Stamina Morphs and their viability in PvE (non VMA) situations. DK vs NB

Elevenstorm

Now that DBH has dropped I wanted to go through these 2 classes and compare them. Bias warning. I main a stamina nightblade. I will try to be as unbiased as possible in my evaluations however.

Stamblade:

Killers Blade: Have to confirm here but discussions have been had that just using Rapid Strikes does more damage in execute range then Killers Blade. What?
Ambush: Not used in PvE
Suprise Attack: Outclassed by Rapid Strikes damage wise
Power Extraction: Outclassed by Steel Tornado Damage wise.

StamDK:

Venomous claw, Synergizes extremely well with VMA 1h's. used extensively in PvE
Noxious Breath: Also used extensively in PvE, provides major fracture.

Yes, NB's have 4 stam morphs in their class trees compared to stamina DK's 2. But if we look at those abilities and how effective they are compared to other abilities available to all (weapons) we begin to see why DK's are much more effective damage dealers in PvE compared to all other stam classes none of which have class abilities that synergize as well with the Cruel Flurry Enchantment from the VMA Dagger/Axe. As it is now the number of class abilities being used as part of a stam dps arsenal in pve between the two classes is 2:0, DK:NB respectively.

The point that DK's need to do more damage from 100-25% is because they don't have a class execute. This would be the case if Killers Blade was a huge dps increase compared to rapid strikes in execute range but there is some conjecture here. Saying this though doesn't make up for the other stam classes which do not have stamina based executes either.

@Wrobel What we need, other stamina classes as well, is abilities that allow us to match the effectiveness of DK's that are not outclassed by abilities that are available to all! Stamina characters will use the abilities that allows the most dps, class or non-class abilities.

Elevenstorm

We should also disregard anything that requires stealth. As cloak is not used in PvE.

Lynx7386

Not every class will be equal in every situation. Nightblades are designee around burst damage and stealth, neither of which applies well to organized pve. Dragonknights, on the other hand, are designed around damage over time effects, which work out extremely well in organized pve. Flip the scenario and look at pvp, and you'll find the nightblades doing better because their damage is instant and cannot be cleansed.

Vangy

Each class can do mostly everything but that dosent mean each class will be equally as effective in all situations.

Group play destruction PvP --> Mag sorc, magblade are bombing AP farming Tyrannosaurus REKT.
Solo duelling PvP --> stam DK reigns supreme with mitigation, followed closely by magplar bastion of Block BOL spam.
Single target stealth PvP -> NBs the cancer cockroach of cyrodiil and the bane of PvE carebears in IC.

etc etc. Same would apply to PvE as well. Like MagDKs who are close to useless in cyro save group play do extremely well in PvE. Some of the best PvE Deeps comes from these guys.

On a sidenote, you could easily make the cruel enchantment work with vMA weapons on a NB. Ie: When boss drops below 40-50% use flurry followed by swapping to bow bar and using poison injection. Not only is PI a dot, its an execute. Watch it tick for RIDICULOUS amounts and cackle away as boss melts haha.

acw37162

Until his patch the single best gap closer in the game that still has no minimum distance. I will also point out here NB is the ONLY class that has a stamina base gap closer class ability. That has no minimum distance and grants empower.

The single best instant direct damage stamina based skill in that is also a class ability. This ability in its stamina morph also grants NB's one of or both of the major resistance buffs.

NB's also get a class based stamina AOE that now does disease damage and has a chance to proc a minor heal debuff as a class ability.

Which means NB's can use whatever setup they choose weapon wise without regard because their class stamina abilities are so effin good.

This dosent even account the only class with A stamina based class ability excite that now scales with disease damage.

And a ridiculously and I do mean completely ridiculously cheap ultra high damage single target ultimate nuke that ups your damage on the target for seconds afterwards.

The NB tool kit is so good.

Any buff to DW, bow or 2H also indirectly buffs NB as you can use any skill you like for any of the weapon trees.

Oh and I forgot NB's are the only class that gets minor and major berserk from class abilities and in doing so also passively gets minor endurance,.

DK's are going to be really good but Jesus Christ almighty lord i heaven above NB's got a great toolkit

elium85

@acw37162 I think you are not referring to what this post is about.

I don't know a single end-game PvE'er that runs a gap closer on any class in serious content (outside of chains to stack mobs in places like vMoL/AA but that's a different story).

Regarding Power Extraction, it is not really better then Steel Tornado damage-wise and Steel Tornado really shines because it's an execute; that's not something Power Extraction has.

Likewise, I believe the OP is referencing some of the early testing that shows Rapid Strikes simply out DPS'es both Killers Blade and Surprise Attack. Sure you can use them on any weapon but again, no one doing end-game PvE is going to not run the higher DPS DW skills.

Regarding Berserk, Minor Berserk while seemingly nice is actually a double-edged sword. The damage output of Stamblades is balanced assuming that up but in trials, every class/build has that which actually lowers the overall trial group buff available to Stamblades (and Mageblades too but they are still the best ranged DD). Major Berserk is not something Stamblades will reliably get in End-Game content. Again, no one has space or time in rotations to run this.

Of all your points, the fact that they have the low cost ulti that boosts damage is true. It's a very helpful Ulti. It's basically a bandaid on their horrible condition.

Frankly, it's a sad day for Stamblades when Storcs are on par damage-wise...

Dyride

elium85 wrote: »

Frankly, it's a sad day for Stamblades when Storcs are on par damage-wise...

Wow. Nice low blow compliment. I don't think Stam Sorcs are there yet really as a class even if our damage has gotten to maybe low par.

I wish stam sorcs had half the stam skills you have, or the resource management, or cheapest physical ultimate, or the heal debuffs, or the best pvp CC.

Hmm.

acw37162

elium85 wrote: »

@acw37162 I think you are not referring to what this post is about.

I don't know a single end-game PvE'er that runs a gap closer on any class in serious content (outside of chains to stack mobs in places like vMoL/AA but that's a different story).

Regarding Power Extraction, it is not really better then Steel Tornado damage-wise and Steel Tornado really shines because it's an execute; that's not something Power Extraction has.

Likewise, I believe the OP is referencing some of the early testing that shows Rapid Strikes simply out DPS'es both Killers Blade and Surprise Attack. Sure you can use them on any weapon but again, no one doing end-game PvE is going to not run the higher DPS DW skills.

Regarding Berserk, Minor Berserk while seemingly nice is actually a double-edged sword. The damage output of Stamblades is balanced assuming that up but in trials, every class/build has that which actually lowers the overall trial group buff available to Stamblades (and Mageblades too but they are still the best ranged DD). Major Berserk is not something Stamblades will reliably get in End-Game content. Again, no one has space or time in rotations to run this.

Of all your points, the fact that they have the low cost ulti that boosts damage is true. It's a very helpful Ulti. It's basically a bandaid on their horrible condition.

Frankly, it's a sad day for Stamblades when Storcs are on par damage-wise...

I get exactly what the OP is talking about.

All my points are accurate and valid. If NB's want PVE boosts to be raid leaders damage leaders, which is cool, start talking about what your willing to give up as a NB community.

You fool around with their toolkit to much, hell even a little bit you can completely break other aspects of the game.

Stannum

Vangy wrote: »

On a sidenote, you could easily make the cruel enchantment work with vMA weapons on a NB. Ie: When boss drops below 40-50% use flurry followed by swapping to bow bar and using poison injection. Not only is PI a dot, its an execute. Watch it tick for RIDICULOUS amounts and cackle away as boss melts haha.

Why NB? DK can use PI the same way. Yep they do not have class execute but they still can use PI and btw all DW skills are somewhat execute (via passive), and flurry/blood craze/cloak are DoTs (and DKs usually have more CP in taumaturge then NBs as NBs usually like to boost crit dmg first). So DK is still better.

Silver_Strider

The thing about NB that really limits a lot of their potential is that a lot of their passives work either only from stealth or only help magic builds.

The majority of the Siphon tree is exclusive to magic only.

• Magicka Flood only helps magblades as it increases their max magic.
• The only 2 moves that can proc Transfer on a Stamblade are Power Extraction, which is a worst Steel Tornado, and Soul Tether, which is an ultimate.
• Due to the limited usage of Siphoning overall on a Stamblade, the Soul Siphoner passive is also incredibly limited too.

Then we have the Assassin tree, which is also incredibly limited in its overall functionality.

• No reason to use Blur, Teleport Strike, or Mark Target on a DPS rotation for PvE content.
• Master Assassin only works from stealth so another entirely useless passive for PvE.
• Executioner only restores magic, so not helpful for stamina at all.

There's just too little support within the class that help Stamblades out in regards to PvE content.

If it were up to me, I'd make a few changes to the class

• Change the Debilitate morph on Cripple to a Stamina based disease DoT. This way, Stamblades have a decent skill to slot that triggers Transfer, Magicka Flood and Soul Siphoner
• Change Magicka Flood to include stamina as well (change the name to Invigorate or something)
• Change Dark Shade morph of Summon Shades to deal Disease damage and scale off of weapon damage/max stamina
• Change Executioner to restore stamina as well as magic.
• Change Master Assassin to increase damage on targets that are currently CC'd as well as from stealth. Probably have to remove the longer stun duration to help compensate the increase in damage.
• Change Reaper's Mark morph of Mark Target to grant a new debuff that increases the effectiveness of DoTs on the target (Call it Minor Fester or something) Reaper's Mark is a joke of a skill honestly. The concept is nice, however, having to kill a target for the Major Berserk buff is highly impractical in both PvE and PvP content where either enemies die too quickly to ever actually use the full 5 seconds of the buff or there are simply not enough enemies to get the buff reliably enough to actually warrant its use, make it an almost entirely dead skill in most situations. Changing it to include a new debuff that helps out group play would thus make it much more attractive overall as currently NBs really don't have much in that regard and it would help out their damage overall as well.

Elevenstorm

Silver_Strider wrote: »

The thing about NB that really limits a lot of their potential is that a lot of their passives work either only from stealth or only help magic builds.

The majority of the Siphon tree is exclusive to magic only.

• Magicka Flood only helps magblades as it increases their max magic.
• The only 2 moves that can proc Transfer on a Stamblade are Power Extraction, which is a worst Steel Tornado, and Soul Tether, which is an ultimate.
• Due to the limited usage of Siphoning overall on a Stamblade, the Soul Siphoner passive is also incredibly limited too.

Then we have the Assassin tree, which is also incredibly limited in its overall functionality.

• No reason to use Blur, Teleport Strike, or Mark Target on a DPS rotation for PvE content.
• Master Assassin only works from stealth so another entirely useless passive for PvE.
• Executioner only restores magic, so not helpful for stamina at all.

There's just too little support within the class that help Stamblades out in regards to PvE content.

If it were up to me, I'd make a few changes to the class

• Change the Debilitate morph on Cripple to a Stamina based disease DoT. This way, Stamblades have a decent skill to slot that triggers Transfer, Magicka Flood and Soul Siphoner
• Change Magicka Flood to include stamina as well (change the name to Invigorate or something)
• Change Dark Shade morph of Summon Shades to deal Disease damage and scale off of weapon damage/max stamina
• Change Executioner to restore stamina as well as magic.
• Change Master Assassin to increase damage on targets that are currently CC'd as well as from stealth. Probably have to remove the longer stun duration to help compensate the increase in damage.
• Change Reaper's Mark morph of Mark Target to grant a new debuff that increases the effectiveness of DoTs on the target (Call it Minor Fester or something) Reaper's Mark is a joke of a skill honestly. The concept is nice, however, having to kill a target for the Major Berserk buff is highly impractical in both PvE and PvP content where either enemies die too quickly to ever actually use the full 5 seconds of the buff or there are simply not enough enemies to get the buff reliably enough to actually warrant its use, make it an almost entirely dead skill in most situations. Changing it to include a new debuff that helps out group play would thus make it much more attractive overall as currently NBs really don't have much in that regard and it would help out their damage overall as well.

I would support the 1st and last idea together. I'd want to change that last idea for Reapers Mark and have it debuff the target for increased disease damage taken. The first ability change would allow us to have access to an ability that synergizes well with the vma daggers/axes.

Again, this is a PVE discussion, the community is in agreement that the current meta in pvp favors the burst nb. There are ways to increase dps without increasing burst.

Also listing abilities, passives, and combos that all stam classes have defeats the purpose of this discussion. All stam classes with access to VMA Dagger/Axe use those combinations to maximize dps as it is. Even then, Stam DK's are mountains ahead of other classes. Why? It's the abilities and passives that only DK's have access to that seperate them. We should look at other class only passives/abilities as a way to buff to keep them competitive with stamdk's in PVE. Remember to keep this as a PVE only discussion. As mentioned above more then once. Any passive the NB has that benefits stealth play is not a benefit to PVE dps as cloak isNEVER (omg! What? Yes...) used.

Elevenstorm

Dyride wrote: »

elium85 wrote: »

Frankly, it's a sad day for Stamblades when Storcs are on par damage-wise...

Wow. Nice low blow compliment. I don't think Stam Sorcs are there yet really as a class even if our damage has gotten to maybe low par.

I wish stam sorcs had half the stam skills you have, or the resource management, or cheapest physical ultimate, or the heal debuffs, or the best pvp CC.

Hmm.

Well as it is currently in competitive endgame PvE Stamina NB's will be using 0 of their stam morphs they have available to them. Therefore I will counter with:

I wish stam blades had half the stam skills dk's have that are effective in endgame pve. Also, resource management took a huge hit with the nerf to Siphoning attacks, we do not use this cheap physical ultimate in endgame PvE. It makes more sense to use the other morph for Ulitimate gain. Heal debuffs have no place in Endgame PvE except for niche cases. This best pvp CC is available to anyone who is a ww. But, this is not a pvp focused discussion.

Elevenstorm

It's entirely possible the reason for the great imbalance is the double dipping with Thaumaturge.

Bfish22090

you can have venemous claw for your NB if my DK can have ANY of your NB passives

Elevenstorm

Lol, passives that work with cloak? Passives that return magicka? You mean those passives. Looking at our passives. 1/4th are usable as a stamina night blade.

Bromburak

Elevenstorm wrote: »

We should also disregard anything that requires stealth. As cloak is not used in PvE.

Who cares, that's our personal play style decision and not a class issue.

Elevenstorm

Bromburak wrote: »

Elevenstorm wrote: »

We should also disregard anything that requires stealth. As cloak is not used in PvE.

Who cares, that's our personal play style decision and not a class issue.

I don't understand what you are referring to. Stealth as a personal play style in trial situations to be competitive with dks? Stealth is irrelevant in end game trials. No one runs cloak in pve as its ineffective.

Resipsa131

acw37162 wrote: »

All my points are accurate and valid. If NB's want PVE boosts to be raid leaders damage leaders, which is cool, start talking about what your willing to give up as a NB community.

You fool around with their toolkit to much, hell even a little bit you can completely break other aspects of the game.

Just take cloak FFS

Elevenstorm

Resipsa131 wrote: »

acw37162 wrote: »

All my points are accurate and valid. If NB's want PVE boosts to be raid leaders damage leaders, which is cool, start talking about what your willing to give up as a NB community.

You fool around with their toolkit to much, hell even a little bit you can completely break other aspects of the game.

Just take cloak FFS

Agreed. Doesn't even work in pvp where it is used.

Attackopsn

A big problem with stamina nightblades specifically in group PvE is that their main unique buffs and debuffs such as minor berserk and major fracture are not unique or beneficial to a competitive trials group because they are applied to the team and boss via combat prayer and puncture. There are a few points here that people enjoy discussing frequently when this is brought up because they are highly relevant to any changes that could be made. The main ones I personally find the most relevant are how can we make changes to buff this class only for group PvE (non solo) without making them stronger in PvP, including Magicka nb (which i main and find to be in a fine and highly competitive state in pve). The unfortunate reality for stamina nightblades is that with the current stamina dps meta and cp, not only is rapid strikes stronger than their unique class ability for sustained dps, but rapid strikes in combination with the cruel flurry enchantment makes those builds that synergize better with flurry even stronger. In my opinion, the biggest issue here is that killer's blade is a very undesirable execute, and the best way to solve this problem would be by buffing this ability further. The highest level stamina nightblades do not currently use killers blade in pvp because the current dps meta promotes an average health pool around 20-25k. This means that killers blade will only become functional around 5k-6.25k hp for well over the majority of cyrodiil, which is often the amount of hp another weaved surprise attack would have killed the target. Increasing the execute range would affect pvp, and stamina nightblades hold a controversial stance in that area, but a tweak in damage that made it an actual dps increase over rapid strikes spam at execute range would be a step in the right direction for this class. I do not believe that this would be an over-tuned increase in solo pve either (vma), since the execute phase is only several seconds in this area of content.

Pallio

Sadly this game is balanced around PvP, you can't just ignore that and hope for improvements in PvE. Otherwise, the PVP folks would go insane, ie. Jesus Beam, didn't fix Templar in PvE, but, as soon as it was not completely useless in PvP anymore everyone complained.....

Strider_Roshin

I think if they got rid of the stun from incapacitating strike and placed a DoT in its place instead would be an acceptable change. Making the master assassin passive applicable outside of cloak would be nice as well. Then if we were to change the executioner passive into a stamina version of magicka flood I think stamblades would be in a solid spot. They still won't outperform stam DKs but at least it will be an improvement.

Bromburak

Elevenstorm wrote: »

Bromburak wrote: »

Elevenstorm wrote: »

We should also disregard anything that requires stealth. As cloak is not used in PvE.

Who cares, that's our personal play style decision and not a class issue.

I don't understand what you are referring to. Stealth as a personal play style in trial situations to be competitive with dks? Stealth is irrelevant in end game trials. No one runs cloak in pve as its ineffective.

Of course you don't understand because all that matters for players like you are DPS statistics.

The reality is that damage reduction and more armor is efficient especially for those NBs that fail and
always claim that their builds feel squishy in every second NB thread.

Elevenstorm

Bromburak wrote: »

Elevenstorm wrote: »

Bromburak wrote: »

Elevenstorm wrote: »

We should also disregard anything that requires stealth. As cloak is not used in PvE.

Who cares, that's our personal play style decision and not a class issue.

I don't understand what you are referring to. Stealth as a personal play style in trial situations to be competitive with dks? Stealth is irrelevant in end game trials. No one runs cloak in pve as its ineffective.

Of course you don't understand because all that matters for players like you are DPS statistics.

The reality is that damage reduction and more armor is efficient especially for those NBs that fail and
always claim that their builds feel squishy in every second NB thread.

You are the first person in this thread to mention that. I've never once made that claim. The statement/s you have made in this thread so far has had no intellectual value and has not progressed the theme for the entire discussion of this thread which is competitive endgame pve dps for stamina NB's. You mention the topic of discussion then immediately discredit it. If you want to discuss competitive endgame stamina nightblade survivability please start another thread and stay on topic here. Thanks!

Silver_Strider

Elevenstorm wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

The thing about NB that really limits a lot of their potential is that a lot of their passives work either only from stealth or only help magic builds.

The majority of the Siphon tree is exclusive to magic only.

• Magicka Flood only helps magblades as it increases their max magic.
• The only 2 moves that can proc Transfer on a Stamblade are Power Extraction, which is a worst Steel Tornado, and Soul Tether, which is an ultimate.
• Due to the limited usage of Siphoning overall on a Stamblade, the Soul Siphoner passive is also incredibly limited too.

Then we have the Assassin tree, which is also incredibly limited in its overall functionality.

• No reason to use Blur, Teleport Strike, or Mark Target on a DPS rotation for PvE content.
• Master Assassin only works from stealth so another entirely useless passive for PvE.
• Executioner only restores magic, so not helpful for stamina at all.

There's just too little support within the class that help Stamblades out in regards to PvE content.

If it were up to me, I'd make a few changes to the class

• Change the Debilitate morph on Cripple to a Stamina based disease DoT. This way, Stamblades have a decent skill to slot that triggers Transfer, Magicka Flood and Soul Siphoner
• Change Magicka Flood to include stamina as well (change the name to Invigorate or something)
• Change Dark Shade morph of Summon Shades to deal Disease damage and scale off of weapon damage/max stamina
• Change Executioner to restore stamina as well as magic.
• Change Master Assassin to increase damage on targets that are currently CC'd as well as from stealth. Probably have to remove the longer stun duration to help compensate the increase in damage.
• Change Reaper's Mark morph of Mark Target to grant a new debuff that increases the effectiveness of DoTs on the target (Call it Minor Fester or something) Reaper's Mark is a joke of a skill honestly. The concept is nice, however, having to kill a target for the Major Berserk buff is highly impractical in both PvE and PvP content where either enemies die too quickly to ever actually use the full 5 seconds of the buff or there are simply not enough enemies to get the buff reliably enough to actually warrant its use, make it an almost entirely dead skill in most situations. Changing it to include a new debuff that helps out group play would thus make it much more attractive overall as currently NBs really don't have much in that regard and it would help out their damage overall as well.

I would support the 1st and last idea together. I'd want to change that last idea for Reapers Mark and have it debuff the target for increased disease damage taken. The first ability change would allow us to have access to an ability that synergizes well with the vma daggers/axes.

Again, this is a PVE discussion, the community is in agreement that the current meta in pvp favors the burst nb. There are ways to increase dps without increasing burst.

Also listing abilities, passives, and combos that all stam classes have defeats the purpose of this discussion. All stam classes with access to VMA Dagger/Axe use those combinations to maximize dps as it is. Even then, Stam DK's are mountains ahead of other classes. Why? It's the abilities and passives that only DK's have access to that seperate them. We should look at other class only passives/abilities as a way to buff to keep them competitive with stamdk's in PVE. Remember to keep this as a PVE only discussion. As mentioned above more then once. Any passive the NB has that benefits stealth play is not a benefit to PVE dps as cloak isNEVER (omg! What? Yes...) used.

I'll admit that changing Magicka Flood and Master Assassin would increase a NB's burst damage but making Executioner restore stamina, as well as magic when killing a target with an assassin ability should still be a thing. Right now, that passive is almost entirely useless on a Stamblade as it doesn't help them at all due to both a lack of useful magic abilities for Stamblades in PvE and due to not restoring the primary resource of a Stamblade.

Also, the change to Dark Shades wouldn't help increase a NB's burst because the damage of the skill is so low already. It's pretty much only used as a Debuff skill with a mild DoT attached so again, I don't see a problem with changing it to Disease Damage and making it for stamina users.

I only named passives and abilities that are underutilized on a Stamblade in an attempt to change them to make them more useful for a Stamblade because we can't use the majority of them as they are, which does fit the theme of the discussion so I am unsure what exactly you mean by staying on topic.

Elevenstorm

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Elevenstorm wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

The thing about NB that really limits a lot of their potential is that a lot of their passives work either only from stealth or only help magic builds.

The majority of the Siphon tree is exclusive to magic only.

• Magicka Flood only helps magblades as it increases their max magic.
• The only 2 moves that can proc Transfer on a Stamblade are Power Extraction, which is a worst Steel Tornado, and Soul Tether, which is an ultimate.
• Due to the limited usage of Siphoning overall on a Stamblade, the Soul Siphoner passive is also incredibly limited too.

Then we have the Assassin tree, which is also incredibly limited in its overall functionality.

• No reason to use Blur, Teleport Strike, or Mark Target on a DPS rotation for PvE content.
• Master Assassin only works from stealth so another entirely useless passive for PvE.
• Executioner only restores magic, so not helpful for stamina at all.

There's just too little support within the class that help Stamblades out in regards to PvE content.

If it were up to me, I'd make a few changes to the class

• Change the Debilitate morph on Cripple to a Stamina based disease DoT. This way, Stamblades have a decent skill to slot that triggers Transfer, Magicka Flood and Soul Siphoner
• Change Magicka Flood to include stamina as well (change the name to Invigorate or something)
• Change Dark Shade morph of Summon Shades to deal Disease damage and scale off of weapon damage/max stamina
• Change Executioner to restore stamina as well as magic.
• Change Master Assassin to increase damage on targets that are currently CC'd as well as from stealth. Probably have to remove the longer stun duration to help compensate the increase in damage.
• Change Reaper's Mark morph of Mark Target to grant a new debuff that increases the effectiveness of DoTs on the target (Call it Minor Fester or something) Reaper's Mark is a joke of a skill honestly. The concept is nice, however, having to kill a target for the Major Berserk buff is highly impractical in both PvE and PvP content where either enemies die too quickly to ever actually use the full 5 seconds of the buff or there are simply not enough enemies to get the buff reliably enough to actually warrant its use, make it an almost entirely dead skill in most situations. Changing it to include a new debuff that helps out group play would thus make it much more attractive overall as currently NBs really don't have much in that regard and it would help out their damage overall as well.

I would support the 1st and last idea together. I'd want to change that last idea for Reapers Mark and have it debuff the target for increased disease damage taken. The first ability change would allow us to have access to an ability that synergizes well with the vma daggers/axes.

Again, this is a PVE discussion, the community is in agreement that the current meta in pvp favors the burst nb. There are ways to increase dps without increasing burst.

Also listing abilities, passives, and combos that all stam classes have defeats the purpose of this discussion. All stam classes with access to VMA Dagger/Axe use those combinations to maximize dps as it is. Even then, Stam DK's are mountains ahead of other classes. Why? It's the abilities and passives that only DK's have access to that seperate them. We should look at other class only passives/abilities as a way to buff to keep them competitive with stamdk's in PVE. Remember to keep this as a PVE only discussion. As mentioned above more then once. Any passive the NB has that benefits stealth play is not a benefit to PVE dps as cloak isNEVER (omg! What? Yes...) used.

I'll admit that changing Magicka Flood and Master Assassin would increase a NB's burst damage but making Executioner restore stamina, as well as magic when killing a target with an assassin ability should still be a thing. Right now, that passive is almost entirely useless on a Stamblade as it doesn't help them at all due to both a lack of useful magic abilities for Stamblades in PvE and due to not restoring the primary resource of a Stamblade.

Also, the change to Dark Shades wouldn't help increase a NB's burst because the damage of the skill is so low already. It's pretty much only used as a Debuff skill with a mild DoT attached so again, I don't see a problem with changing it to Disease Damage and making it for stamina users.

I only named passives and abilities that are underutilized on a Stamblade in an attempt to change them to make them more useful for a Stamblade because we can't use the majority of them as they are, which does fit the theme of the discussion so I am unsure what exactly you mean by staying on topic.

I'm sorry I should have split my reply. All was not towards you. Only the first paragraph bolded above was in reply to you. The rest was a general comment for the progression of the topic which indeed passives and abilities that are underutilized/inefficient in endgame pve dps scenarios are fair game for this discussion. Especially ideas on ways to improve those passives/abilities to help stamina nightblade dps catch up with Stamina DK's dps in endgame trial dps situations.