End Game Stamina Nightblade Build- PvE DPS (Updated for Clockwork City)

Gilliamtherogue

LeifErickson wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

alex394053 wrote: »

Hi,

this will be possibly a newbie question, but what echants do you apply to your weapons? Does they impact anything at all in your approach? You never mentioned that.

Btw, the job you've done is just incredible! I undoubtely like you definition of entertainment

Precisely as @Pirsius mentioned, running 1 Increase Weapon damage enchant and 1 poison enchant is optimal for most situations. In solo play you may decide to enchant your offhand with the Crusher enchant, which reduces armor of the target it applies to. The reason I do not run this normally is because this is the optimal enchant for a Tank role to run, and my build revolves around optimal group performance.

I have since moved away from Hunding's 2 piece and use 2 piece Leki's, as I have added in the Honorable Mentions/Other sets.

If you're looking for an enchant to apply specifically to your bow since you do not have the Maelstrom Bow, then apply the Crusher or Fiery Enchant here. Having 3 different enchants is optimal, as each of them has a separate Internal Cool Down (ICD), and allows for maximum efficiency.

If you use 2 piece Leki's for weapons, wouldn't it be better to actually go 2 piece Agility for weapons and then 1 piece Agility jewelry? Then you can use 2 piece gold Leki's jewelry. Wouldn't that be better since Agility jewelry does not drop in gold?

Yes and no, the added stats of gold jewelry would be nice, but I'd also lose massive bonuses when swapping to my bow bar to reapply DoT effects. The thing is though, I'm still actively dealing damage as I do so, so all of the damage I'd deal during that time would lose a lot of raw stats from swapping off that bar. Also, my setup is not optimal, which is why it is not in the optimal setup. 5 Alkosh, 5 Nightmother's Gaze, and 2 Nerieneth is optimal, but I am missing 1 necklace and body piece of Alkosh before I can do so. Alkosh also comes in gold jewelry.

Miklo7662

Hey Gill, i watched your vma video over the weekend, it was fun to watch. Thanks for sharing!

Amos

Great thread thanks for the post, really learned alot and gave me some ideas for tweaks and changes .. largelly non viable changes lol but fun anyway.

cheerz.

ryanborror

How are you maintaining resources on long fights like serpent or vmol with the siphoning attacks changes? Do you run the same set up as you would for dungeons?

Gilliamtherogue

ryanborror wrote: »

How are you maintaining resources on long fights like serpent or vmol with the siphoning attacks changes? Do you run the same set up as you would for dungeons?

Using shards and potions as much as I can pretty much. It's usually not too bad unless there's a lot of blocking that needs to be done. I run the same setup in trials that I do in dungeons, with the exception of vMA, I run different stuff for that.

zerosingularity

I know Maelstrom Daggers are best on Stam DKs, but it is possible to get competitive (not necessarily the best) DPS using them on a stamblade and weaving Flurry to buff our two main DoTs(Rending Slashes and Poison Injection)? I ask because it would be nice to see even more competitive build variations. That and DPS testing new rotations is so hard without combat dummies that have 50mil HP.

I also found out that the Maelstrom Flurry buffs Soul Assault in the soul tree, making it possible to get over 100k tooltip(90k on my bow bar). Is this a possible viable Ult? My initial math suggests Meteor is still better since fire and forget, but I am far from the most learned Stamblade.

Gilliamtherogue

zerosingularity wrote: »

I know Maelstrom Daggers are best on Stam DKs, but it is possible to get competitive (not necessarily the best) DPS using them on a stamblade and weaving Flurry to buff our two main DoTs(Rending Slashes and Poison Injection)? I ask because it would be nice to see even more competitive build variations. That and DPS testing new rotations is so hard without combat dummies that have 50mil HP.

I also found out that the Maelstrom Flurry buffs Soul Assault in the soul tree, making it possible to get over 100k tooltip(90k on my bow bar). Is this a possible viable Ult? My initial math suggests Meteor is still better since fire and forget, but I am far from the most learned Stamblade.

Prior to Thieves Guild I could have told you that there were rare occasions in which they beat the current setup, but the nerf to Siphoning Attacks being unable to proc on DoT effects means with our kit you'd only have light attacks and a few very scarce (initial hits of ultimates such as Meteor or Soul Harvest) to proc them, which means you'd always be drained of stamina. On top of that, Shooting Star not only would be Soul Assault even with the Maelstrom proc, but the Maelstrom proc can apply to the DoT of Shooting Star, making it even better. The real deal killer though is the fact you can drop meteor and continue your rotation, while Soul Assault forces you into one attack.

zerosingularity

*sigh* That's what I've been thinking. Guess I should go back to my old daggers and drop Flurry for now. (It is sad that Maelstrom Daggers in ideal traits aren't even a universal buff.) The sheer buff to Bleed and Poison Injection is nice, but I did notice more of a stamina drain over the normal rotation not even taking Siphoning Attacks into account. Being stamina is suffering.

Lets hope Dark Brotherhood gives us more options. And maybe a buff to Siphoning Attacks to proc on single target DoTs.

Thank you for the quick reply though.

If I may pick your brain one more time, assuming one does not yet have 5pc Alkosh (such a good set!) how much stock would you put into 5pc Briarheart assuming you have mostly ideal parts? It is easy to keep procced so it gives a solid average wpn damage of about 285-290. (Arrow barrage, Caltrops, all our DoTs proc it.) The bonuses up our crit chance instead of base power like 3 agility and 2pc other.

Gilliamtherogue

zerosingularity wrote: »

*sigh* That's what I've been thinking. Guess I should go back to my old daggers and drop Flurry for now. (It is sad that Maelstrom Daggers in ideal traits aren't even a universal buff.) The sheer buff to Bleed and Poison Injection is nice, but I did notice more of a stamina drain over the normal rotation not even taking Siphoning Attacks into account. Being stamina is suffering.

Lets hope Dark Brotherhood gives us more options. And maybe a buff to Siphoning Attacks to proc on single target DoTs.

Thank you for the quick reply though.

If I may pick your brain one more time, assuming one does not yet have 5pc Alkosh (such a good set!) how much stock would you put into 5pc Briarheart assuming you have mostly ideal parts? It is easy to keep procced so it gives a solid average wpn damage of about 285-290. (Arrow barrage, Caltrops, all our DoTs proc it.) The bonuses up our crit chance instead of base power like 3 agility and 2pc other.

I'm pretty sure I've answered the Briarheart question a few times in this thread. I'm not sure if it was in the write up though. Since you can find the info in one of the other pages I'll give a basic answer of no. Briarheart is a trap set that looks nice but ultimately fails due to silly rules it has. If you want more details you'll have to scrounge through this thread for my response to the others who asked.

zerosingularity

Just for clarification, I checked and is looks like Briarheart was compared to the likes of Hundings/NM, which is a different question. (Even I can see Hunding's/NM>Briarheart) Currently running 5x Hunding's that are older than Orsinium.

My main question was for a high mobility fight where say, Nerineth is less than useful due to the small AoE radius, would 5 Briar(3 Jewelry) be better than 3 Agility 2 Nerineth? (Assuming I have less crit chance cause I am a Bosmer.)

However I think I rendered my question moot since I can run 3 Agility 4 Leki's which gives a single piece of stam recovery to aid in sustain, insanely cheap to get, and outright outperforms ideal Briarheart pieces even when fully procced.

I do appreciate the responses you have given, I have learned much in this thread. Keep up the good work!

Gilliamtherogue

zerosingularity wrote: »

Just for clarification, I checked and is looks like Briarheart was compared to the likes of Hundings/NM, which is a different question. (Even I can see Hunding's/NM>Briarheart) Currently running 5x Hunding's that are older than Orsinium.

My main question was for a high mobility fight where say, Nerineth is less than useful due to the small AoE radius, would 5 Briar(3 Jewelry) be better than 3 Agility 2 Nerineth? (Assuming I have less crit chance cause I am a Bosmer.)

However I think I rendered my question moot since I can run 3 Agility 4 Leki's which gives a single piece of stam recovery to aid in sustain, insanely cheap to get, and outright outperforms ideal Briarheart pieces even when fully procced.

I do appreciate the responses you have given, I have learned much in this thread. Keep up the good work!

Even on the highest mobility fights in game (2nd boss and final boss of vMoL) Nerieneth is still pulling upwards of 3k DPS. I swapped off of it and went to 1 Kena for the final boss as Stam since my helmet is not perfect, and with more raid buffs going out, CHD is more valuable (My Nerieneth helmet is still reinforced after hundreds of runs to get a divines...). As you said you'd be much better off going with a static setup similar to what you have. Apologies for not answering the terms you had originally asked, Briarheart is just a buzz word that my brain filters out by this point because of all the same questions I get about it.

Pirsius

Hey Gill, I'm sure you got testing to do on the PTS; but from first glance, how do you see the proposed skill changes coming in DB affecting this build?

Personally, I have a mixed reaction to the changes.

Not sure how changing Killer's Blade to disease damage from magic damage will affect it, since I haven't had much experience using disease. I don't remember if disease still procs the healing debuff; but, if so, I do not know how a executable will benefit from that. Same with Incapacitating Strikes, which already has a healing debuff with Major Defile.

Poison Arrow 12% DOT buff, I like a lot.

Scorched Earth, or well Endless Hail, not sure if it is a buff or nerf. Loses fire damage for physical, with an increase volley duration. But will the increase damage be beneficial if we lose the lingering DOT?

I really dislike the Fighter's Guild changes though, minus Rearming Trap applying the DOT to everything now. Flawless Dawnbreaker losing the 60% damage bonus (get 20% back with Skilled Tracker passive) and the 3% nerf in weapon damage when slotted. Also, Camo Hunter is now only worth for the Major Savagery now, since it no longer offers the chance for bonus damage and we already get Minor Berserk from Relentless Focus.

Overall, I am not sure how I feel about the proposed skill changes, and I'd thought I would open up the discuss

zerosingularity

Flawless didn't get any weapon damage nerf. 5% from the skill, and 3% from a passive since it is slotted = 8%, same as on live.

Changing to disease = buffed by CP = MUCH more damage potential.

Pirsius

@zerosingularity Yes flawless is currently 8% on live and the 3% from Slayer will bring the 5% back to 8%.

However, I still think it is a nerf, at least when fighting daedra. But correct me if I am wrong.

Live Game: Flawless IV (8% Weapon Damage) + Slayer III (9% Weapon and Spell Damage when fighting Daedra)

DB PTS: Flawless IV (5% Weapon Damage) + Slayer III (3% Weapon Damage for each slotted ability)

So, from what I understand just having Flawless slotted brings it up to par with live game only when not fighting against daedra. Of course, having more abilities slotted will increase the Slayer passive. But when exclusively fighting Daedra or Undead, live game is better since you will need 4 fighter's guild abilities (+12%) to do the same damage to Daedra, but again correct me if I am overlooking something.

And thank you for the info on disease.

Gilliamtherogue

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you all know I'm hard at work testing new stuff in this patch. There's a lot of work to be done and since FTC is causing crashing it's hard to get steady information. I'll likely slowly update this over the course of the PTS updates so please be patient. Thanks for your interest!

zerosingularity

Yeah, everyone loses base damage vs daedra, undead, etc... but that has little to do with flawless, and more about the passive changes. Damage is already through the roof, so its not an issue, and the hit is not just to stam but to all builds.

Also AUI doesn't crash on the PTS if you need a dps meter. I don't remember if there is a combat log with it and if that crashes or not though.

Gilliamtherogue

zerosingularity wrote: »

Yeah, everyone loses base damage vs daedra, undead, etc... but that has little to do with flawless, and more about the passive changes. Damage is already through the roof, so its not an issue, and the hit is not just to stam but to all builds.

Also AUI doesn't crash on the PTS if you need a dps meter. I don't remember if there is a combat log with it and if that crashes or not though.

Does AUI have a break down of parses like FTC? I'd also need scrolling text that shows damage of specific abilities, rather than just ambiguous numbers floating around with no tag. The main thing I need is a break down of a fight though, so I can optimize values.

Miklo7662

Keep us updated, Gill.

fordmit14

pretty solid build though gonna have to try it out

alex394053

Hi
Could you please explain why in the champion system you invest only ONE point into some stars (e.g. Ritual - Piercing)? Does it "open" something? Isn't it a waste of a CP?

UPD. Sorry, found this
As for CP allocation the 1 point into Ele/Thaum/Erosion/Elf is simply to get a more well rounded setup so I don't have to change CP after each encounter. In AoE situations Erosion and Elfborn both increase due to using Shooting Star, which unfortunately uses both of these instead of Precise/Piercing.

Gilliamtherogue

alex394053 wrote: »

Hi
Could you please explain why in the champion system you invest only ONE point into some stars (e.g. Ritual - Piercing)? Does it "open" something? Isn't it a waste of a CP?

UPD. Sorry, found this
As for CP allocation the 1 point into Ele/Thaum/Erosion/Elf is simply to get a more well rounded setup so I don't have to change CP after each encounter. In AoE situations Erosion and Elfborn both increase due to using Shooting Star, which unfortunately uses both of these instead of Precise/Piercing.

You hit it on the head of "opening" something. The 1st point into any tree unlocks a new % amp in the line of calculations, which offers a great boost to values. However, the need for Elfborn and Erosion has been fixed (mostly) in the Dark Brotherhood, so I will reflect the updates to CP when I get more raw data.

kadar

@Gilliamtherogue , what do you think of a Khajiit Stamina NB running:
5 Hundings (4 armor + 1 dagger)
5 Briarheart (3 jewelry + 2 armor)
1 Kena
Maelstrom Weaps (Bow + 1 dagger)

I lose the Hundings 5 piece on my Bow bar, but I don't think that makes a difference really. My skills/mundus/traits and I'm assuming rotation, are already pretty much identical to what you're running.

Leradis

The_Outsider wrote: »

5 Briarheart

VR16?
http://coub.com/view/c70pt

Gilliamtherogue

The_Outsider wrote: »

@Gilliamtherogue , what do you think of a Khajiit Stamina NB running:
5 Hundings (4 armor + 1 dagger)
5 Briarheart (3 jewelry + 2 armor)
1 Kena
Maelstrom Weaps (Bow + 1 dagger)

I lose the Hundings 5 piece on my Bow bar, but I don't think that makes a difference really. My skills/mundus/traits and I'm assuming rotation, are already pretty much identical to what you're running.

As I've stated numerous times in this thread, Briarheart is a trap. Briarheart is weaker than hundings as an overall 5 piece DPS set, and running it over 3 agility and a monster helm is a loss as well. The heal cannot crit, is bound to a 1 second ICD, and sometimes refuses to proc. I personally would never touch Briarheart for any application.

kadar

Leradis wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

5 Briarheart

VR16?
http://coub.com/view/c70pt

Of course.

kadar

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

@Gilliamtherogue , what do you think of a Khajiit Stamina NB running:
5 Hundings (4 armor + 1 dagger)
5 Briarheart (3 jewelry + 2 armor)
1 Kena
Maelstrom Weaps (Bow + 1 dagger)

I lose the Hundings 5 piece on my Bow bar, but I don't think that makes a difference really. My skills/mundus/traits and I'm assuming rotation, are already pretty much identical to what you're running.

As I've stated numerous times in this thread, Briarheart is a trap. Briarheart is weaker than hundings as an overall 5 piece DPS set, and running it over 3 agility and a monster helm is a loss as well. The heal cannot crit, is bound to a 1 second ICD, and sometimes refuses to proc. I personally would never touch Briarheart for any application.

Eh. Sad khajiit is sad. Pigeon-holed into Agilty yet again...

Sorry if you already mentioned this, but what do you think of Nerieneth vs. Skoria? It seems like we have more instances of dot damage than we do non-dot dmg. Would Skoria be close to Nerieneth DPS-wise?

Gilliamtherogue

The_Outsider wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

@Gilliamtherogue , what do you think of a Khajiit Stamina NB running:
5 Hundings (4 armor + 1 dagger)
5 Briarheart (3 jewelry + 2 armor)
1 Kena
Maelstrom Weaps (Bow + 1 dagger)

I lose the Hundings 5 piece on my Bow bar, but I don't think that makes a difference really. My skills/mundus/traits and I'm assuming rotation, are already pretty much identical to what you're running.

As I've stated numerous times in this thread, Briarheart is a trap. Briarheart is weaker than hundings as an overall 5 piece DPS set, and running it over 3 agility and a monster helm is a loss as well. The heal cannot crit, is bound to a 1 second ICD, and sometimes refuses to proc. I personally would never touch Briarheart for any application.

Eh. Sad khajiit is sad. Pigeon-holed into Agilty yet again...

Sorry if you already mentioned this, but what do you think of Nerieneth vs. Skoria? It seems like we have more instances of dot damage than we do non-dot dmg. Would Skoria be close to Nerieneth DPS-wise?

I find Nerieneth to be a bit stronger in most cases, with the exception of vMoL trash with the Suneaters that can remove ground based AoE, such as Nerieneth. It also doesn't suffer from movement loses like Nerieneth, but good play can alleviate that most of the time. If you have a set of Valkyns you can swap it out for fights you don't feel comfortable with movement wise, but Nerieneth is my go to still. Skoria will be outperformed by Nerieneth on other fights by ~200-300 dps, so it's not a massive loss.

squinceybones

Hey gill, i saw a post on reddit regarding 3 piece leki's jewelry as an alternative to agility for a fraction of the price. I'm currently running 3 piece endurance as a poor-mans alternative to agility (i don't mind the health). What's your opinion on bang for your buck stat wise?

Gilliamtherogue

squinceybones wrote: »

Hey gill, i saw a post on reddit regarding 3 piece leki's jewelry as an alternative to agility for a fraction of the price. I'm currently running 3 piece endurance as a poor-mans alternative to agility (i don't mind the health). What's your opinion on bang for your buck stat wise?

Endurance is definitely the cheapest of the three, but provides no DPS stats, but sustain/survivability. Leki's is definitely cheaper but still kind of expensive if you're buying purple/gold jewelry yet has noticeably less stats. It'd be better off to just farm in Imperial City for the trophies a few hours here and there until you get them in my opinion.

Azor_Ahaii

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

squinceybones wrote: »

Hey gill, i saw a post on reddit regarding 3 piece leki's jewelry as an alternative to agility for a fraction of the price. I'm currently running 3 piece endurance as a poor-mans alternative to agility (i don't mind the health). What's your opinion on bang for your buck stat wise?

Endurance is definitely the cheapest of the three, but provides no DPS stats, but sustain/survivability. Leki's is definitely cheaper but still kind of expensive if you're buying purple/gold jewelry yet has noticeably less stats. It'd be better off to just farm in Imperial City for the trophies a few hours here and there until you get them in my opinion.

I made the post squincey was talking about. 3 piece lekis offers just 400 stamina less and 60 weapon damage less than purple agility. A purple set of lekis jewellery will only cost 12k (set of blue only 7k), Lekis is literally the poor man's agility and will be great for dps. Agility set will cost 200k and all you get is 400 more stamina and 60 more weapon damage.