I need advice

Nakiki92

I am playing as a nightblade and as the title says, I really need advice.
I Am playing this game since the release on XboX And I never got the intention to play PVP and go for world bosses and such such, but when I try I fail pretty much on anything.
This also includes PVE on the bigger bosses, before the One Tamriel Update I never got this problem, I'd level up and came back to kick arse but ever since I never dared and never wanted to try it again, this also includes (public dungeons), delves.

Witch gave me pretty much the idea I fail pretty much at this game during combat, mostly I play with a friend who is a dragonnighte tank build, but without him I pretty much fail during combat, this includes PVP, World Bosses, Public Dungeons, and Delves. I can't always relay on him and I also don't want to.

I am playing as a Khajitt Nightblade Champion Level 355 (At the moment of writing this) I am playing as a Stamina Nightblade, with medium armour (Examle in link)
https://s15.postimg.org/d4ccyotbv/20170403_011004_1.jpg

now I want to be at least a tad good to defeat some (world)bosses instead a I used to be, I'm running the Night mothers Blaze, and the full set of the Agility set jewellery, 2 items of the Undaunted bastion and Vampire's kiss.

My health is 24, and Stamina is 40
My first set is a dual wield and, my second hand is a bow

I know I will never be good at this game but at least I want to be a proper damage dealer (DPS) And I fail at so many levels at this that it isn't even fun any more.
I really want to go from lore player to a more combat player or a combination of that. So I wont be depended of other players to achieve some things.

Any useful help or advice would be highly appreciated, before I need to go back to a regular freeloader (As I mostly feel like) and be a lore/role player instead.

Thanks

Magdalina

Unfortunately I don't do stamina nor nightblades at all but I can at least try to give some general tips.

360 cp is quite a bit, your stats are lower than I'd expect(no offence). Agility is a good set, Night mother's is okay(? I think it is, I really am not good with stamina...), why Undaunted/Vampire's though? Go Hunding's or something. 5 Hunding's+4 Night Mother's Gaze or something maybe?
If you can, make your weapons gold, it adds quite a bit of damage(purple/gold armor isn't much diffrence but weapons are at cp 160).
Are you using food? Generally people usually put all the attribute points into stamina/magicka unless they're tanks, then get whatever is lacking through food and/or enchants. There's a really good new stam food with Jester festival, max health+max stam+stam recovery, or you could just use max health+max stam.

You said you're dying a lot, do you have Vigor unlocked? It's a stamina heal from the Alliance war skill tree and it can be really good, I'd advise you to get it. That aside I think 2h (Rally?) has a decent heal.

...I'm afraid I can't help on actual rotation, I don't know much about it I know most stamina dps run DW with bow on backbar as well, apply some dots from bow then go main dps on dw bar but not much more than that.

Do you have Undaunted passives? It's not a game breaker but one of the passives there gives you 2% more resources per type of armor you wear, so if you wear say 5 medium 1 light 1 heavy you'll have 6% more health, 6% more magicka and 6% more stamina which is pretty handy.

Also in regards to Undaunted, have you tried a monster set? These can be very helpful too.

SydneyGrey

I've been playing a stamina nightblade for the past two weeks, and she sucks. There are quest bosses I cannot kill with her, even though I was able to kill the same bosses with my sorceror character. (The Grand Sermonizer in the Dark Brotherhood questline is one of them.) I've been studying about nightblades for the past week, trying to figure out how to improve her, and it turns out you can't improve nightblades using nightblade skills. You need to use an ultimate from a different skill line (the Fighter's Guild ultimate is great), and like the person above me said, if you can play PvP in Cyrodiil long enough to get the Vigor skill unlocked, then you'll have a great heal.

Nightblades suck for PvE, apparently. Supposedly magicka NBs are better than stamina NBs at PvE.

My character sucks so much, I'm going to be making a new character today in a different class.

malicia

@OP - I'm possibly the least knowledgeable stamblade that will answer here, but I do know that I simply love my stamblade, and that it performs well enough that I'm not going to complain. I normally play as DPS, but gathered gear and a skillset to allow me some basic tanking as well. The class is versatile and once you have a build and rotation that works for you I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy it more.

I follow this guide. He includes suggestions for beginner gear (basically Hundings and NMG) which is easy to craft, and easy to find crafters for if you cannot craft it yourself. Do yourself a favour and look at it - you'll find great tips and suggestions there.

I'm a Dunmer NB, and started using the build that I linked from about 200CP. Since then I could solo any delve without problems - I've killed some of the delve bosses thinking that they're just another mob.

I'm now at CP 330. I can solo some World Bosses - though those with ranged attacks are still a bit beyond me.

malicia

SydneyGrey wrote: »

Nightblades suck for PvE, apparently. Supposedly magicka NBs are better than stamina NBs at PvE.

My character sucks so much, I'm going to be making a new character today in a different class.

Stamblades are pretty unforgiving to play. Most of us tend to be fairly squishy, so we die if we mess up. I've never tried magblade, but I suspect that if you play one DD you'll probably find it just as unforgiving.

As for healing: there are plenty NB skills that allows self-healing. Problem with them is that they're mostly healing over time, except for those that heals at the death of your enemy. If you want self heal without unlocking vigor, you can look at Bloodthirst, Swallow Soul, Killer's Blade, Reaper's Mark, and Blood Craze. Blood Craze and Bloodthirst are DW abilities but totally valid for stamblade use.

Jitterbug

Stamblades are an acquired taste... very risk/reward.
The basic playstyle revolves around you killing the enemy before they can even react and therefore it's tough to stand toe to toe with a world boss and "tank" him.
I can solo world bosses on my magblade if I go full tank but it takes forever.
If you want to solo world bosses you probably need to build for tanking with heavy armor, shield, and all the healing you can muster.
Right now you are bringing a knife to a gun fight.

malicia

Jitterbug wrote: »

Stamblades are an acquired taste... very risk/reward.
The basic playstyle revolves around you killing the enemy before they can even react and therefore it's tough to stand toe to toe with a world boss and "tank" him.
I can solo world bosses on my magblade if I go full tank but it takes forever.
If you want to solo world bosses you probably need to build for tanking with heavy armor, shield, and all the healing you can muster.
Right now you are bringing a knife to a gun fight.

I don't have a training dummy, so I currently use Anarume, a WB in Auridion as my training dummy. What I like about him is how he teaches the basics: his big AoE is enough to 1-shot me, but it can be interrupted. His cone damage skill is enough to severely hurt me, but can easily be sidestepped without dodge-rolling. His melee swings makes self-healing mandatory, but I can survive about two without dying. You can find him for free in Auridion; once you've gotten a semi-decent build together I highly recommend him for a few tutorials. His courses are free, you don't have to buy them on the Crown Store.

Violynne

Nakiki92 wrote: »

I know I will never be good at this game but at least I want to be a proper damage dealer (DPS) And I fail at so many levels at this that it isn't even fun any more.

Playing a stamBlade, even before 1T, is one of the most difficult character builds because it's one of the few classes which exchanges self healing for maximum damage.

In order to obtain this damage, you're going to need to stop telling yourself "I'll never be good". You've already leveled your character, which is both good and bad.

Let's start off with the good.
You're going to need to respec. Have about 10k gold on hand, because you're going to respec everything.

(prices based on if you've never respeced before - will increase if you have)
For 500g, you'll need to respec your attributes and put every single point into stamina. No health. No magicka. Stamina only, because your base weapon damage is directly tied to stamina.

For 3500g, respec all your skills.

For 3000g, you'll need to respec your Champion Points.

Now, before you rush off putting points back into skills and CP, you'll have to make a decision to determine your play style. No one can help you here, because every style is different.

I would suggest heading to YouTube to watch various stamBlade techniques to determine which may suit you best.

A stamBlade's power comes from combos, or a series of skills launched together (though not at the same time). This is where play style comes in, because how these skills are delivered takes many hours of practice.

Just because you've unlocked them means nothing.

Making it harder is the fact that only 5 skills of the Nightblade converts to stamina (why ZoS did this remains a mystery), which means you'll want to bar inexpensive magicka spells which work in conjunction with your stamina attacks (for example, Shadowy Disguise guarantees a crit on next hit, so use this in conjunction with your best weapon/skill damage output).

Since you're not ready to run vet dungeons yet, you'll still need to buff your stamina for ultimate damage. Hunding's Rage is often recommended, but if you have the Thieves Guild DLC, you can supplement with Eternal Hunt (which provides stamina and regen). These each come with research trait requirements, the latter requiring all 9 to be unlocked for any piece you want to make.

Enchanting will also be your friend as you can then throw even more stamina onto your gear.

Each weapon should be enchanted with Sharpened, which increases physical penetration, and your jewelry should do the same.

This is where Champion Points come in. Put as much as you can spend into Physical Penetration (under The Ritual Sign). By reducing an enemy's resistance means more damage gets through. Putting 30 points+ unlocks the passive to give 12% buff on weapon critical rating.

I would also recommend putting every point into Mooncalf (under The Lover) which boosts regen by x%. The passive unlocks will be very helpful, especially to Alchemy (which is in your best interest to master as taking potions to boost your damage/penetration will be helpful).

From there, you can decide where to spend your points, but again, match them against your play style.

I felt as you did. When the game launched, my first character was a stamBlade and I hated it. I felt it was underpowered and couldn't take out a skeever without utilizing 12 soul gems.

But it wasn't the class which sucked. It was me. Without a clue on what I was doing, of course the build was going to fail.

I also recommend joining a guild where its members will be more than happy to help you out, both in terms of crafting gear for your character and teaching you how to play with your chosen style.

My final piece of advice is take your time to learn and expect to die quite often. It's part of the learning process so you can determine what works for you and the build.

As for the world bosses... when you feel you're good enough, they make for perfect practice. After you mastered a few skills, go test them out. If you can wipe 50% of their health before you finally get defeated, consider this a win, not a fail. Not too many can bring a world boss to 50% of its health, so take this as notice to perfect even more.

Just don't forget to use your Ults.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Asardes

Stamina Nightblade is not weak in any sense. The only downside, like any stamina class, is that it lacks a reliable self heal. You'll need Vigor for that. Of all classes, it has the most stamina morphs, so you have much more flexibility about weapon choice in both PvE and PvP. You have an execute (Killer's Blade), a gap closer (Ambush), a cheap DPS spammable that also debuffs the target (Surprise Attack) and pretty good AoE & damage buff (Power Extraction).

There are also utility skills that cost magicka but they are cheap and only have to be recast every 15-20s. Siphoning Attacks - recovers magicka and stamina when you do heavy and light attack - so try to hit light attack with every skill in your rotation for very good sustain and keep it up all the time. Another useful skill is Mirage - gives you 15% dodge chance and 1320 physical and spell resistance. Another skill to keep on your main bar is Relentless Focus, because it adds more critical from class passives, and after you do 4 light or heavy attacks on a target it's loaded and you can deliver disease damage; also while it's active your stamina recovery gets boosted a bit. There's also Swallow Soul, that once cast on an enemy heals you for part of the damage done every 2s. See here more detailed descriptions: http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Nightblade+Skills

Just as any other stamina class, you will also need to use other weapon and guild skills to complete your build: Endless Hail (AoE) and Poison injection (single target) and Ballista (single target ultimate) from bow, Rapid Strikes (single target), Steel Tornado (AoE) and Rend (AoE ultimate ) from Dual Wield, slotting Camouflaged Hunter, and using Rearming Trap and Flawless/Smithing Dawnbreaker (ultimate) ultimate from Fighters Guild line will complement your skill set. Try to get all passives in whatever skill lines you are using to fully unlock damage and cost reduction for those skills.
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Weapon+Skills


As for gear, there are many useful sets, both crafted and dropped, which are not specific for Nightblade, but are effective on any stamina build:
Crafted 5 pieces: Hunding's Rage (6 traits), Night Mother's Gaze (6 traits), Twice Born Star (9 traits)
Dropped 5 pieces: Vicious Ophidian (Craglorn Trials), Leviathan (Crypt of Hearts), Spriggan's Thorns (overland Bangkorai)
Dropped 2 pieces (monster sets): Krag'h (Fungal Grotto 1), Stormfist (Tempest Island), Velidreth (Cradle of Shadows - much more difficult than the others) - shoulders in undaunted chests.
Weapons: Maelstrom axe, dagger and bow - however if you are having trouble with your build that's not an option since you need to play very well to finish that solo arena.

Nakiki92

I've followed pretty much most of all your steps from all of you and most skills that are people suggesting are skills that I already used allot, not that I am seeing the different morphs I thought to try them after the skill reset and oh boy. I can feel already the difference. I've never heard of of the skill Vigor but now that I am using it I can say I love it. The load out regarding skills sure needs some time to get tweaked to my playway but so far I am already loving it. It is a odd feel to play this way, but I'm quite sure I will getting used to this.

For the armour sets so far I need to save up on nodes before I can ditch the Undaunted Bastion and Vampires Kiss. I think I start with the Hunding's Rage and see how that goes for starters and from there I see it all further I guess. With small steps at the time. Are the any suggestions for the traits? What I mostly like is; Implementable/Sturdy/Reinforced or Infused

I even tried just for it a World Boss in Stonefalls (Shivering Shrine) I don't know if it was a good choice to start with but I got her down to 85/90% health left, witch is for me quite some damage, I didn't gave myself more then 95% as a remainder (not much I know haha ). regarding of how I used to play.

Anyhow there is still a long bumpy road for me to go but thanks to all of you I got really far, thank you all for it

Nestor

Nakiki92 wrote: »

I am playing as a nightblade and as the title says, I really need advice.

Here is my advice.

1. Park the NB or turn them into a crafter or a resource farmer or a mule to hold your stuff. Then it will be useful.
2. Roll any other class in the game (Altmer/Breton Templar/Sorcerer or Dark Elf/Breton/Altmer DK for example)
3. Use the Double Exp Anniversary event to roll each class up to 50 (then they will be at full CP level)
4. Then play one of those characters you just rolled and you will be much happier.
5. Log into your NB every once in a while so you will be reminded of how grateful your are for the advice I just gave you.

How to level fast and have lots of skill points when your done:

Let me give you an example of what I did with my last two leveling characters.

1. I collected all the Skyshards in the zone. I avoided any and all quests other than those that show up in the delves that have skyshards. These quests do not give set items for rewards so no loss there.
2. I would farm the dolmens a few times to get set jewelry that helped my character
3. I would do the Public Dungeons including all the bosses
4. Then I would move to the next zone.

In doing this, I could fully gear up my character with level appropriate stuff, and it was helpful gear. May not have been the best, but you don't need the best while leveling. Any gear I farmed from Dolmens or PD's is repeatable, so I can get it at CP160 by just repeating. Then, I had all the content quests left for me once I reached CP160 as those can give you sweet Set Drops in good traits you want. And, Quest Experience is huge for gaining CPs once your past CP160. Kind of a waste before that.

In about 8 zones, I would be fully leveled in Mages, Fighters, Class, 3 Armors and Weapon Skills. Leaving only Undaunted to level, although I would get to almost 3 in that from Dungeon Achievements.

1. Have one class skill on your bar at all times, swapping them out once the skill reaches Morph stage. Worry about your Morphs later.
2. Have one weapon skill on your bar at all times, again until Morph stage
3. Wear a mix of all 3 armor types so they all level about equally
4. From L1 to L20, invest in attack skills and actives
5. From L20 to L35 start investing in Passives and Support Skills
6. From L35 to L50 start investing in Morphs (but only if all your class skills are at the Morph Stage), Passives and Crafting Skills

Asardes

I actually like my Khajiit NB. I've soloed and duoed many world bosses in the zone I've passed trough. And I'm still wearing my crap level 44 training gear doing it, buffed only with crusty bread. I can pull 10-12K ST on the overland mobs and also some of those bosses even in that trash gear. Maybe NB is not good enough to use in a trial group aiming for the leaderboards - trials are more suited to magicka DDs in general - but can surely complete any endgame content if played correctly. I've played with lots of Stamina Nightblades and the burst damage is certainly there. For short fights, like the ones in VMA or dungeons Stamina NB is certainly viable due to the burst capability.

Undaunted Bastion and Vampire Kiss are garbage sets. Wear a DPS set. The key is to kill fast, before they can kill you. Go at least 5 medium, ideally 7 medium for more sustain and critical damage. You can also try going 1 light 5 medium 1 heavy or 5 medium 2 heavy. But always wear 5 medium to get the full weapon damage passives. Always use sharpened weapons for maximum damage. Always keep your buffs up especially shyponing attacks. Always keep your DoTs up - poison injection, endless hail, razor caltrops. Always use light attacks with every skill to get resources back from syphoning. The reason you get killed by world bosses is that you can't kill their adds fast enough and they overwhelm you with their damage.

malicia

Nakiki92 wrote: »

...Are the any suggestions for the traits? What I mostly like is; Implementable/Sturdy/Reinforced or Infused...

The rule of thumb is to go for Divines (as a stamblade you'll probably use Thief as your Mundus in order to improve crit chance). There are builds where some of the other traits are preferred, but unless you're an expert theorycrafter, rather stick with Divines.

Edit:
If I get my rotation right and if I keep my buffs up, almost every hit is a crit. That increases one's DPS significantly.

Asardes

malicia wrote: »

Nakiki92 wrote: »

...Are the any suggestions for the traits? What I mostly like is; Implementable/Sturdy/Reinforced or Infused...

The rule of thumb is to go for Divines (as a stamblade you'll probably use Thief as your Mundus in order to improve crit chance). There are builds where some of the other traits are preferred, but unless you're an expert theorycrafter, rather stick with Divines.

Edit:
If I get my rotation right and if I keep my buffs up, almost every hit is a crit. That increases one's DPS significantly.

Also investing some of your CP in Precise Strikes and the fact you are a khajiit and NB increases the damage done by critical strikes. Skill buffs like rearming trap and aggressive Warhorn also stack with that. By default a critical attack does +50% more damage than the non-critical attack but all those modifiers, if stacked together, can bring the critical bonus damage much higher. You can easily reach 90% or more weapon critical on a Nightblade from set, class, medium armor passives, thief mundus, slotting various class and guild skills on your bar that give such bonuses.

Kaymorolis

Nestor wrote: »

Nakiki92 wrote: »

I am playing as a nightblade and as the title says, I really need advice.

Here is my advice.

1. Park the NB or turn them into a crafter or a resource farmer or a mule to hold your stuff. Then it will be useful.
5. Log into your NB every once in a while so you will be reminded of how grateful your are for the advice I just gave you.

I take it you don't like NB's?