[Build] Stamina Nightblade Devastation Tank (15k+ sustained selfbuffed single-target DPS as tank)

susmitds · December 2016

Heya Guys,

Today I decided to share one of my personal builds here. It is my favourite tanking build right now and is probably the most insanely versatile builds I have yet seen on a nightblade. The overall damage and survivability is surprising great and pulls more damage than your average PuG DD while taking full aggro of boss and trash mobs. Details are down below :-

Build - Stamina Nightblade Devastation Tank

Situations where this build is very useful

Tanking Veteran Dungeons including DLC dungeons (you can solo all normal dungeon without forced grouping and most veteran dungeons with this build) Off-tanking in Normal/Veteran Trials (dunno about vMoL twins though where I am yet to test this build) while getting 20k+ DPS.

Race

It is very hard to select a particular race but there are four main choices here.
Khajiit - Majority of the damage dealt by the build is critical damage. But being a heavy armor build, your base critical chance will be pretty low to begin with. Shadow still provides more damage output for an NB than Thief. But for that, you will need a good enough crit. dmg chance to begin with. Khajiit really helps there. As for survivability, you don't really need a specific race for it, as long you follow the mechanics and know the fights.
Redguard - Somewhat lesser damage but significantly more sustain. Damage output will be significantly lower than a Khajiit given that the majority of the damage is critical damage. But resource management becomes much more seamless.
Imperial - Better base stats will give some freedom to gain more stamina and drop health.
Nord - Somewhat better stats and mitigation.

Gear

Your gear will need some changes based on situations.
Random Dungeon Group

5 pc Vicious Ophidian (Jewelry, Infused/Sharpened/Defending Sword/Axe/Dagger/Mace - Crusher Enchant, Reinforced/Sturdy Shield), 2 pc Velidreth (Infused MA Head, Sturdy/Divine MA Shoulders) OR 2 pc Sellitrix (Infused MA Head, Sturdy/Divine MA Shoulders) and 5 pc Black Rose (big pieces Infused, small pieces Divine) OR 5 pc Leeching Plate (all Sturdy) OR 5 pc Bahraha's Curse (all heavy Sturdy) OR 5 pc Morihaus (3 Well-fitted, 2 Sturdy) AND The Maelstrom's Bow (Precise/Defending - Back Bar)
Organized Dungeon Group and Trials

5 pc Roar of Alkosh (Jewelry, Infused Sword/Axe/Dagger/Mace - Crusher Enchant, Reinforced/Sturdy Shield), 2 pc Velidreth (Infused MA Head, Sturdy/Divine MA Shoulders) OR 2 pc Sellitrix (Infused MA Head, Sturdy/Divine MA Shoulders) OR 2 pc Bloodspawn (Infused MA Head, Sturdy/Divine Shoulders) and 5 pc Black Rose (big pieces Infused, small pieces Divine) OR 5 pc Leeching Plate (big pieces Infused, small pieces Sturdy) OR 5 pc Morihaus (3 Well-fitted, 2 Sturdy) OR 5 pc Bahraha's Curse (big pieces Infused, small pieces Sturdy, all HA) OR 5 pc Ebon Armory (big pieces Infused, small pieces Sturdy) OR 5 pc Tava's Favor (big pieces Infused, small pieces Sturdy, all HA) AND The Maelstrom's Bow (Precise/Defending - Back Bar) Depending on what your group needs.

Skills

Main Bar - 1 Hand and Shield

Fixed Skills
Surprise Attack - Your main spammable skill that can be block-casted. Properly weaving light attacks makes this essentially free. Also gives Major resists for 8 secs and 3% more HP.
Vigor - Your main (and only) heal. YOU NEED THIS.
Power Extraction - An average AoE spammable but can aggro all mobs on you and is essentially an AoE taunt. Gives 3% more healing recieved. Also gives Major Brutality.
Swappable Skills
Killer's Blade - A good execute with good burst heal on kills. Gives 2% crit from Assassination passives. Gives you access to Assassination passives if only Assassination skill on bar.
Re-arming Trap - A great DoT with Minor Force (12% extra Crit Dmg). Try to front-bar if possible for 3% extra weapon damage.
Ransack - Taunt with Major Penetration Debuffs. (Remember you already get Major Breach from Surprise Attack so you don't really need this if with Stamina DDs)
Heroic Slash - Minor Maim source but costs a lot for what it does. Also gives Minor Heroism but IMO 0.33 ultimate generation per sec is not very useful for this build, especially considering it's 2k+ cost.
Shadow Image - Another Minor Maim source but costs magicka, which is good and gives 3% extra HP and gives Major Resists for 8 secs. Better than Herioc Slash IMO but YMMV.
Swappable Ultimate
Veil of Blades/Bolstering Darkness - 30% less damage taken, decent damage OR 60% less damage taken for 17 secs. Gives 3% extra HP.
Soul Harvest - 25% extra damage dealt for 5 secs with decent burst. Gives 2% crit from Assassination passives. Gives you access to Assassination passives if only Assassination skill on bar. Gives 9 ultimate with every kill allowing for insane ultimate regen.
Soul Tether/Soul Siphon - Great AoE burst and good AoE DoT and mediocre healing OR massive burst heal, HoT, Major Vitality for 4 secs for whole group. Gives 3% more healing recieved.

Back Bar - The Maelstrom's Bow

Fixed Skills
Endless Hail - The strongest DoT in the game, paired with the strongest single weapon in the game. Wrecks everything. Main reason that this build works in the first place.
Siphoning Attacks - 1k extra resource return on light/heavy attacks with 10% chance for 2k resource return on direct attacks.
Swappable Skills
Poison Injection - A fairly strong DoT. Consistent source of damage.
Re-arming Trap - You may not manage to get this on your main bar so try putting it here if you can't.
Inner Fire - A magicka ranged taunt. I prefer this one over Ransack as along as I am with magicka DPS or if I am running Reaper's Mark, as I can backbar it easily and also decreases unnecessary stamina drain.
Shadow Image - Another Minor Maim source but costs magicka, which is good and gives 3% extra HP and gives Major Resists for 8 secs. Better than Herioc Slash IMO but YMMV.
Relentless Focus - Source of Minor Berserk and 10% extra stamina regen. Don't use if your healer is running Combat Prayer.
Reaper's Mark - Source of Major Penetration and heals and Major Berserk on kills. Use if there are Magicka DDs in group and you are using Inner Fire over Ransack like me.
Swappable Ultimate
Agressive Warhorn - Use this in Organized groups. 10% extra resources for 30 secs and 30% extra critical damage for 8 secs.
Soul Tether/Soul Siphon - Great AoE burst and good AoE DoT and mediocre healing OR massive burst heal, HoT, Major Vitality for 4 secs for whole group. Gives 3% more healing recieved.
Veil of Blades/Bolstering Darkness - 30% less damage taken, decent damage OR 60% less damage taken for 17 secs.
Shooting Star - A timed self-empowered major AoE burst followed by a good ground DoT. The best Ultimate for pure damage.
Double-Take - A source of Major Evasion with occasional speedboost at demand. A great skill if you can manage to get it in. I generally dont use this in dungeons but do use it in DLC dungeons and trials.
Razor Caltrops - A ground DoT with low damage but huge area coverage. I personally don't have place for this and it is better left to DDs.

Food and Potions

Max HP-Max Stamina is my preferred food but you can use Max HP-Stamina Regen food
(Stamina/Health/Major Savagery) or (Stamina/Major Brutality/Major Savagery) potions are best for general use and Immovable potions/Major Vitality potions for emergency. Trash stamina and health pots work fine too unless you want absolute best results.

Mundus

Shadow is the best here. I will update with a comparison late on.

Champion Point Distribution

I am still testing out the best setup but will update soon. In general, CP distributions for vMA will be good enough.

Expected Stats

My Khajiit has 25K HP, 33.5k Stamina, 3.6k weapon damage, 860 stamina regen and 56.5% weapon critical, 25k resists fully buffed.

Technique

Single Target Fights - Buff up and start with Endless Hail and apply any backbar DoTs , debuff boss, taunt and blockcast Power Extraction if not using Major Brutality pots. Drop trap and use Surprise Attack while blocking the harder boss attacks and weaving light attacks in between. When Endless Hail is about to run out, use Vigor and change bar. Blockcast Endless Hail, buff up again without dropping block, apply DoTs, debuffs and taunt and drop trap. Repeat till execution time where you spam Killer's Blade instead of Surprise Attack. The main thing is the judgement when to go offensive and when to turtle up. When in 1H&S bar, you can choose to use to eat some of the normal attacks and block the heavier ones. On Bow bar, block anything that you know to hit hard. Whenever health drops below 70%, use Vigor. If below 30% HP, use Vigor, dodge, Mitigation/Healing Ultimate if available followed by Immovable/any health potion and you should be back up. If you follow below 30% stamina, decrease Surprise Attack usage and spam light attacks. Takes a great amount of practice but you will eventually get the hang of it.

What kind of damage you can expect

Anything between 20-30k DPS in a good group.

This was my selfbuffed DPS of 15k+ in a bad PuG group. My gear was purple (except the jewelry which is gold), my sword was charged (sh!t trait), Black Rose was all Impen instead of Infused/Divines. I was using trash stam potions. Also my rotation was somewhat off with just 40% uptime on Trap and overuse of Power Extraction. All in all, there were many places to improve DPS here.
Now you might be wondering about sustained DPS of the build. Here's as example.

Well, in the last boss of the same vDirefrost Keep run on Drodda Hard Mode, the rest of that group went to die over and over from the boss' teleport AoE attack, could not break free in time etc. After constant running to resurrect fellow members and typing out mechanics midfight, they kept on dying and let boss heal up millions of HP before they broke free. After a gruelling struggle to reach 25% HP they died again, I had to solo boss from there.

As you can see I still got almost 10k DPS on a 11 min fight, where I wasted majority of the time rezzing and dealt 7 million damage to a boss that starts with only 5 million HP. So yeah, I carried a group through one of the biggest DPS races in non-DLC veteran dungeons as a tank. As in the above case, most of my gear got wrong traits, purple quality and I used trash pots. That should give a basic idea of overall damage, survivability and sustain of the build.

The key to the build is flexibility. I will keep the post updated with any change I make to the build.

F.A.Q

Can vMA be completed with this build?
Easily. In fact this build will make it easier than most general builds to get Flawless Conqueror.
What's this build's Achilles' Heel?
I would say, it is the solo survivability. You only have one real heal available at all times and that is a HoT. You will need to rely on potions and ultimates for a burst heal, which are not always available. But generally with skillful dodging and keeping an eye on HP, it is easy to overcome. And in groups with at least average healer, it is no issue.
The gear is too hard to get!
Well, they are kinda needed for the build but they pay off.
Is the vMA bow really needed?
Yes, it is the main source of DPS for this build.
Why Precise and not Sharpened for vMA bow?
To allow Vigor to crit more while in back bar. Honestly I don't spend enough time on that bar either.
Is the build hard to master?
Rather hard, I would say. You need to know what to block and what to eat, when to attack and when to save resources, when to weave light attacks, when to blockcast, etc. It will take a fair amount of practice before anyone can balance damage, survival and sustain but it pays off.
Why do you still PuG?
I, honestly, enjoy the challenge. Don't like pestering guildies everytime I wanna farm something.

Bandit1215 · December 2016

Very organised post, but I feel this is more of a dps that gives up damage for survive ability and then calls themselves a tank. All I'm saying is with this setup, don't be expected to be taken seriously as a tank.

susmitds · December 2016

@Bandit1215 Yes, in a way you could say that. From my perspective, it is mostly using the vMA bow's destructive power while tanking boss. The gear I currently use in organized groups is includes Alkosh which is already BiS for most tanks for its group support and rest like Tava's Favor depends on what the others want. Basically the build essentially is instead of just standing and eating damage, dropping a few DoTs and blockcasting Surprise Attack whenever possible as long as your sustain works. In fact, you could simply hold block as usual and use Warhorns for group support. I kind of noticed that with proper use of Siphoning Attacks, I hardly never run out of stamina, so I used that chance to run vMA bow in the second bar and use a few DoTs while I am at it anyway. Basically the motto is to make use of every opening to weave in a few attacks.