Build dilemma, glass cannon vs. iron BB gun; is there a way to get iron cannon?

goatlyonesub17_ESO

The best compromise I've found so far (and am using it now) is 5 pc Dreugh King Slayer + 5 pc Beekeeper + 2 pc Seventh Legion + Camlorn Sweet Brown Ale + Nightblade/siphoning/siphoning strikes in the tool bar + 64 attribute points in stamina. My max stamina is 22600 or something like that, and my weapon damage is 3060.

ArchMikem

Even meant as a Hybrid that's really decent Weapon Damage, but your Max Stam is still real low. Although if you also had your Stam Recovery around 1,500 to 2,000 at least then this might make a good PvP build.

Erraln

If an iron cannon build occurs, it lasts 90 days or less.

Such is the way of it.

MaxwellC

My DK is at 3600 wep damage 1600 recovery and 40k max stamina (wep damage is buffed by major brutality). He hits alright but unfortunately due to the lack of a decent class skill or any skill that spams... it's kinda a waste honestly.

ak_pvp

You build a stamwarden, or an NB who has iron in the form of cloaks broken mitigation levels.

I have a pretty high damage and simultaneously tanky MDK, with decent sustain and even maj exp. But that's more from minmaxing rather than just having an insane class.

raj72616a

mag sorc with hardened ward?

Nyladreas

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

The best compromise I've found so far (and am using it now) is 5 pc Dreugh King Slayer + 5 pc Beekeeper + 2 pc Seventh Legion + Camlorn Sweet Brown Ale + Nightblade/siphoning/siphoning strikes in the tool bar + 64 attribute points in stamina. My max stamina is 22600 or something like that, and my weapon damage is 3060.

It's quite difficult to play a NB this way but actually quite possible. PM me for more info.
I can give you good sets and builds to use.

@goatlyonesub17_ESO

Yakidafi

Nyladreas wrote: »

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

The best compromise I've found so far (and am using it now) is 5 pc Dreugh King Slayer + 5 pc Beekeeper + 2 pc Seventh Legion + Camlorn Sweet Brown Ale + Nightblade/siphoning/siphoning strikes in the tool bar + 64 attribute points in stamina. My max stamina is 22600 or something like that, and my weapon damage is 3060.

It's quite difficult to play a NB this way but actually quite possible. PM me for more info.
I can give you good sets and builds to use.

@goatlyonesub17_ESO

Why would you need him to pm you to know if he is interested in that? It is literally what he asked for or is this like a vampire that need your permission to enter.

TheShadowScout

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

...is there a way to get iron cannon?

If there was, everyone would be using that build, and how boring that would be!
Choices!
You either have to choose your glass cannon, or your iron peashooter, or something in between that is so-so in both categories but excels at nothing...
Thus if any combination proves too good, the powers that be will nerf it in short order... or add a "perfect counter" to the game...
In the end, the game -survives- from noone being able to have it all, and everything a player character can have or be being weak in -some- way...

Nyladreas

Yakidafi wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

The best compromise I've found so far (and am using it now) is 5 pc Dreugh King Slayer + 5 pc Beekeeper + 2 pc Seventh Legion + Camlorn Sweet Brown Ale + Nightblade/siphoning/siphoning strikes in the tool bar + 64 attribute points in stamina. My max stamina is 22600 or something like that, and my weapon damage is 3060.

It's quite difficult to play a NB this way but actually quite possible. PM me for more info.
I can give you good sets and builds to use.

@goatlyonesub17_ESO

Why would you need him to pm you to know if he is interested in that? It is literally what he asked for or is this like a vampire that need your permission to enter.

What?

fred4

It might help if you mentioned your CP and what type of content you play. Sacrificing a whole set and a drink for health regen won't accomplish much. Health regen is correctly regarded as a wasted stat by many players. It is generally better to build for damage, as that also buffs your healing skills (Vigor, Rally). This isn't quite the whole truth, especially on NB, and if your race is Nord, Orc, or Khajiit, but if I was incorporating some health regen into a build, I'd use Troll King and leave it at that. It's far more efficient than Beekeeper.

Do you have Vigor? If not, you must go PvP for it. Your unbuffed Vigor tooltip ought to be 10K+. 13K+, if you are full CP and you build right. Furthermore, using Shadowy Disguise will make all your Vigor ticks crit. That's how an NB heals.

As NB you need magicka regen more than you need health regen. If not for Cloak, then for Fear and other utility skills.

If you are a stamblade, then Leeching Strikes is the morph to use.

Like ArchMikem said, your stamina is very low. This may indicate you are in no CP PvP, have really low CP, or are using the wrong race for a stamina character. Remember that damage and healing scales from your maximum stamina, as well as your weapon damage. What race is your character?

Since health regen is a big part of your build, I am guessing you are playing solo. Basically you need 2H. You should experiment with Rally, although in PvP Forward Momentum is also a strong option.

Dreugh King Slayer is not a good set. 3K with THAT set is not terribly impressive. Like I said, for solo play 2H is hard to avoid, which means you'll get your Major Brutality from Rally, and Dreugh King Slayer is wasted. 5x 7th Legion and 2x Dreugh King Slayer would probably be better, if you were sticking with those sets.

For what it's worth, my Wood Elf PvP stamblade runs 5x Shacklebreaker, 5x Hulking Draugr, 1x Domihaus, 1x Velidreth. She is squishy, but she basically has double your stamina (41.5K), and 3.3K weapon damage with Rally. 10.5 stamina is, by and large, the equivalent of 1 weapon damage. Basically I have the equivalent of 2K more weapon damage than you do. That means my Vigor heals are much stronger than yours.

Nyladreas

fred4 wrote: »

It might help if you mentioned your CP and what type of content you play. Sacrificing a whole set and a drink for health regen won't accomplish much. Health regen is correctly regarded as a wasted stat by many players. It is generally better to build for damage, as that also buffs your healing skills (Vigor, Rally). This isn't quite the whole truth, especially on NB, and if your race is Nord, Orc, or Khajiit, but if I was incorporating some health regen into a build, I'd use Troll King and leave it at that. It's far more efficient than Beekeeper.

Do you have Vigor? If not, you must go PvP for it. Your unbuffed Vigor tooltip ought to be 10K+. 13K+, if you are full CP and you build right. Furthermore, using Shadowy Disguise will make all your Vigor ticks crit. That's how an NB heals.

As NB you need magicka regen more than you need health regen. If not for Cloak, then for Fear and other utility skills.

If you are a stamblade, then Leeching Strikes is the morph to use.

Like ArchMikem said, your stamina is very low. This may indicate you are in no CP PvP, have really low CP, or are using the wrong race for a stamina character. Remember that damage and healing scales from your maximum stamina, as well as your weapon damage. What race is your character?

Since health regen is a big part of your build, I am guessing you are playing solo. Basically you need 2H. You should experiment with Rally, although in PvP Forward Momentum is also a strong option.

Dreugh King Slayer is not a good set. 3K with THAT set is not terribly impressive. Like I said, for solo play 2H is hard to avoid, which means you'll get your Major Brutality from Rally, and Dreugh King Slayer is wasted. 5x 7th Legion and 2x Dreugh King Slayer would probably be better, if you were sticking with those sets.

For what it's worth, my Wood Elf PvP stamblade runs 5x Shacklebreaker, 5x Hulking Draugr, 1x Domihaus, 1x Velidreth. She is squishy, but she basically has double your stamina (41.5K), and 3.3K weapon damage with Rally. 10.5 stamina is, by and large, the equivalent of 1 weapon damage. Basically I have the equivalent of 2K more weapon damage than you do. That means my Vigor heals are much stronger than yours.

He never asked for a typical NB gank build everyone is running. He wants to be a brawler, most probably avoiding to use cloak from what I understand. Iron Canon would mean a warrior-like front line fighter in my opinion. Your build describes typical hit and run build with magicka stacked for defensive oh crap buttons. That's why he is trying to stack so much health regen. Also, I doubt rally and vigor healing him for about 200 more health in PVP enviroment would help much if he wanted to stay on the front line

EDIT: Also, wouldn't bone pirate with Witchmother's Brew be a whole lot better than shacklebreaker? You lose a tiny bit of stamina in exchange for more magicka and recovery. So many stamblades make this mistake all the time. I mean, unless u craft it in heavy or use blue quality food or ABSOLUTELY need that stam. @fred4

Witchmother's Potent Brew
Increase Max Magicka and Max Health by 3192 and Magicka Recovery by 319 for 2 hours. These effects are scaled based on your level.

Shackle Breaker
(2 items) Adds 129 Weapon Damage
(3 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery and Stamina Recovery
(5 items) Adds 2000 Max Magicka and Max Stamina.

Bone Pirate
(2 items) Adds 1096 Max Stamina
(3 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(4 items) Adds 1096 Max Stamina
(5 items) While you have a drink buff active, your Max Stamina is increased by 2000 and Stamina Recovery by 150.

exeeter702

Nyladreas wrote: »

Yakidafi wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

The best compromise I've found so far (and am using it now) is 5 pc Dreugh King Slayer + 5 pc Beekeeper + 2 pc Seventh Legion + Camlorn Sweet Brown Ale + Nightblade/siphoning/siphoning strikes in the tool bar + 64 attribute points in stamina. My max stamina is 22600 or something like that, and my weapon damage is 3060.

It's quite difficult to play a NB this way but actually quite possible. PM me for more info.
I can give you good sets and builds to use.

@goatlyonesub17_ESO

Why would you need him to pm you to know if he is interested in that? It is literally what he asked for or is this like a vampire that need your permission to enter.

What?

He is saying there is no point to arrange a pm, he is literally asking a public forum, just list your advice and builds here for him.

goatlyonesub17_ESO

ArchMikem wrote: »

Even meant as a Hybrid that's really decent Weapon Damage, but your Max Stam is still real low. Although if you also had your Stam Recovery around 1,500 to 2,000 at least then this might make a good PvP build.

Nothing's a good PvP build for me, most of the time, because of lag. I don't see what my opponent is about to do; I only see what he did a second or two later (usually when I'm dead). When I don't have lag, I do rather well. Once I offed a couple of guys at Sejanus after they'd killed the guards there.

kypranb14_ESO

I have a Stamblade with:

24.9k Max Health
36.9k Max Stam
9.9k Max Mag
4.1k Weapon Damage (No stealth bonus)
49.2% Weapon Crit
3k Stamina Recovery
18.5k Resists

It's not super tanky, but it doesn't die like the average gankblade if I stop rolling/cloaking.


Build in action, it's incomplete right now. I am working on leveling undaunted, and getting the gear all golded out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXfAlZeZUw

goatlyonesub17_ESO

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

I have a Stamblade with:

24.9k Max Health
36.9k Max Stam
9.9k Max Mag
4.1k Weapon Damage (No stealth bonus)
49.2% Weapon Crit
3k Stamina Recovery
18.5k Resists

It's not super tanky, but it doesn't die like the average gankblade if I stop rolling/cloaking.

I wouldn't mind building something like that.

What armor, weapon, jewelry sets are you using?
Which armor pieces are heavy, and which are medium?
How are your attribute points distributed?
How are your champion points distributed?
What is your health recovery with this build?
What buff food/drink were you using to get these stats?

goatlyonesub17_ESO

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

I have a Stamblade with:

24.9k Max Health
36.9k Max Stam
9.9k Max Mag
4.1k Weapon Damage (No stealth bonus)
49.2% Weapon Crit
3k Stamina Recovery
18.5k Resists

It's not super tanky, but it doesn't die like the average gankblade if I stop rolling/cloaking.

I wouldn't mind building something like that.

What armor, weapon, jewelry sets are you using?
Which armor pieces are heavy, and which are medium?
How are your attribute points distributed?
How are your champion points distributed?
What is your health recovery with this build?
What buff food/drink were you using to get these stats?

VexingArcanist

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

I have a Stamblade with:

24.9k Max Health
36.9k Max Stam
9.9k Max Mag
4.1k Weapon Damage (No stealth bonus)
49.2% Weapon Crit
3k Stamina Recovery
18.5k Resists

It's not super tanky, but it doesn't die like the average gankblade if I stop rolling/cloaking.


Build in action, it's incomplete right now. I am working on leveling undaunted, and getting the gear all golded out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXfAlZeZUw

Even though I probably would never get around to finishing my nightblade I would also be interested to see your setup as the above poster requested.

kypranb14_ESO

@goatlyonesub17_ESO
@VexingArcanist

The build is as follows:

Race: Bosmer - Because Stamina Recovery, Stealth Damage is nice too.

Gear:
2x Selene (Helm + Shoulders)
5x Truth (Chest, Legs, Necklace, and 2x 1H Axe, bow on backbar)
5x Bone Pirates (Boots, Gloves, Belt, 2x Rings)

64 Stamina Attribute points.

Weapon Traits are: Nirnhoned MH Axe with Disease Enchant, Infused OH Axe with Weapon Power Enchant, Defending/Infused Bow with the enchant that lowers your opponents weapon power, could run poisons here instead though.

Armors traits are: All Impen, surprise! 2x Health Enchants on big pieces, the rest are stamina.

Jewelry enchants are all stamina recovery, however you could definitely drop 1-2 for weapon damage for added burst.

For CP the most important thing is the Tactician passive, after that you're free to build however you please. Personally, I achieved this by putting 72 points into Master at Arms, and 48 points into Shattering Blows.

I would also recommend hitting the Exploiter passive, as this grants an easy-to-obtain 10% damage boost with 100% uptime on this build.


A few things for clarification:
- Tactician sets an opponent off balance when you roll dodge their attacks. According to the tooltip, this shouldn't proc on Major Evasion, but it does currently.

- Exploiter increases damage against off-balance targets by 10%.

- Armor of Truth adds 450 Weapon Damage for 10 seconds when you set a target off-balance, I'm sure you see where this is going by now.

- Heavy attacking off-balance players stuns them as of Dragon Bones, so you really don't need to slot a stun or stack recovery as I have if you practice! (This works well in small scale, but not so much in situations with multiple attackers focusing you)

- I chose dual wield axes for 3 reasons: Steel Tornado is overpowered right now, and the bleed applied from axes adds extra pressure to tankier opponents, and until Summerset I needed dual wield to reach 5/5/2.

- Final Note: This build can work well with any Stamina class. I personally enjoy it with Stamblade and StamSorc though!

LeagueTroll

Iron bb gun need to spam rapid regen to get ap. Otherwise you are just wasting enemies’ time for 0 self gain.

Nyladreas

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

@goatlyonesub17_ESO
@VexingArcanist

The build is as follows:

Race: Bosmer - Because Stamina Recovery, Stealth Damage is nice too.

Gear:
2x Selene (Helm + Shoulders)
5x Truth (Chest, Legs, Necklace, and 2x 1H Axe, bow on backbar)
5x Bone Pirates (Boots, Gloves, Belt, 2x Rings)

64 Stamina Attribute points.

Weapon Traits are: Nirnhoned MH Axe with Disease Enchant, Infused OH Axe with Weapon Power Enchant, Defending/Infused Bow with the enchant that lowers your opponents weapon power, could run poisons here instead though.

Armors traits are: All Impen, surprise! 2x Health Enchants on big pieces, the rest are stamina.

Jewelry enchants are all stamina recovery, however you could definitely drop 1-2 for weapon damage for added burst.

For CP the most important thing is the Tactician passive, after that you're free to build however you please. Personally, I achieved this by putting 72 points into Master at Arms, and 48 points into Shattering Blows.

I would also recommend hitting the Exploiter passive, as this grants an easy-to-obtain 10% damage boost with 100% uptime on this build.


A few things for clarification:
- Tactician sets an opponent off balance when you roll dodge their attacks. According to the tooltip, this shouldn't proc on Major Evasion, but it does currently.

- Exploiter increases damage against off-balance targets by 10%.

- Armor of Truth adds 450 Weapon Damage for 10 seconds when you set a target off-balance, I'm sure you see where this is going by now.

- Heavy attacking off-balance players stuns them as of Dragon Bones, so you really don't need to slot a stun or stack recovery as I have if you practice! (This works well in small scale, but not so much in situations with multiple attackers focusing you)

- I chose dual wield axes for 3 reasons: Steel Tornado is overpowered right now, and the bleed applied from axes adds extra pressure to tankier opponents, and until Summerset I needed dual wield to reach 5/5/2.

- Final Note: This build can work well with any Stamina class. I personally enjoy it with Stamblade and StamSorc though!

This is also an amazing WW build as half of your attacks in WW form set people off balance. It is possible to switch bone pirate to spriggan as well which is what I run too sometimes.

FrancisCrawford

LeagueTroll wrote: »

Iron bb gun need to spam rapid regen to get ap. Otherwise you are just wasting enemies’ time for 0 self gain.

Does that make sense for a stamina character?

And if it does, why wouldn't Healing Springs usually be better?

Enslaved

I dont get that build, tbh. You have zero stats, not good enough regen and any pair of solid players would kill you in 10 seconds. Cyrodiil is not merciful toward out of place builds, imho.

fred4

Nyladreas wrote: »

He never asked for a typical NB gank build everyone is running.

When that was written, I had no idea whether he was PvPing or PvEing, and I could only infer his class from him mentioning Siphoning Attacks .

I mainly wanted to talk him out of health regen, because it's a very beginner thing to focus on. Other than Troll King, it's a cul-de-sac for DD builds. Beekeeper leads you towards becoming a tank and not much else. As for foods, I can understand someone building with tri-drinks, Bear Haunch, or Citrus Filet, but I think a stam regen / health regen drink is too limiting for a DD nightblade.

He wants to be a brawler

Perhaps. He wants the holy grail, to be honest. I suspect he just hasn't gathered enough experience on how to defend with dodge roll and cloak.

most probably avoiding to use cloak from what I understand.

He didn't mention cloak.

Your build describes typical hit and run build with magicka stacked for defensive oh crap buttons.

Note I only mentioned my build in the last paragraph. The point was that such a build gives you more healing in addition to more damage. It wasn't to persuade him to adopt my build, just to illustrate what leads many people in that direction.

Also, I doubt rally and vigor healing him for about 200 more health in PVP enviroment would help much if he wanted to stay on the front line.

It makes a hell of a difference when you build for healing and damage. The OP is asking for an OP build, if you pardon the pun. There is no question you get the best bang for your buck, in PvP, if you adopt methods that boost both your damage, and your defenses or healing. For magicka shielding builds that involves stacking magicka instead of spell damage, for example.

In general my suggestion would be to go for sets that give you stats (stamina or magicka) and spell / weapon damage, as appropriate for your character. Avoid sets that give you penetration. They are very effective against tanky players, but ineffective against shielding players, and they don't boost your healing. For the same reason I would avoid sets that boost only one particular damage type, such as Automaton, but not healing. This is the reason I chose Draugr Hulk, rather than Spriggan for example, and why I think a Nirnhoned main weapon is by and large the best compromise. You basically want your buffed Vigor to reach a 15K+ tooltip.

My stam DK runs a low stam Viper / Fortified Brass or Viper / Spriggan build and only has an around 10K Vigor tooltip. It is not a question of 200 more health in a PvP environment. It can easily be an up to 50% difference in the tooltips of your healing abilities between paying attention to heals in your build and not doing so. This is before we even start talking about things like Major Mending.

Nightblade is in a unique position to make all healing ticks of Vigor crit by going into cloak with Shadowy Disguise. Yes, all healing ticks, not just the first one each cloak. In terms of CP it is therefore worth investing into crit damage, not least to make your heals bigger. Don't invest into penetration CP. Many, many people do, even prominent YouTubers. It's a bad habit that goes back to the Sharpened trait being OP in previous patches. People equated the overperforming Sharpened trait with penetration being good however you can get it. This was never the case when getting it from CP. To get the first 1% extra damage, in PvP, from penetration you need to invest about 6 1/2 points into that CP star. Those points are far better invested elsewhere, including crit damage and some in Blessed to boost your heals.

EDIT: Also, wouldn't bone pirate with Witchmother's Brew be a whole lot better than shacklebreaker? You lose a tiny bit of stamina in exchange for more magicka and recovery. So many stamblades make this mistake all the time. I mean, unless u craft it in heavy or use blue quality food or ABSOLUTELY need that stam. @fred4

Nope. How to rank the 5-piece stat bonuses of sets:

Shacklebreaker: 2000 magicka = 1.825x a normal magicka bonus + 2000 stamina = 1.825x a normal stamina bonus = 3.65x the strength of a normal 1-piece bonus

Bone Pirate: 2000 stamina = 1.825x a normal stamina bonus + 150 stam regen = 1.162x a normal stamina regen bonus = 3x the strength of a normal 1-piece bonus

Draugr Hulk: 2540 stamina = 2.318 a normal 1-piece bonus

Hunding's Rage: 300 weapon damage = 2.326 a normal 1-piece bonus

Trainee: 3.318x a normal 1-piece bonus, however Trainee currently does not work as advertised. It's actual 5-piece bonuses are less than it says, more like 1K each.

Now comes the big "if". IF you have use for all the stats that these sets give you, then Shacklebreaker is objectively the best set of all. For a PvP nightblade that "if" is a resounding yes, for me, but your opinion may differ. If you discount the crit of Hunding's for a moment, then these sets are largely interchangeable, because we have so many different food options, mundus stones, and attribute distributions to closely match the end result to each other.

Bone Pirate has one big drawback. It doesn't work with Lava Foot Soup and Saltrice. I have to take a detour and talk about prismatic enchants. Those enchants give you 50% more stats than normal enchants. It's free stats! If you value your magicka as a stamblade - which I most emphatically do - then running ALL Hakeijo enchants is an absolute no brainer. The only reason not to do it is cost. Once you use all prismatics, you are close to 20K health in CP PvP, which, for me, is the magic number. I actually put 8 attribute points into health to get my total health to 21K, but then Lava Foot Soup gives me better stamina and regen stats than Dubious Camoran Throne or Witchmothers. Of course if you prefer to have higher health anyway, then this won't be a sticking point for you.

fred4

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

Nothing's a good PvP build for me, most of the time, because of lag. I don't see what my opponent is about to do; I only see what he did a second or two later (usually when I'm dead)

If you are on PC EU, Vivec campaign, don't play at prime time. If you must play, then confine yourself to Imperial City. Cyrodiil is unplayable at prime time. I am always flabbergasted that people play Vivec at prime time at all. If you spend most of your time in Imperial City, as I do, and you prefer small-scale gameplay using more than one ability, you become acutely aware that Cyrodiil just doesn't work at prime time.

Nyladreas

fred4 wrote: »

Nyladreas wrote: »

He never asked for a typical NB gank build everyone is running.

When that was written, I had no idea whether he was PvPing or PvEing, and I could only infer his class from him mentioning Siphoning Attacks .

I mainly wanted to talk him out of health regen, because it's a very beginner thing to focus on. Other than Troll King, it's a cul-de-sac for DD builds. Beekeeper leads you towards becoming a tank and not much else. As for foods, I can understand someone building with tri-drinks, Bear Haunch, or Citrus Filet, but I think a stam regen / health regen drink is too limiting for a DD nightblade.

He wants to be a brawler

Perhaps. He wants the holy grail, to be honest. I suspect he just hasn't gathered enough experience on how to defend with dodge roll and cloak.

most probably avoiding to use cloak from what I understand.

He didn't mention cloak.

Your build describes typical hit and run build with magicka stacked for defensive oh crap buttons.

Note I only mentioned my build in the last paragraph. The point was that such a build gives you more healing in addition to more damage. It wasn't to persuade him to adopt my build, just to illustrate what leads many people in that direction.

Also, I doubt rally and vigor healing him for about 200 more health in PVP enviroment would help much if he wanted to stay on the front line.

It makes a hell of a difference when you build for healing and damage. The OP is asking for an OP build, if you pardon the pun. There is no question you get the best bang for your buck, in PvP, if you adopt methods that boost both your damage, and your defenses or healing. For magicka shielding builds that involves stacking magicka instead of spell damage, for example.

In general my suggestion would be to go for sets that give you stats (stamina or magicka) and spell / weapon damage, as appropriate for your character. Avoid sets that give you penetration. They are very effective against tanky players, but ineffective against shielding players, and they don't boost your healing. For the same reason I would avoid sets that boost only one particular damage type, such as Automaton, but not healing. This is the reason I chose Draugr Hulk, rather than Spriggan for example, and why I think a Nirnhoned main weapon is by and large the best compromise. You basically want your buffed Vigor to reach a 15K+ tooltip.

My stam DK runs a low stam Viper / Fortified Brass or Viper / Spriggan build and only has an around 10K Vigor tooltip. It is not a question of 200 more health in a PvP environment. It can easily be an up to 50% difference in the tooltips of your healing abilities between paying attention to heals in your build and not doing so. This is before we even start talking about things like Major Mending.

Nightblade is in a unique position to make all healing ticks of Vigor crit by going into cloak with Shadowy Disguise. Yes, all healing ticks, not just the first one each cloak. In terms of CP it is therefore worth investing into crit damage, not least to make your heals bigger. Don't invest into penetration CP. Many, many people do, even prominent YouTubers. It's a bad habit that goes back to the Sharpened trait being OP in previous patches. People equated the overperforming Sharpened trait with penetration being good however you can get it. This was never the case when getting it from CP. To get the first 1% extra damage, in PvP, from penetration you need to invest about 6 1/2 points into that CP star. Those points are far better invested elsewhere, including crit damage and some in Blessed to boost your heals.

EDIT: Also, wouldn't bone pirate with Witchmother's Brew be a whole lot better than shacklebreaker? You lose a tiny bit of stamina in exchange for more magicka and recovery. So many stamblades make this mistake all the time. I mean, unless u craft it in heavy or use blue quality food or ABSOLUTELY need that stam. @fred4

Nope. How to rank the 5-piece stat bonuses of sets:

Shacklebreaker: 2000 magicka = 1.825x a normal magicka bonus + 2000 stamina = 1.825x a normal stamina bonus = 3.65x the strength of a normal 1-piece bonus

Bone Pirate: 2000 stamina = 1.825x a normal stamina bonus + 150 stam regen = 1.162x a normal stamina regen bonus = 3x the strength of a normal 1-piece bonus

Draugr Hulk: 2540 stamina = 2.318 a normal 1-piece bonus

Hunding's Rage: 300 weapon damage = 2.326 a normal 1-piece bonus

Trainee: 3.318x a normal 1-piece bonus, however Trainee currently does not work as advertised. It's actual 5-piece bonuses are less than it says, more like 1K each.

Now comes the big "if". IF you have use for all the stats that these sets give you, then Shacklebreaker is objectively the best set of all. For a PvP nightblade that "if" is a resounding yes, for me, but your opinion may differ. If you discount the crit of Hunding's for a moment, then these sets are largely interchangeable, because we have so many different food options, mundus stones, and attribute distributions to closely match the end result to each other.

Bone Pirate has one big drawback. It doesn't work with Lava Foot Soup and Saltrice. I have to take a detour and talk about prismatic enchants. Those enchants give you 50% more stats than normal enchants. It's free stats! If you value your magicka as a stamblade - which I most emphatically do - then running ALL Hakeijo enchants is an absolute no brainer. The only reason not to do it is cost. Once you use all prismatics, you are close to 20K health in CP PvP, which, for me, is the magic number. I actually put 8 attribute points into health to get my total health to 21K, but then Lava Foot Soup gives me better stamina and regen stats than Dubious Camoran Throne or Witchmothers. Of course if you prefer to have higher health anyway, then this won't be a sticking point for you.

Where's rest of your health coming from? You use pure sustain food, how do you get above 20k?

jaws343

I put together a pretty decent StamDK heavy armor build that hits like a truck and has pretty good survivability.

5 Piece Doylemish (Sword front bar)
5 Piece Sergeants Mail (Shield front bar)
2 Piece Tremorscale (you can really run any monster set you want. I use Ransak so Tremorscale works well with the build)
2 Piece Asylum Sword and Shield back bar.
Armor and shields should all be impen. And it helps to put enough points into the CP that gives you the passive that sets enemies off balance when you dodge roll.

30K health without battle spirit, 35K with.
27K stamina using all stamina enchantments.
Around 15K magicka. Tri-Stat food is a must.

I have everything specced into weapon damage on my jewelry. Heavy attacks are my spammable and my execute (plus I plan on running the Bloodthirsty trait in Summerset). I run the burning embers for healing. And most of my skills are all defense and utility. invasion and reverb is a must. The build only really works if you time your stuns with your Doylemish cooldowns. But you can lock down multiple players in a fight and kill them one by one without too much trouble.

Spacemonkey

Health - 38712
Magicka - 19741
Stamina - 23260

Health Recovery - 454
Magicka Recovery - 962
Stamina Recovery - 840

Weapon Damage - 2681
Weapon Critical - 41.5%
Weapon Critical Damage - 55%

Spell Resistance 39444 (60%)
Physical Resistance 34065 (51%)
Critical Resistance 1237 (19%) <-- way too low for cyro. but I havent gotten a pvp set yet so I just roll with it. its painful

Effective Weapon Power - 4945

For some reason I have the Lady, if I switch it I can get 26k stam+ and over 5100 weap power,
but thats basically what I have :P
Its all tristat so if I didnt mind dropping my still somewhat potent magicka skills, i could boost the HP and Stam stats even more.

*This is not from in game, and I don't know how reliable UESP's build editor still is

fred4

Nyladreas wrote: »

Where's rest of your health coming from? You use pure sustain food, how do you get above 20k?

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=41190

Note this is an experimental build. I use either Honest Lassie Honey Tea for crazy mag regen and perma-cloak capability (with potion), or Lava Foot Soup for 41.5K stam and more damage. I am also using Concealed Weapon for magblade-like speed in cloak, sacrificing Surprise Attack and pen for the ranged utility of Shrouded Daggers. Like I said, experimental.

If you are not reaching the same health, that could be due to:

* Not using ALL prismatic enchants
* No Undaunted Mettle passive
* Not running 5/1/1 (see above)
* Not full CP yet
* Playing in no CP campaign
* You put all attribute points into stam, whereas I put 8 points in health
* You don't have your skill bars balanced out with Shadow abilities
* No points invested in Shadow passive that gives you health

tinythinker

My builds are glass bb guns if you want the specs.

goatlyonesub17_ESO

Here's my new armor/weapon set up.

All armor pieces stamina enchanted.

Seventh Legion
* Helm (divines)
* Cuirass (divines)
* Grieves (divines)
* Dagger (sharpened, poison)
* Bow (2nd weapon, poison)

Dreugh King Slayer
* Pauldron (impenetrable)
* Gauntlets (reinforced)
* Girdle (divines)
* Sabatons (divines)
* Dagger (sharpened, poison)

Hawk's Eye
* Necklace (stam recovery)
* Ring (stam recovery)
* Ring (stam recovery)

Mundus Stone: Warrior

Max health 12276
Health recovery 1706
Max stamina 28447
Stamina recovery 2057
Weapon damage 2828
Weapon critical 51.5%
Spell resist 20685
Weapon resist 19811

I've been running with this set up in Rkindaleft, and so far I've died twice in fights that my previous set-up would have sailed through. When I win, I do win faster, though. But it looks like this set up tilts a little too far toward glass cannon. One of the biggest weaknesses of this one is getting shield bashed and then down comes an arrow storm or flames (or both).