Returning player with class questions.

Xogath

After having been gone for quite some time now, and picking the game back up and re-familiarizing myself with everything, I had some questions regarding PvE Nightblades and Dragonknights; specifically, Stamina builds.

1. Considering equal skill and equipment, which is able to put out more damage?
2. Which is more useful to a group in terms of their personal damage, and utility to the group?
3. Are there good, viable builds involving DW for a NB, and 2H for a DK? (I hear DW/Bow is pretty good, but I don't hear too much about DKs these days, except some stuff about DW. Not sure how that works for them, though...) Examples of such builds, maybe? Some of the synergies I see people talk about totally escape me, haha.
3b. Also, when talking about DW in general, are daggers good at all? I've seen some talk of crit builds, but I'm not playing a Khajiit currently, and given the passives for the weapon types... everything else seems like it would be fairly far ahead of Daggers.

Neither of these characters are close to late-game content right now (although my DK is 40, so kind of close-ish), so what I'm doing now I know will drastically change at that point, but I just like having a heads-up on this type of thing so I can prepare along the way for it. Also if one class if particularly ahead of the other in terms of being useful to a group, I'd rather be playing that class, with at least a similar build so I'm not totally gimped.

Anyway, thanks in advance!

CasNation

Stam DK is pretty much the top pve dps at the moment, and will likely out dps an equal NB.

DK also has more utility than the NB in the form of various group buffs and mob control, if needed.

DW/bow is currently pretty much the only way to go for any stamina end game dps build. You can be quirky and use something else, but this combo will always pull higher numbers. This is mainly due to how bleeds work now, some skill changes in the bow and DW skill lines, and the extremely powerful Maelstrom weapons which empower almost all of the DK abilities.

Short answer, go DK if you want pure stam DPS.

Xogath

Yeah, a few of the builds I've looked at (for NBs, anyway) all mention the Maelstrom weapons, and something about how they work with DoTs. (They're never really specific, oddly enough.)

It kind of bites though that NBs seem to be outshined on both damage and group utility... but I guess I can't say I'm too surprised. I wonder how long it'll stay like that. I am surprised that 2H isn't a viable option for DKs, though; it always seemed so much more powerful. I guess that's mainly due to Maelstrom weapons, though?

But anyway, thanks for the input!

Xogath

Would like to bump this for curiosity, but: how large is the difference between the two, in most situations? Assuming the same uptime on a boss, same buff/debuff uptime as well, is the difference really that large, or are we talking just a few hundred DPS between the two?

I really enjoy my NB this time around, since I know how to not die, but if the difference between the two is that much later on, I might as well just pick my DK back up and finish out L40-50 and start working on CP and gear collection.

CasNation

Xogath wrote: »

Would like to bump this for curiosity, but: how large is the difference between the two, in most situations? Assuming the same uptime on a boss, same buff/debuff uptime as well, is the difference really that large, or are we talking just a few hundred DPS between the two?

I really enjoy my NB this time around, since I know how to not die, but if the difference between the two is that much later on, I might as well just pick my DK back up and finish out L40-50 and start working on CP and gear collection.

To answer your question, I will ask you some questions. Do your consider yourself an elite player? Are you competing for leaderboards scores? Do you belong to a highly acclaimed guild that is competing for leaderboards? Do you enjoy how DK plays in particular?

If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then have fun playing your NB. The answer is that WITH vMA weapons, DK can outperform any stam class by a significant margin. But without? They are still stronger, but the difference is not as large. Besides, with the reintroduction of vMA and vHRC, NB's are going to be needed for their veil of blades mitigstion ultimate.

In the end, if you prefer playing NB, play a NB.

Xogath

CasNation wrote: »

To answer your question, I will ask you some questions. Do your consider yourself an elite player? Are you competing for leaderboards scores? Do you belong to a highly acclaimed guild that is competing for leaderboards? Do you enjoy how DK plays in particular?

If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then have fun playing your NB. The answer is that WITH vMA weapons, DK can outperform any stam class by a significant margin. But without? They are still stronger, but the difference is not as large. Besides, with the reintroduction of vMA and vHRC, NB's are going to be needed for their veil of blades mitigstion ultimate.

In the end, if you prefer playing NB, play a NB.

It's a shame that the difference between the two is that large, with or without the Maelstrom weapons.

That aside, do you know what build most Stam DKs typically run with? Granted, I'd have to choose something with survivability while leveling from 40-50, then beyond that, which is where I currently have a bit of a problem: without liberal use of Brawler, how do DW DKs survive? I know Twin Slashes and Flurry can be morphed for healing, and there's always Spiked Armor and its morph for mitigation... would that be the best route to take? Assuming that, does:

Spiked Armor (morphed, probably Hardened)
Twin Slashes > Blood Craze (for now)
Noxious Breath (Fracture)
Venomous Claw
Flurry (morphed for heals)
Standard of Might

..look good for bar 1? I suppose I could always leave bar 2 as 2H for now, since both my DW and Bow skills are gimped on this DK (leveled strictly 2H a year ago).

CasNation

For solo play? Sure. Go for it. Pretty much anything works for solo questing.

I recommend checking out the theory crafting subforums on tamrielfoundry.com to see some endgame NB and DK builds and see how they are made, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how easy they are to play.

Xogath

CasNation wrote: »

For solo play? Sure. Go for it. Pretty much anything works for solo questing.

I recommend checking out the theory crafting subforums on tamrielfoundry.com to see some endgame NB and DK builds and see how they are made, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how easy they are to play.

Ah, neat. I'll do that, thanks!

AverageJo3Gam3r

Alcast also has a good stam DK build video:

https://youtu.be/GfvVR048v9A

But this is all balance patch dependent. Next patch, another class could be on top. Look at stam sorcs--used to be a joke now they're really good. So pick which one you like to play with.

Xogath

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

Alcast also has a good stam DK build video:

https://youtu.be/GfvVR048v9A

But this is all balance patch dependent. Next patch, another class could be on top. Look at stam sorcs--used to be a joke now they're really good. So pick which one you like to play with.

Yeah, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that every new patch is going to potentially tip the scales in favor of one class or another. For now, I think I'll stick with my Nightblade. I'm enjoy it quite a bit, and actually found Alcast's build before I left for work earlier, and it looks pretty solid to me. (The abilities actually make sense, rather than a few other builds I've seen having a few that made me think "Really...?")

That, and I just didn't care for DWing with my DK at all. I felt so gimped and it was extremely hard to stay alive compared to having Brawler available as a form of active mitigation paired with Rally.

So hopefully in the future I'll actually have the time to get in to late-game content and get decent equipment; I guess we'll see.

But thanks, everyone, for the input!