StamBlade Help

lishybach

Hey ya’ll! I’ve been playing for a year now and I have absolutely fell in love with this game! But, I need help. I am a champion 645 wood elf and I feel like my build is “eh”.
It has gotten me through a lot in the game but I feel like I could be better and I don’t know what to do. I am running Spriggans, Hundings Rage, and Selenes. My stamina with food is 40k. I use a one handed weapon and daggers. When I go into Cyrodil or dungeons I use a bow and daggers. I feel like I do more damage with a bow than with a one handed weapon though. Is there any other sets that would run better than what I am using at the moment? I guess I’m trying to be better at pvp because I am terrible at it and although I’m not a pvp(er), I still get mad at myself for losing cause I know I can do better. And the thought of switching to a Khajiit crossed my mind.. but this character was my first/main and my favorite. Would switching race even be worth it? I’ve YouTubed builds but everyone seems to be running sets that I cannot contain. Maelstrom bow for example. I can get through the arena on normal. But first round on veteran I always die on the final boss of that round. I just feel like I could be better and I want help. Champion points / skills recommendations too.
....Or maybe I just suck at my rotation because I switch out my weapons so much I can’t get use to the buttons and what’s what...thanks in advance!

Loc2262

Welcome fellow Wood Elf Stamblade!

My first and main char is the same race+class as yours. Wood Elf is not optimal for stamina DD, but very much close enough. You get a little better sustain on Redguard, and very slightly better damage on Khajiit (higher crit value). But the difference is marginal compared to other factors. No need to change race! Wood elves are much too cute to do that.

Your set choice is perfect(ly fine). Velidreth is currently considered BiS monster set for stamblade, but again, the difference is marginal. Velidreth has the advantage that it hits up to three targets and is ranged, while Selene is purely single-target and has a very short melee range. But the DPS difference would be really small (less than 1k).

I can only speak for PVE, I don't do any PVP. In PVE, you want bow and dual wield for best damage. Bow and two-hander works too but deals noticeably less damage.

Maelstrom bow indeed plays a big role in "high end" DPS. When used properly, it'll make a difference of ~5k DPS. But you definitely don't need it to be competitive in PVE. You can reach 35k on a stamblade without it. (I haven't finished vMA myself yet either.)

vMA on a stamina char is much harder than on magicka, due to lack of strong heals and shields. You definitely need Vigor in there. Don't try to complete vMA on your stamblade before your DPS and movement are really good. Suggestion would be to use a magicka sorc as first class in vMA, it's much much easier.

Before I go into any detailed hints, what rotation do you use? What skills are on your bar, in what order do you use them, do you weave light/heavy attacks properly? Do you run out of stamina or can you sustain a target skeleton fight? Did you test your DPS on a skeleton?

Caleb_Kadesh

Join a pvp guild. The problem is not so much with your gear or your build or choice of Dual wield verses two hander, but you need experience, practice and instruction. All of these will be available in a PvP guild.

I have a StamNB (incidentally a Wood elf) DW/Bow that does more damage on Bow. He is designed that way. His gear, skills and rotation all synergize for max damage on bow.

I have a StamNB (Also Wood elf) 2H/Bow that does more damage on 2H. He is designed that way. His gear, skills and rotation all synergize for max damage on 2H.

See a pattern? Join a PvP guild and ask for help. If no one will help you then join a different guild. There are many PvP guilds that are willing to help and are thrilled to have someone that cares enough to ask for help.

edit for emphasis.

lishybach

Thanks you guys for the responses. They have been really helpful.
Loc I am currently using on main hand- bow- lethal arrow- acid spray- endless hail- leeching strikes- vigor.
Off hand- dual wield- rapid strikes- dark cloak- surprise attack- relentless force- elude.
And I did not weave light and heavy attacks until right now when I read what you said. And that helped with my stamina a lot. Whenever I use lethal arrow I always do a light attack after. And I just used a friends skeleton and first it was 10k. Second time was 11k. Then third time was 13k.

cjhhickman39

Question are you using pots for major brutally and savagery? If not there is a big plus your missing for weapon damage and crit. If you don’t want to use pots you can slot power extraction or flying daggers for brutally and expert hunter for savagery

Loc2262

Okay, 10-13k, we need to work on that.

As I said, your gear choice is fine. Skills sound good too. Rotation rhythm and weaving are the most important things. Currently, the meta is doing light attacks on the bow bar, and heavy attacks on the DW bar. (You'd get better damage with also light attacks on the DW bar, but since the Big Sustain Nerf of Morrowind, you very much need the stamina return from the heavy attacks to last through longer fights. That is the case for all stamina builds since Morrowind.)

For LA weaving, you want roughly a 1.2 second rhythm. Do a light attack, wait 0.3 seconds, do the skill, wait 1 second, repeat. On the dual wield bar, hold the left mouse button down to do heavy attacks, and press the skill button as soon the character starts the HA animation. Keep the mouse button down all the time. That will ensure an optimal HA-skill rhythm by having the skill cancel the HA animation as early as possible, and vice versa.

Since I started my IT career on a Commodore 64 and played a lot of games back then, I kinda internalized the rhythm of the pokey sticks from the ground and ceiling in the game Antiriad for my weaving. Seek to 3:20 in this Youtube video. For the extension poke, I do the LA, for the retraction, the skill, then pause.

My bar allocation:
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, Beast Trap, Caltrops, Leeching Strikes, Bow Ultimate
DW: Killer's Blade, Deadly Cloak, Rending Slashes, Merciless Resolve, Surprise Attack, Flawless Dawnbreaker

Try the following rotation:

Bow bar: LA - Poison Injection - LA - Endless Hail - LA - Caltrops - LA - Beast Trap - Weapon Swap
DW bar: HA - Deadly Cloak - HA - Rending Slashes - HA - Surprise Attack - HA - Surprise Attack ... until Endless Hail runs out.

Use a buff tracker like S'rendarr or the built-in one to track Endless Hail. When you have 2 seconds left on EH, swap to Bow bar and repeat.

Keep up the buffs Leeching Strikes, Merciless Resolve (important!) and Deadly Cloak at all times, i.e. when they run out, do an additional LA/HA and the skill.

Every 5 LA/HA, the Merciless Resolve turns into the Spectral Bow. When that happens, use it instead of Surprise Attack. (Next patch, the spectral bow will be made easier to use.)

Important: Use the Bow Ultimate whenever it's ready, on single-target. If you have multiple adds, use the Dawnbreaker.

Very important: When the enemy drops the <25% health, use the Killer's Blade execute instead of Surprise Attack.

Internalizing and practicing the rhythm and rotation is what has the most impact on your DPS.

About gear: Make sure to have at least all-purple armor pieces. Jewelry can be blue or purple. Have Divines trait as far as possible. Use the Lover mundus stone and CPs in Piercing to have 11+k physical penetration if not playing in a very optimized group. You want to reach 18.2k penetration with all (de)buffs. Your Surprise Attack does a 5.2k debuff, so you need up to 13k penetration. Usually tank or healer will apply further (de)buffs, but that's not certain, so I personally go for 11+k in random groups.

Put all purple Stamina enchant on armor pieces. Put gold Weapon Damage enchant on jewelry. Have gold!! weapons with purple or gold enchantment glyphs (Poison Damage on bow, Weapon Damage on one DW piece, Disease Damage on the other). Use Infused or Nirnhoned bow and one DW piece, and Precise on the other.

You should easily reach 20+k DPS with that. Next step is using potions that give the Major Brutality and Major Savagery buffs (+25% weapon damage, +10% weapon crit). Let me know when you reach that point. Also, if you are on PC-EU, you can contact me in-game as @Loc2262.

Loc2262

About the Major Brutality and Major Savagery buffs (+25% weapon damage, +10% weapon crit). Those are indeed very important for your overall DPS. You usually do that with potions, as not to waste skill slots. But like cjhhickman said, if you can't or don't want to use potions, e.g. in fights where you don't need maximum damage output like in Normal dungeons, you can alternatively get those buffs with skills.

Slotting Expert Hunter will give you Major Savagery. You just slot that and never use it. Replace e.g. the Deadly Cloak on your DW bar with it. Deadly Cloak does not contribute too much to your DPS, you mostly want it for the 25% AOE damage mitigation which is very useful in vet content. On the Bow bar, you could replace Leeching Strikes with it if you don't need the healing and resource return. Otherwise slot it only on the DW bar. To get Major Brutality, either slot (and use) Power Extraction as an AOE damage skill, or replace Surprise Attack with the Flying Blade. Note that you'll then have to rely on a tank to apply Major Fracture to the target.

I personally meanwhile don't swap out skills for those buffs anymore. I either use potions to get those buffs when needed like in vet content boss fights, or don't use them and go without the buffs in fights where it doesn't matter, like overland, questing or normal dungeons where you don't care if the boss dies in 40 or 35 seconds. You can still always use the Minor Berserk buff plus Spectral Bow with the Merciless Resolve skill.

lishybach

cjhhickman39 wrote: »

Question are you using pots for major brutally and savagery? If not there is a big plus your missing for weapon damage and crit. If you don’t want to use pots you can slot power extraction or flying daggers for brutally and expert hunter for savagery

Nope. I didn’t even know that had potions like that! Do you find those in the guild stores? I seriously had no idea.

Loc2262 wrote: »

About the Major Brutality and Major Savagery buffs (+25% weapon damage, +10% weapon crit). Those are indeed very important for your overall DPS. You usually do that with potions, as not to waste skill slots. But like cjhhickman said, if you can't or don't want to use potions, e.g. in fights where you don't need maximum damage output like in Normal dungeons, you can alternatively get those buffs with skills.

Slotting Expert Hunter will give you Major Savagery. You just slot that and never use it. Replace e.g. the Deadly Cloak on your DW bar with it. Deadly Cloak does not contribute too much to your DPS, you mostly want it for the 25% AOE damage mitigation which is very useful in vet content. On the Bow bar, you could replace Leeching Strikes with it if you don't need the healing and resource return. Otherwise slot it only on the DW bar. To get Major Brutality, either slot (and use) Power Extraction as an AOE damage skill, or replace Surprise Attack with the Flying Blade. Note that you'll then have to rely on a tank to apply Major Fracture to the target.

I personally meanwhile don't swap out skills for those buffs anymore. I either use potions to get those buffs when needed like in vet content boss fights, or don't use them and go without the buffs in fights where it doesn't matter, like overland, questing or normal dungeons where you don't care if the boss dies in 40 or 35 seconds. You can still always use the Minor Berserk buff plus Spectral Bow with the Merciless Resolve skill.

Thank you so much for being so helpful! I will defintely be trying some of the suggestions out.

cjhhickman39

You can buy those potions at guild traders but they are pricey. Alchemy is the one crafting skill you should try and max out, it’s easy to do once you gather a good amount of mats. The big thing is the pasive that extends the potion duration so it lasts longer than the cool down

cjhhickman39

One suggestion that may help with your rotation I see you have Vigor so try and pick up caltrops also it’s a good aoe to use but the big plus is its easy to see during a fight, so drop it first hit all your aoe and dots then melee when you see the caltrops gone roll out reapply the dots etc.

lishybach

Okay. So my weapon critical has went from 43.8% to 63.8% just from adding the gold weapon damage glyphs to my jewelry for my dual wield. So that makes me super happy. I am not home atm to be able to tell you what I have slotted. BUT I added caltrops to the bow line along with endless hail and that has helped a bunch! But I am still doing around 13.6k on skeleton. I bought some potions too. When I am not fighting the skeleton I have noticed the enemies die a lot quicker than they used to. Dawnbreaker is part of which skill line? I feel like I know but I’m not 100% positive. And I am unfortunately a console peasant :P lol.. But I do appreciate you going out of your way to help me! I haven’t checked/added the CP to Piercing just yet. But I am pretty sure I have a lot of points distributed to it.

kringled_1

Dawnbreaker is in the Fighters guild line. Flawless is the preferred version for PvE.

Loc2262

Weapon Crit should not change when you put weapon damage glyphs on your jewelry, something else must have changed additionally.

shinikaze

Woa thank you so much lol my issue is pretty much getting past the 20k dps. Nice advice @Loc2262

davey1107

I agree with the advice you’ve been getting...Loc is a very good nightblade.

Something I’d add is that I main a stamblade, and I use a completely different setup and play style between pve and PvP. It’s just a totally different world...and after three years I sort of just adapted to doing it that way.

Right now I’m going bow gankblade in PvP with marksman, hawks eye and 1 kragh. Alcasthq.com has a build that’s pretty close to mine. (I move the Assassin class line skills up front and cloak and magelight to the back...for the power)

This might be a good build for you to really learn the PvP ropes with. It’s ranged...so you aren’t as committed to the fight and can escape better. A lot of success in PvP is about learning when and where others are going to screw up, lol. After a while you’ll watch six enemies take a resource, and you’ll just kinda know which one is squishy, or which is going to wander up into the tower alone where they’re vulnerable. A range build is a good way to get all that experience, then move on to a melee build later once you are really comfortable with behavior, how much damage it takes to kill an enemy, how effective their heals are, how they can snare you, etc.

Another reason to have a special set for PvP is that crit resistance is reeeeeally important right now. If the character spends a lot of time in PvP (or wants to), you might spend some cps in the red line that mitigates crit. And then you’ll probably want to wear 3-6 pieces with the impen trait. When I surprise snipe a NB, if they’re in impen the first hit is like 9k...if they’re not the first hit pushes 16k. So that’s why impen is all the rage, lol.