Seeking help from fellow Stamina Nightblades.

Nyladreas

Hey guys, I'm about to completely give up on my Stabmlade lately... it seems like everyone runs detect pots 24/7, Magelight, or just spams ground and on demand AoE to avoid contact with us completely. So I'm here to ask you folks, how do you deal with this? How do you survive through this? How have you not lost your sanity yet. I can't survive in PvP for more than 2 seconds because I can't cloak or even dodge anymore.

I have several builds I use, one is a snipe build Marksman/Hawk Eye/Asylum & other bow

Other is Eternal Hunt Bone pirate

Bone Pirate Spriggan Velidreth

Bone Pirate Agility Blood Spawn, Asylum 2 hander...

Even tried running heavy and 7th legion + TK

Like I've tried so many //

General tips on geameplay would help me a bunch since nothing really seems to help me much and I'm still a noob. Also i DO NOT run CP at all. All pvp is non-cp.

Aztlan

Nightblades are well suited to the hit-and-run, elusive playstyle, but it takes a lot of practice and it's not for everyone. With the typical medium armor builds, you have to have fast reactions and be good at animation cancelling, which allows you to pull off big burst combos and then get out with roll dodge/cloak and/or shades.

However, opposing players are often surprised by a tanky NB that can take a few hits and THEN smashes them with a burst combo. My build for the past year or so has been DW/2H, 5 Bone Pirate (jewellery, hands, waist), 3 heavy Clever Alchemist armor and weapons, and then heavy Troll King, Selene, or Bloodspawn. I'm trying some other builds right now, but believe me, this is solid.

Front bar skills: Surprise Attack, Blood Craze, Killer's Blade, Ambush, Blade Cloak, Incapacitating Strike. Back bar: Mass Hysteria, Shadowy Disguise, Vigor, Forward Momentum, Relentless Focus, Dawnbreaker of Smiting. Tri-stat glyphs on big armor pieces, stamina on the rest. Weapon Damage glyphs on jewellery. Nirnhoned axe, disease glyph, Infused mace, weapon damage glyph. Back bar defending axe, Escapist poison. Use crit/health/stam pots. The Warrior mundus.

Buff up with Forward Momentum, Relentless, Blade Cloak, then engage, usually with Ambush into Heavy Attack and Blood Craze. Stay aggressive, but with the confidence that you're pretty tough. Once you see your opening, use a pot to activate CA and roll out your burst combo, such as Fear, Incap, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade. Target's dead? Great. Not dead? No problem! Reset the fight with Shadowy Disguise, Vigor, rebuff, and hit them again. By then they're suffering from major defile and are getting frustrated. Just remember to stay aggressive and keep them on their heels.

This is more of a dueling-type build, but you can 1v2 fairly well. To really 1vX, though, you need the higher-damage but squishier 2H/bow-type build.

Switch out Blood Craze for Steel Tornado, and you're good to go in a group.

If you don't like Clever Alchemist, you can use another damage set like Ravager or 7th Legion.

May bright sands lights your path.

geonsocal

unless you run stealth or mag pots, hard to spam cloak as a stamblade...

with medium armor on it's even more important to position yourself to make sure you engage first...and, are able to stand and brawl a bit...

are you playing totally solo, zerg surfing, or grouping up?

your medium gear sets look great...5 medium/2 heavy should work fine for you...

if your gear/mundus/glyphs/food or drink are all good and you have decent "stamblade" type stats - the other really important thing will be working on your rotations...

GreenSoup2HoT

Slot rapids. You wont regret it. Being snare proof with speed can get you out anything. Just sucks when your marked while being chased. I slot purge the odd time.

Grimhallow

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Slot rapids. You wont regret it. Being snare proof with speed can get you out anything. Just sucks when your marked while being chased. I slot purge the odd time.

Don't slot rapids. You'll regret it.

Send me a letter in game or add me as a friend- I'll show you some stuff and talk theory and combat tips with you.

PC NA @Grimhallow

davey1107

I have many hundreds of hours on my stamblade in PvP. I think you’re needing more strategy advice than gear advice.

First, I don’t advise playing non-cp. I’m not saying you can’t...people get married to one or the other and I don’t care if one is preferred, it’s just that champion points go a loooooong way to helping a nightblade overcome their weaknesses. Even if you aren’t max cp...if you get to like 300 cp you can pull most of the power out of the trees, especially defense. It helps.

But, regardless which campaign you’re in, some strategic advise.

One tip is to spend some time watching others, and learn how they play. Most players in the game play 95% the same. They attack the same spots on keeps. They guard the same spots. They search towers and keeps the same way. Did you ever go on Autopia in Disneyland as a kid? (The little cars). They’re all on rails. If you know where the PvP “rails” are, and stay off them, you can avoid many deaths.

It takes practice, but when you get good you can be pretty sneaky. For example, let’s say an enemy Zerg is taking one of the outposts (sejanus, etc) and as a NB you want to stay and defend to the bitter end. When the enemies finish the capture, one or two players are going to come search the upper deck. When they walk to the upper rear section, they’re going to magelight/aoe to look for nightblades. But people almost always magelight at the top of the stairs, let it lapse, then don’t magelight again until they’re in the back where people hide. I get out of this all the time by...dum dum dum...cloaking right past them while they’re on the part of the walkway where they never proc magelight. Sure, sometimes I get caught...like one in ten. If I do, I am ready to pull vigor, cloak, and step off the edge. Really good players can follow and catch me, but most can’t. The point is that knowing their patterns will help you avoid them.

This sort of strategy can be expanded to combat. You have a bow setup...great. This will help learn strategy, then you can advance to melee once you’re comfortable with escaping. Using the bows, you can practice learning how to hide yourself, confuse your enemy, etc. When you commit to an attack, try to do so from cover. Know your escape route. You can’t all out hide when attacking, but you can delay an enemy’s ability to figure out where you are. If you can spare the magic, cloak between attacks and move a few feet away. Nothing in the world will infuriate an enemy more than getting hit by a NB they can’t see or find.

You can also watch others play to learn how to be less predictable yourself. I defend resources a lot. The enemy start to ring, and I know they’re coming so I decide to lay a trap. Let’s say it’s me and 2-4 enemies. (I’m not going to win 1v4, but I can earn some AP and survive). Everyone expects an ambush to come from the top of the tower. Sometimes I still attack from there because it’s a good position. But sometimes I hide elsewhere...like in the building, on a cart, in a windmill. If I start sniping the enemies on the flag, usually I can kill one before they know I’m there. Now it’s 1v3. Then the survivors are like “oh my god, there’s a nightblade in the tower.” Many, many times two will go running up into the tower to find me, leaving someone behind to finish the quartet and Rez their friend...and now the guy left behind is dead because I’m not in the tower. You can get a lot of kills by being unpredictable.

Those are all abstract strategies that take a long time to master, and a lot of practice. I’m not an amazing nightblade PvP player...but I’m as annoying as heck because I will keep my enemies on their toes.

In terms of the toolbox that can help a nightblade survive:

- I carry invisible + speed pots, and I use a looooooooot of them. This has a learning curve too...you gotta get like ten feet out of danger before you use the pot. I’m getting chased by six smelly DKs, I use cloak to get out of their AOE zone, then I pot and go in a completely unpredictable direction. Getting chased up on a wall? I drop down and walk across the porch. No one is going to chase me in that direction. I have 16 seconds with expedition then a whole magic tank for cloaks...I can get pretty dang far from the pursuers.

- I use fear traps heavily, and strategically. If I’m going to try for a kill in a keep, I put the trap in a doorway on my escape route. It keeps people from sneaking up on me, and if I end up pursued it’ll give me time to get away.

- I slot magnum shot, or whichever is the heal morph. Stunning an enemy as an emergency measure is often helpful.

I’m not saying these tips will solve all the problems. You’re right that there are too many AOEs and detection abilities in the game. But I still have fun on my stamblade, and can survive most encounters.

Gilvoth

stealth needs a buff and so does shadow cloak in order for us to play this rogue class properly.
but untill we get that buff, you will have to simply practice practice practice!
many people hate us and are allways searching for us so this makes you Very Hot target and one of the Best ways i have found that will increase your ability to learn good stealthing is to simply follow zergs of people or atleast small groups of people and do your best to never get noticed.

that is easier said then done but if you can master it then you are well on your way to gain strength in the solo aspect because stealthing solo players is WAY easier then groups.

and ofcourse allow yourself some forgiveness when you see it is just not easy but like i said earlier " practice practice practice "

stealthing is not something you just BAM and have it instantly, stealthing is something that will take a few months to get used to.

in time, you will be like the rest of us.
give it time and allow yourself the growth period and learning that is needed
" practice practice practice "

Gilvoth

you can also try hanging out in stealth in those town quest areas.

most of the time the enemies in those areas are people that are new to eso and cryodiil and thier not looking for you.

lay a camp just incase you die so you can stay there and practice staying stealthed.

its great learning in those small towns.

your only real enemy as a rouge, is another rogue lol.
so make sure you have that alliance skill "Purge" on one bar just incase you get mark targetted you can remove it with Purge, and then immediately cast cloak again, or Run!

but even if you die, remember that this is just practice for stealth purposes.
the PvP fighting Abilities will come intime, right now just focus on Mastering that stealth, as it is your only real protection and is the base of rogue play.

Gilvoth

.diuble post

IZZEFlameLash

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

stealth needs a buff and so does shadow cloak in order for us to play this rogue class properly.
but untill we get that buff, you will have to simply practice practice practice!
many people hate us and are allways searching for us so this makes you Very Hot target and one of the Best ways i have found that will increase your ability to learn good stealthing is to simply follow zergs of people or atleast small groups of people and do your best to never get noticed.

that is easier said then done but if you can master it then you are well on your way to gain strength in the solo aspect because stealthing solo players is WAY easier then groups.

and ofcourse allow yourself some forgiveness when you see it is just not easy but like i said earlier " practice practice practice "

stealthing is not something you just BAM and have it instantly, stealthing is something that will take a few months to get used to.

in time, you will be like the rest of us.
give it time and allow yourself the growth period and learning that is needed
" practice practice practice "

"Stealth needs buff" Smh. As if getting guaranteed crit (shadowy disguise) + first hit advantage with huge damaging ability isn't enough.

MalakithAlamahdi

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

stealth needs a buff and so does shadow cloak in order for us to play this rogue class properly.
but untill we get that buff, you will have to simply practice practice practice!
many people hate us and are allways searching for us so this makes you Very Hot target and one of the Best ways i have found that will increase your ability to learn good stealthing is to simply follow zergs of people or atleast small groups of people and do your best to never get noticed.

that is easier said then done but if you can master it then you are well on your way to gain strength in the solo aspect because stealthing solo players is WAY easier then groups.

and ofcourse allow yourself some forgiveness when you see it is just not easy but like i said earlier " practice practice practice "

stealthing is not something you just BAM and have it instantly, stealthing is something that will take a few months to get used to.

in time, you will be like the rest of us.
give it time and allow yourself the growth period and learning that is needed
" practice practice practice "

"Stealth needs buff" Smh. As if getting guaranteed crit (shadowy disguise) + first hit advantage with huge damaging ability isn't enough.

I hope he was joking with that.

waitwhat

Nyladreas wrote: »

Hey guys, I'm about to completely give up on my Stabmlade lately... it seems like everyone runs detect pots 24/7, Magelight, or just spams ground and on demand AoE to avoid contact with us completely. So I'm here to ask you folks, how do you deal with this? How do you survive through this? How have you not lost your sanity yet. I can't survive in PvP for more than 2 seconds because I can't cloak or even dodge anymore.

I have several builds I use, one is a snipe build Marksman/Hawk Eye/Asylum & other bow

Other is Eternal Hunt Bone pirate

Bone Pirate Spriggan Velidreth

Bone Pirate Agility Blood Spawn, Asylum 2 hander...

Even tried running heavy and 7th legion + TK

Like I've tried so many //

General tips on geameplay would help me a bunch since nothing really seems to help me much and I'm still a noob. Also i DO NOT run CP at all. All pvp is non-cp.

This will sound really crazy, but try 5pcs TFS + 5 pcs VO + Master's Bow + Asylum Greatsword. VO is a better sustain set than BP, and it will activate on any player that dies if you damaged them in the slightest. TFS will handle your penetration for you, which Poison Inject will provide 100% uptime on.

Cloak and rally on front bar, because you can't trust bar-swapping. Shuffle and vigor on back bar (or whatever bar). Of course run leeching, and then run shade to teleport.

You can't eat destro ults in this setup, but the healing is decent, and you can generally get out of those ults. Make sure to use Surprise Attack regularly for your own protection. I find it more useful on stamblades than Brawler with a Master's Greatsword.

I run in large groups usually somewhere around the back flag or postern pockets, so perhaps this doesn't apply to you, but I like to think of the stamblade as an opportunist and a finisher. For example, maybe there's some tank or some healer that the group is struggling to take down. Even though you're more fragile, you're there to make the difference and push the damage over the edge such that the problem people die. You don't go starting fights in that setup, but you definitely end them.

IZZEFlameLash

MalakithAlamahdi wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

stealth needs a buff and so does shadow cloak in order for us to play this rogue class properly.
but untill we get that buff, you will have to simply practice practice practice!
many people hate us and are allways searching for us so this makes you Very Hot target and one of the Best ways i have found that will increase your ability to learn good stealthing is to simply follow zergs of people or atleast small groups of people and do your best to never get noticed.

that is easier said then done but if you can master it then you are well on your way to gain strength in the solo aspect because stealthing solo players is WAY easier then groups.

and ofcourse allow yourself some forgiveness when you see it is just not easy but like i said earlier " practice practice practice "

stealthing is not something you just BAM and have it instantly, stealthing is something that will take a few months to get used to.

in time, you will be like the rest of us.
give it time and allow yourself the growth period and learning that is needed
" practice practice practice "

"Stealth needs buff" Smh. As if getting guaranteed crit (shadowy disguise) + first hit advantage with huge damaging ability isn't enough.

I hope he was joking with that.

I hope so. But his post history suggests the otherwise.

ShadowMonarch

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

Slot rapids. You wont regret it. Being snare proof with speed can get you out anything. Just sucks when your marked while being chased. I slot purge the odd time.

Why pop expensive rapids when you could slot forward momentum from 2h and just clense the snare and give 7 second immunity. Then 1 stealth and your out of there.

Nyladreas wrote: »

Hey guys, I'm about to completely give up on my Stabmlade lately... it seems like everyone runs detect pots 24/7, Magelight, or just spams ground and on demand AoE to avoid contact with us completely. So I'm here to ask you folks, how do you deal with this? How do you survive through this? How have you not lost your sanity yet. I can't survive in PvP for more than 2 seconds because I can't cloak or even dodge anymore.

I have several builds I use, one is a snipe build Marksman/Hawk Eye/Asylum & other bow

Other is Eternal Hunt Bone pirate

Bone Pirate Spriggan Velidreth

Bone Pirate Agility Blood Spawn, Asylum 2 hander...

Even tried running heavy and 7th legion + TK

Like I've tried so many //

General tips on geameplay would help me a bunch since nothing really seems to help me much and I'm still a noob. Also i DO NOT run CP at all. All pvp is non-cp.

You could always try magblade instead of stamblade, its a different playstyle and might be right up your ally.

fred4

I suspect the best advice here is from davey1107, as he talks about playstyle. Nonetheless I like talking about builds and my build may just be unique, as I came from playing magblade for a long time. This setup is what I currently use to make things easy for myself in open-world CP camapaigns:

DW / 2H
Race: Wood Elf
Mundus: Atronach !!!
Potions: Immovability / Detection / Magicka !!!

1x Velidreth
1x Domihaus
5x Shacklebreaker on both bars
5x Draugr Hulk on front bar

5x Medium / 1x Heavy / 1x Light. All tri-stat enchants.

You can use this setup with 2 types of foods. Mag regen + stam regen drink will give you infinite cloak capability, if you use potions. You still have 36.5K stamina. Stam regen + stamina food (Lava Foot Soup) will give you 41.5K stamina. I have 8 attribute points in health and still reach those stats. From memory, this gives you:

1.75K mag regen with the drink
2.2K stam regen (1x stam regen, 2x weapon damage glyphs)
2.75K unbuffed weapon damage
21K health

DW skills:

Shrouded Daggers
Mass Hysteria
Blood Craze
Ambush
Evil Hunter
Incap Strike

2H skills (Powered Shacklebreaker Greatsword)

Concealed Weapon
Resolving Vigor
Double Take
Forward Momentum
Shadowy Disguise
Soul Siphon

This build gives you the speed and perma-cloak capability of a magblade while retaining decent damage. Your basic gank consists of Ambush -> Incap -> Light Attack -> Blood Craze -> Light Attack -> Shrouded Daggers spam.

Of course I gave up Surprise Attack, which is a big deal. Shrouded Daggers is weaker, single target, doesn't cause Major Fracture, and can be reflected. You will note that I don't have an execute either. I feel this is offset somewhat by the utility of Shrouded Daggers. It is often hard to keep enemies in melee range, but Shrouded Daggers will still hit them. Basically I use it as a ranged execute, like Impale. If the enemy makes the mistake of trying to blend into NPC mobs, it will tend to hit them even harder. Furthermore, as a weapon ability, it will keep triggering your enchants.

This build is very squishy. Being marked or people using detect pots sucks, and I don't have a good answer yet, other than to say: You are a stamblade. Attack, attack, attack! In the absence of detection, dodge roll, Forward Momentum, Cloak, and Double Take will get you out of Dodge fast. If you are low on health, bear in mind that Shadowy Disguise makes all your Vigor ticks crit, and you have the magicka to take full advantage. Soul Siphon is like an inferior resto ult for emergencies.

Sorry, I belatedly realised you only play no CP, whereas I only have experience in CP. Wish I could help you more than just list another build that may not be viable in no CP, but I hope this was interesting anyway.

Nyladreas

Thanks everybody!!! So much stuff to go through now so many builds to try out. I dont even know where to start!

fred4

My above stamblade is quite new. I duelled a friend the other day and was actually shocked how squishy she was and how difficult to try and burst a heavy armor magplar (didn't manage yet). Compared to my other builds, including my shielding light armor magblade, she is really squishy. I was also surprised to find I preferred the dual regen drink in the duel for the speed from Concealed and Double Take. That may be because I am used to magblade.

If you want a tankier build, you might check out Istherenooneelse's videos on YouTube.

kadar

@Nyladreas Gonna assume you're using Vigor and you know not to spam it: never hit vigor alone and leave it at that.

Practice cancelling the Vigor animation with a roll dodge, and then immediately using Shadowy Disguise when your roll ends. This will give your Vigor time to tick your health back up, and reduce the ways people can damage you. Also, to add another layer onto this, whichever way you roll dodge, once you hit Cloak, run in at least a 45 degree angle off the direction of your roll. So if you roll foreward, hit Cloak then move off to the left or right, while still creating distance from your attacker(s), ideally toward some form of line-of-sight.

^This is the bread-and-butter sNB avoidance combo. There's always more you can do ofc: CC target, then pull the above^. Mix in Shades if you're hella fancy. Realistically though, master the basic and you should be doing a lot better.

Brutusmax1mus

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Metemsycosis

fred4 wrote: »

I suspect the best advice here is from davey1107, as he talks about playstyle. Nonetheless I like talking about builds and my build may just be unique, as I came from playing magblade for a long time. This setup is what I currently use to make things easy for myself in open-world CP camapaigns:

DW / 2H
Race: Wood Elf
Mundus: Atronach !!!
Potions: Immovability / Detection / Magicka !!!

1x Velidreth
1x Domihaus
5x Shacklebreaker on both bars
5x Draugr Hulk on front bar

5x Medium / 1x Heavy / 1x Light. All tri-stat enchants.

You can use this setup with 2 types of foods. Mag regen + stam regen drink will give you infinite cloak capability, if you use potions. You still have 36.5K stamina. Stam regen + stamina food (Lava Foot Soup) will give you 41.5K stamina. I have 8 attribute points in health and still reach those stats. From memory, this gives you:

1.75K mag regen with the drink
2.2K stam regen (1x stam regen, 2x weapon damage glyphs)
2.75K unbuffed weapon damage
21K health

DW skills:

Shrouded Daggers
Mass Hysteria
Blood Craze
Ambush
Evil Hunter
Incap Strike

2H skills (Powered Shacklebreaker Greatsword)

Concealed Weapon
Resolving Vigor
Double Take
Forward Momentum
Shadowy Disguise
Soul Siphon

This build gives you the speed and perma-cloak capability of a magblade while retaining decent damage. Your basic gank consists of Ambush -> Incap -> Light Attack -> Blood Craze -> Light Attack -> Shrouded Daggers spam.

Of course I gave up Surprise Attack, which is a big deal. Shrouded Daggers is weaker, single target, doesn't cause Major Fracture, and can be reflected. You will note that I don't have an execute either. I feel this is offset somewhat by the utility of Shrouded Daggers. It is often hard to keep enemies in melee range, but Shrouded Daggers will still hit them. Basically I use it as a ranged execute, like Impale. If the enemy makes the mistake of trying to blend into NPC mobs, it will tend to hit them even harder. Furthermore, as a weapon ability, it will keep triggering your enchants.

This build is very squishy. Being marked or people using detect pots sucks, and I don't have a good answer yet, other than to say: You are a stamblade. Attack, attack, attack! In the absence of detection, dodge roll, Forward Momentum, Cloak, and Double Take will get you out of Dodge fast. If you are low on health, bear in mind that Shadowy Disguise makes all your Vigor ticks crit, and you have the magicka to take full advantage. Soul Siphon is like an inferior resto ult for emergencies.

Sorry, I belatedly realised you only play no CP, whereas I only have experience in CP. Wish I could help you more than just list another build that may not be viable in no CP, but I hope this was interesting anyway.

I everything about that build but in my version it's kena instead of veli. And no evil hunter, I prefer aoe.

Ragnaroek93

Kite a lot with Shadow Image, poke your opponents with bow and Poison Injection and burst them once they engage and try to kill you. Your build with Bloodspawn, Bone Pirate and Asylum/Master seems to be the best approach in my opinion, just make sure to get some magicka sustain (I'm currently running 2.8k stamregen and 900 magregen with Bonepirate + Shacklebreaker). For no CP pvp I guess proc sets > everything tho.

Skill wise I would use Execute, Surprise Attack, Fear, Rally, Relentless Focus, Incap + Poison Injection, Shadow Image, Cloak, Shuffle, Vigor, WW ultimate.