Help with PvP - Stamina Nightblade

SaintHeretic · February 2017

Hey guys,

Just returned about a month ago after a break between DB and One Tamriel. Wanting to get more into PvP this time around, but am having a really hard time getting the hang of it and am looking for some tips.

My current build is 5 x Clever Alchemist, 5 x viper, 2 x Selene. 2h bar: ambush, mass hysteria, surprise attack, executioner, rally, incap. Bow bar: Relentless focus, poison injection, shadowy disguise, shuffle, resolving vigor, dawnbreaker of smiting.I am cp 490 (working on maxing out).

My goal is solo/small scale PvP in the sewers, districts and the edge of large scale battles. A few specific problems I have been having:

1. Survivability after the opener. Right now it seems like if the opener doesn't go perfectly, I am going to get wrecked. I try my best to keep shuffle up, dodge roll, fear etc, but it just seems like even with rally and vigor, my health is constantly so low that I can't keep pressure.

2. Cloak/Escape when things go bad. Cloak just seems to break instantly 80% of the time, even when doing the dodge roll > jump > cloak that I see others use. On top of that, I can never seem to out run anyone to escape. Even with hasty retreat, dodge rolling and sprinting between cloaks, enemies just seem to be constantly glued to me. But when I fight other stamblades, they seem to cloak and escape with ease, not to mention the times they cloak and reengage from a different direction so fluidly that I'm left spinning in circles.

3. Self healing. I watch other stamblades hit vigor and rally and go from near death to full health almost instantly, then turn back around and burst people down. I can never seem to gain health back in a fight. I can use rally, vigor and a potion, but all it seems to do is stop my health from dropping. I don't seem to be gaining any back. I have 20 points into blessed and 20 into quick recovery.

4. Finishing off low health enemies. I have routinely gotten people down to 10-25% health, only to watch them health through my execute, get back to full and melt my face. My current combo to try for the finish is to fear > incap > execute.

5. Which brings me to the last problem which is, fear. I am certain I am missing something with how to use this properly, because I would say about half the time I hit it, it doesn't have any effect. I've wasted countless incaps because fear failed and they just dodged the incap.

Any tips are greatly appreciated. Also, I am not married to this build, it's just the only one that I've had any measure of success with so far. If you have any suggestions for builds with more survivability that work well for small scale I'd be happy to give them a shot. Right now I just feel like I'm not going to have success with any build until I lock down some of the basics of PvP combat.

Metemsycosis · February 2017

Stamina night blades solo are kind of squishy, no?

I notice a few things. You don't mention your consumables - are you running food or drink?are you using major vitality potions for healing?or escape potions for speed/invisibility ?

Why do you use executioner instead of killer's blade, which now does disease damage. No caltrops or rearming trap or eternal hunt to cover your tracks either. I don't see shadow image. Imo shadow image is best for a stamina night blade since cloak sometimes requires spamming to actually work. This is especially true if you're a vampire and can quickly enter stealth.

If I were worried about survival within a brawl - as opposed to being able to escape a fight I might not win, I'd replace the bow with sword and shield. I like defensive posture and reverb on a night blade.

SaintHeretic · February 2017

I am running food, max health + stam recovery with serpent mundus because I was having a lot of trouble running out of stam until i made the switch. I run a mixture of tri-pots and immovable+stam+health pots. Usually use an immovable on the way in to proc clever alchemist, then tri pots throughout for sustain. I do have a set of Eternal hunt which I have considered switching to, just having trouble with which sets I should use alongside it. I imagine I am going to have to give up some burst in the switch. I am also trying to get a hold of a vicannon's bow in sharpened so that I can give that a go, as I've seen a lot of people playing the style I want with that.

As far as skills go, I basically pulled them from a bunch of guides I've seen around the internet. The reasoning behind executioner over killers blade as I understand is that it begins scaling at higher health, though I am thinking for my purposes the heal from killers blade may come in handy as I often kill my first target then struggle with the second since I am behind.

I think I am going to try trading out relentless focus for rearming trap. I saw a build recently that uses that quite effectively.

My main goal for play style is to get in, focus someone down, then get out, disappear and prepare for another attack.

joe.smith21b14_ESO · February 2017

Message me in game @smiff if your pc na

SaintHeretic · February 2017

joe.smith21b14_ESO wrote: »

Message me in game @smiff if your pc na

Telling me "Account not found."

Kram8ion · February 2017

i don't think there's anything you're missing with your build, it's solid are you wearing impenetrable? All legendary?
Any how it's not going to get much easier for us squishy stamblades nowadays you have to pick your targets more carefully

NightbladeMechanics · February 2017

Please don't turn this man into a ganker...

joe.smith21b14_ESO · February 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Please don't turn this man into a ganker...

lol you mind your own business bruh

joe.smith21b14_ESO · February 2017

SaintHeretic wrote: »

joe.smith21b14_ESO wrote: »

Message me in game @smiff if your pc na

Telling me "Account not found."

Sorry should have been more specific I'll be on in like 2 hours

SaintHeretic · February 2017

Yeah, I'm wearing all impen except for my shoulders are divines because I haven't gotten impen yet. The main thing I need to figure out is how other nightblades are doing it. For example, I was feeling pretty good the other day after managing to slowly pick apart a team of 3 a couple times by separating them and bursting them down. Then I went in on what looked like an easy target, a sub 160 cp stamblade. He absolutely schooled me in nightblade skills 1 v 1 lol. His ability to heal, cloak and reengage with pressure just wore me down. It was at that point I knew I had to learn to play haha.

Kram8ion · February 2017

SaintHeretic wrote: »

Yeah, I'm wearing all impen except for my shoulders are divines because I haven't gotten impen yet. The main thing I need to figure out is how other nightblades are doing it. For example, I was feeling pretty good the other day after managing to slowly pick apart a team of 3 a couple times by separating them and bursting them down. Then I went in on what looked like an easy target, a sub 160 cp stamblade. He absolutely schooled me in nightblade skills 1 v 1 lol. His ability to heal, cloak and reengage with pressure just wore me down. It was at that point I knew I had to learn to play haha.

Sounds like your doing extremely well imo sometimes it's just a matter of cloak working

Vizier · February 2017

Are you a vampire? Vampire has great in stealth movement speed. Combined with Concealed Weapon and shuffle for great movement speed in stealth. With as broken as cloak is the speed makes it much more effective if you can at least get 3-4 casts out of you magicka pool. Also practice using a magicka potion when you need a couple more casts. This can really help you break line of sight and get back into stealth to attack again or move on safely.

runningtings · February 2017

You sure you didn't just get beaten by a better player once?
If you are able to take out 3 in a group other than that.

I wouldn't expect to win every time, look at your stats after a few hours of play.

Also, as mentioned if you need a better escape, try Mist Form/Elusive Mist or Invis pots.

Master_Kas · February 2017

Shieldbreaker. To many FOTM magsorcs and blazing shieldplars not to use it.

thankyourat · February 2017

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Please don't turn this man into a ganker...

Lol

deepseamk20b14_ESO · February 2017

There have been several nerfs to game mechanics that unfortunately affected all classes but the NB more than any. Vigor breaking any hide/stealth so no more cloak and vigor, no more rolly polly NB, undodgable damage with no self heals. It took the class from OP to slightly gimp instead of balanced. But there is a silver lining. The class is still great if knowing it's weaknesses before going into battle then changing up the old strategy.

1. Don't expect to go into the middle of the fray and face tank like the DK's and Templars out there. Stay to flanks, pick a target, hit, and retreat. I'm not saying go full ganker and sitting in a field waiting for a passers-by but I'm saying play to the NB's strength. Cast rally, let it tick for a bit before jumping in. This will give you a good burst heal instead of a small one if you cast rally then instantly go into battle. Use shadow image in those situations to get out of dodge. Also, immovable speed pots are your friend. Always use shuffle after break free.

2. Never depend on cloak. It's completely broken. More and more my friends and I find things that break it. For instance, the DoT from sheer venom breaks cloak. There are other set piece bonus DoTs that actually break cloak as well. Of you are running away again, immovability pots, shuffle, and most importantly terrain to break LoS. If you can break Los then you have a better chance of cloak not breaking upon every attack because they aren't hitting you. Once cloaked don't just run away in a recognizable direction. Double back or do something unexpected. Watch out for targets spamming AOE or mage light. Also, give eternal hunt a try. Great for escaping and LoSing.

3. Vigor and rally heals are nice but as I said, vigor for us isn't as good as it once was since we can't use it while cloaked (honestly that was kind of OP). As an NB expect to be at the edge of death a lot but not panic. 1st, don't wait to cast vigor. Have it up already. Waiting until you are below 50% will get you killed. Use vigor before rally. Get your heals from vigor above 50% and wait for rally to countdown so when you are below 50% HP you get a really strong burst heal.

4. Plan your bursts better. Since IC is up more than once in a fight take a look where their HP was during your last burst combo. If you started your combo at 40% and they came back from it, plan your next burst between 30% and 39%. That next time you'll kill them. Also take note of the average damage your bursts are doing on different targets so next time you fight somone you know when to start your burst. Also, don't just fear then IC. Wait til you can ambush then IC when their block is down and ALAWAYS animation cancel, as IC is easy to dodge if not ani canceled with block/bash or dodge roll. One of my burst setups is timing assassin's scourge with IC. Once scourge procs, animation cancel it, I'll follow up with IC, cancel the animation with dodge, when I dodge I dodge straight into them leaving my eternal hunt rune on them. Immediately 180 turn and killers blade. Even if they are the fastest break free ever eternal hunt rune will still hit them. Just to give you an example, last night I had a assassin's scourge proc critical (from shadowy disguise) for just under 12k, 12k IC, 5k eternal hunt. This was on a heavy armor user with 30k HP. Let's just say he didn't come back from that. I have 37k stamina, 3442 weapon damage, and 15781 physical penetration btw, so I hit pretty damn hard. If your target doesn't die and heals up, shuffle roll dodge vigor cloak and both of you will be at full health. What won't be full is their resources like stamina and magicka. So start focusing on draining their resources with LA weaving and fearing. Once their stamina is gone no amount of healing will save them if they are feared for a full 4 seconds during your burst combo.

5. Again, don't use fear with IC a lot. Good players will break free and either roll dodge or hold block instantly making you waste your IC. I generally use fear to drain their resources, get a SA in to debuff armor, and give them minor maim and a snare. Watch for the circles on their feet. If they have circles still and you use fear you are wasting magicka. Also use fear as a defensive mechanic to give yourself that split second to heal and cloak as opposed to using it purely for offense.

That's my 2 cents.

SaintHeretic · February 2017

Thanks for the really good tips. I kind of stumbled into the tip about letting rally tick for bit by accident and have been doing that more ever since, and it has definitely helped. I'm curious, which sets are you pairing with eternal hunt? I have been using it on my stam sorc a bit to get the feel for using the rune defensively and offensively, and I am thinking it will work well on my stamblade too. Just not sure what sets to use around it. I was thinking about trying something like 5 x Eternal Hunt, 5 x Senche, 1 velidreth/kena.

Reefo · February 2017

You only need eternal hunt on your bow bar,

Before homestead I used to run 2 bloodspawn, 4 viper and 4 eternal hunt. With viper 2h and eternal hunt bow(only roll on bow coz of speed)

It worked very well, now it sucks. Stam nb is suffering this patch. So maybe swap bloodspawn and viper, or even go Selene and viper, who cares you're gimped anyway.

d3nbark3r · February 2017

Your build is pretty poor in my opinion. Some people have given sound advice though. The rally advice is decent, and block/cloak timing is also important to mitigate damage. Its a decent gank set up, but even still am pretty sure you arent trying to play like a ganker, especially due to your abilities. And I wouldnt suggest to anyone to run viper anymore.

Not one set you run offers any kind of sustainability what so ever, not one single piece of stamina recov.

Also, despite running Selene which gives a 1 piece max stam bonus, your only other max stamina set bonus is the one from viper (not including enchants), and as max stamina increases strength of heals, this is likely why your heals seem weak in comparison to other nightblades. And lets not forget vitality potions (increase strength of healing by 30%, I believe now for 15 secs) get popped like sweets in cyrodiil now a days.

If you want a decent all round nightblade set up, easy to farm, cheap, you can't go wrong with 5 piece Bone Pirate (Obtainable from Black Heart Haven dungeon), 4 piece Leki (Obtainable from PvP vendors at your Cyrodiil gate, Rewards for the Worthy or generally picked up for next to nothing from most guild traders), as well as the 2 piece monster set Blood Spawn.

The Bone Pirate's Tatters has following bonus':

(2 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina

(3 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery

(4 items) Adds 967 Max Stamina

(5 items) While you have a drink buff active, your Max Stamina is increased by 2000 and Stamina Recovery by 300.

With this set I'd heavily suggest running Stamina + Magika recov drinks. These will give you your 5th piece bonus. The 5th bonus is insanely strong.

Leki's Bonus' are:

(2 Items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage

(3 Items) Adds 967 Maximum Stamina

(4 Items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery

And finally Blood Spawn bonus':

(1 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recover

(2 items) When you take damage, you have a 6% chance to generate 15 Ultimate and increase your Physical and Spell Resistance by 6450 for 6 seconds. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

In my opinion this build is as balanced as you will find on a stamina nightblade build.

Without undaunted passives you may find you will have to put a few attribute points into health to have a decent enough HP source to not get insta killed whilst using the regen drinks, but due to the Bone Pirate 5th piece bonus you pretty much get back the stamina you placed in health, as well as an extra 250 stan regen on top.

The Leki's is also very balanced and you seriously cant go wrong, on my server you can probably pick up a sharpened leki 2h maul for 5k gold, and a defending leki bow for even cheaper.

The Blood Spawn gives you that little extra regen, as well as the proc more less instantly providing you with an ultimate, and on top of that, it hads 6k resistance which goes along way on your squishy NB.

All in all, with max cp, undaunted 9, yellow quality weapons and glyphs, purple quality armour, my relevant fully buffed STANDING stats are as follows:

3062 wpn damage on 2h wpn bar (3536 after my bow wpn dmg enchant has procced and I have switched back to my 2h.

3426 stamina recov as a redguard
3780 stamina recov as a wood elf. (4.2k with continuous attack)

21k max HP.

30.6k max stam as a wood elf.
32.1k max stam as a redguard.

And finally, with a blood spawn proc, and with restiance buff from cloak on my defending bow bar i'm hitting around 28k resistance in 5 medium, 1 light, 1 heavy.

I currently have this build on a Wood Elf and a Redguard, not sure if I could pin point which is best, regen is so high on both the redguard adreneline rush passive isnt really required.

I've been using this build every day since Bone Pirate was first released, and probably best nightblade build I have played since started playing ESO in June 2015.

Have provided friends with this build and they have all loved it. I think Blob ESO has a similar build i've been told.

Hope this build helps you out. Sorry if this is a lot to take in, I did my best to give all information required.

I will also add I run stage 2 vamparism on this build, run serpent mundus, the 4 leki could be switched for a similar set (3 agil, 1 VMA 2h/Masters bow)

Abilities:
2h - Surprise attack, Rally, Ambush/Critrush, Relentless Focus, Mass Hysteria. Incap Ulti.

Bow - Venom Arrow/Poison Inject, Vigor, Shuffle, Shadow Image, Shadowy Disguise/Dark cloak. Dawn Breaker of Smiting Ulti.

Vamparism can be swapped for Werewolf, Werewolf ulti replaces Dawnbreaker on bow bar, just used for stam recov.

This build seriously has endless stamina, and has more than enough burst to take down heavy armour builds. And once you get confident with how powerful your sustain is, you will run most people out of resources in an instant with a little staying defensive.

And lastly lol..... this build works very well and imo is unrivalled for Non CP.

Hope this helps! Happy Slaying!

SaintHeretic · February 2017

Thanks, d3nbark3r. This build sounds interesting to me, especially since one of the main problems I repeatedly run into is sustaining against targets that don't fall to my first or second burst set up, and not having enough resources left to make a clean escape. Definitely going to add this to my list of setups to try as I search for the build that works best for the play style I'm aiming for.