.

Warraxx · August 2015

i have an Imperial Stamina NB, no problems here. I would guess based on the little info you provided that your DPS is probably way too low. Moreover, if you are not using drink for stam regen, with the sets you're using your stam regen is in the pooper.

jebuspowers · August 2015

Swindy wrote: »

Winterpsy wrote: »

Funny thing is, every time I go out adventuring solo with my DK tank , I wish I was a NB rangering around. I wanted it so badly I eventually picked up medium armor and bow. Initiating fights from stealth.
Then I thought: man, if stealth attack with bow on a HP based character is so powerful, what a NB can do with it? Killing Harvesters and dread daedroth with a single shot?

Then I found a couple of nice armor pieces like the Draugh killer and Red mountain sets, upping the normal damage with like hundreds. Then figured out I use stam buffs for further damage and it became much easier to anihilate groups. Then I wanted to be a NB even more, dreaming about a full dps build. Then so overwhelmed with my OP-ness I headrushed a dolmen. With bow. And medium armor. The shortest fight in my ESO career. And it was not me winning.
So I realized, heavy armor is a nice thing to wear. Along with a shield

I've lost more fights against harvesters than I think anything else.
And @ 47 my bow does diddly against dolmen types or bosses.
Again I may have the wrong sub attributes morphed up.

I so love my medium & dual...until it's boss, group time...then I'm mostly fodder, taking them out one at a time as the others kill me off...only the crown store saves me, which really isn't the idea of existing.

But as a tank I an truly sucking so far. Can't get any serious group damage done before their magic & multiple npc hits kill me.
Oh, and I failed dismally several times in the arena...I could kill one, occasionally two, but their re spawning through the portals was too fast for me to recuperate...probably why it's a group challenge eh?
Can't get that path of darkness working at all so far.
It is nice to smack some critter in the gob with a shield & not die on the second strike from a boss though I must say.

Path is really good for solo fights at the moment. The imperial city patch will have the heal stick to you for 3 seconds after you leave it, plus it brings up the shadow barrier passive. It's meant as a dual purpose ability so you don't need to slot immovable and a self heal.

If you are tanking you definitely don't want to use a bow. The 2h tree has greater potential as an alternate tank weapon tree, but I sword and board both bars because the survivability is too good to pass up. If you are getting dropped constantly then it might be your group either lacking damage or lacking heals. If you are solo, then it could be as simple as just needing to save your ultimates when you need them and not to push out extra damage. Remember that as a NB tank you should be able to output more damage than other classes as tanks, but survivability and health is your real strength.

If you're running dps with medium armor and dw then your tank needs to hold as many add possible while you pick apart the stragglers and then the tanks trash.
As far as caps go the soft cap no longer exists and the hard cap is pretty damn hard to reach, if that still exists as well. If you are in the arena you have to be with people that have done it before and can do serious SERIOUS damage.

Craft the whitestrakes set for the bonus and hist bark for extra stats. That will definitely help you survive. But you should probably not really bother with Craglorn unless you have a good group.

Swindy · August 2015

I'm solo still, just FYI.
When I randomly "group" with strangers in combat life is very, very easy in Pve land.

All great advice including jebuspowers I just read this morning (it's Sunday morning here in Aus).
I think I read comments similar you posted elsewhere too.
Yes the bow got the arse in favour of dw, one bar with tornado for trash, the other with rapid strikes (or a s&b set up) for bosses, both with ambush & reapers & evil hunter for distance, recovery, & the weapon critical.
CP system altered to maximise physical damage, stamina cost, & spell defense.

Using ambush into their midst & steel tornado has given me power to decimate large groups of trash with relative ease.
Thanks Uninvited for that. I'd ignorantly avoided aoe for 61 levels, and that was a bad error on my part.

Heavy armour takes sooooooooo long to regenerate stamina, and sneaks so poorly, that I prefer meduim and every time except once (didn't attract a second group of trash in properly in the manse) the reapers mark rescues me from all the damage they inflict whilst I whirl them to little pieces. (Remember I'm solo so CC is not an issue.)

I carry sets of both heavy & medium, as I cannot prove this, but as a wolf I seem to take less damage if I'm wearing heavy when I morph?
Usually in dungeons there's plenty of time prior to a major boss encounter to change, even with most of the solo dungeon group quest bosses (wtf is that contradiction all about btw ESO?)

I'm still struggling to actually kill groups or bosses as a s&b though, regardless of armour.
I've been trying to get to watch a good s&b in action to learn but I guess they're all doing group activities as in Pve I find players groups of werewolves, mages, and 2h, mostly in 2-4 groups, but no tanks. (Damn some sorcs do immense damage & life reduction with bosses).
I can stay alive as a heavy s&b now (interrupts are an imperials greatest friend), just causing damage is then slower than watching paint dry.
Worse I still can't get path working for me at all.

Invisibility doesn't appear to work often with bosses either, or am I doing that wrong too?
I frequently find myself having to werewolf & winning that way, or soon after the wolf wears off...but I consider this cheating my character build as it would be very difficult to have a dark brotherhood stealthy assassin werewolf in the public domain lol.
I'd like not to carry dual armour sets (eg could not sneak anywhere in vile manse in heavy it was too cramped an enviroment), so if anyone can educate me to the above werewolf-armour question I'd be appreciative.

Guess it's time to see Cyrodil solo (yeah I'm so going to get ganked I know), as Caldwell & I finished up last night.

So thanks guys, I've still questions & am still learning, but this last week has been far more enjoyable gaming than several were prior.

jebuspowers · August 2015

Good luck. I haven't had any trouble in pve, but I'm a tank so yeah the fights are slow. Wish I could give better advice for a melee deepers creepers.

leepalmer95 · August 2015

Imperial is likely the best race for a stamina nb, just read a few guides on sypher or delia's website, also if your not already get some decent sets and use the guild forum on here to find yourself a decent guide, no ones cares about age in mmorpg's were all geeks here.

Sets such a ravagers, hundings rage, whitestrikes, etc... are pretty easy to craft and people usually craft them for free or cheap for people in their guild.

Also sounds like you need some stamina regen, i'd suggest becoming a ww (you don't actually need to level it or even put any skill points in it as i feel the transformation isn't very useful), max all passives, don't take skills you don't use, respec using respec shrines only costs a bit of gold.

Try using regen pots instead of food see if that helps with regen.

Novustratum · August 2015

@Swindy
It sounds like you're on the right path gear-wise and attribute-wise.

My current NB soloing setup that only requires use of just one bar is 2h sword using sap essence, siphoning attacks, refreshing path, ambush, and rally with soul tether for ultimate.

I've managed to solo every group delve in Craglorn including the bosses within each using this setup. It's just a matter of continually ambushing around to keep the more dangerous targets stunned such as casters, making heavy use of sap essence to help get soul tether ready, and stunning groups with soul tether. Always keep refreshing path up and rally active. You can do the rally/block animation cancel rapidly for clutch heals in desperate moments. This setup may not work for everyone and in the end it's just a matter of what you're comfortable with using and what your play style is like.

Best of luck and I hope you find something that works for you.

The Uninvited · August 2015

Swindy wrote: »

Using ambush into their midst & steel tornado has given me power to decimate large groups of trash with relative ease.
Thanks Uninvited for that. I'd ignorantly avoided aoe for 61 levels, and that was a bad error on my part.

.......

So thanks guys, I've still questions & am still learning, but this last week has been far more enjoyable gaming than several were prior.

Glad to be of service and nice to see that you are enjoying the game much more now.

PS: How did you even survive without aoe?

Swindy · August 2015

The Uninvited wrote: »

Swindy wrote: »

Using ambush into their midst & steel tornado has given me power to decimate large groups of trash with relative ease.
Thanks Uninvited for that. I'd ignorantly avoided aoe for 61 levels, and that was a bad error on my part.

.......

So thanks guys, I've still questions & am still learning, but this last week has been far more enjoyable gaming than several were prior.

Glad to be of service and nice to see that you are enjoying the game much more now.

PS: How did you even survive without aoe?

With a lot of patience, perseverance, experimentation, suicide missions to eliminate foes for post-soul gem evening of odds, and swearing & cursing when I watched much lower level Sorc's & 2H monsters apparently doing it with ease.
At times others appear at opportune moments to aid in bosses/dolmens etc, but mostly as above.

I can't find where there's a stat for hours played, but I'd suggest it's taken me far longer to VR13 than anyone else lol.