Stamina Build

AlphaCrucis

I am building my first stam DPS & was after some input/advice to see if I am on the right track. I have gone a Dark Elf Nightblade, DW swords, mainly for PvE solo/group instances, with a little bit of PvP. I will only have the DW abilities slotted on my bar, with the assassin alt.. I am wearing 5 piece med armor nights silence & 4 piece heavy ashen grip, no jewelry yet. I feel a stam build has more damage dealing then magika, is this correct?

Also should I be trying to build up my weapon damage, weapon crit % or spell damage?

nilldax

Firstly forget 'bout increasing spell damage as ST based fighter - just unnecessary sacrifice of time, resourses, unicorns etc. Since 1.6 the best option for high (stamina) DPS is stacking weapon set bonuses (even with nerf of update 7).
As for skills - in my opinion for PvE, worth attention are: Steel Tornado and Flying Blade. I've been running wih Rapid Strikes up to 1.6 - and it loses to Surprice Attack, differnce is at least 2k with animation cancelling (on regen build). Also Rapid Strikes leaves you vulnuerable for cast time and need to be "fully loaded" to deal anything with last hit. Going further, unlucky, Dark Cloak is a-must-have: works like DoT removal, force miss, butt-saver and so on. For hard CC you can pick popular Mass Hysteria and Incapacitating Strike (knockdown on targets with actualy higher HP - not max) - where on second (AoE) bar you can take Fighter Guild ulti, for undead, WWs. Also without bow you're forced to use Ambush, which works as close gap.
Armor - depending your preferences you can run heavy or medium. Howeer keep in mind there are no penalties of running with plates or leather:
5x Heavy + 3xGolden glyphs for ST skills costs reduce = 5x Medium + 1x Golden glyph for ST skills costs reduce
5-heavies gives you 20% less costs on block, higher "base" defence, better HP regen (doesnt works with vampies ), Constitution passive while 5-mediums bonus to weapon damage value, little bonus to ST regen, better sneak, some crits (and with idea above, two open places for glyphs - comparing to heavy setup).
As for sets: Stacking high values of weapon powah/max ST leaves you on mercy of potions and/or group mates, while with endless ST you propable could only kill skeever or mudcrab due to lack of force. Personally i prefer mixture with rised ST regen - provisioning bonues depends on ativity: burnt mammal for dungs/PvE and while hooch for PvP.

At the end - for pure fun, sure you can walk with DW skills in bar and try to be sneaky assasin - but... will that be worth its price...?