Seeking Solo Stamblade Advice

jlb1705

I've been reading as much as I can trying to figure out a good build to run, but most of what I see is geared toward either PVP or trials. I just want to play solo and do overland content. I know that for the most part it's easy and you can get away with a lot of different setups or even mistakes, but I'm starting to take on more challenging things (for me, at least) like soloing dolmens and public dungeons and want to zero in on a good combination of skills and rotation so I can play well for my style. Here's what you need to know about my situation:

Platform: Xbox NA
Class: Stamblade
Race: Breton (Not ideal, I know. I don't care.)
Attribute Points: all in Stamina
Level: CP 355
Weapons: DW & Bow
Mundus: Lover
Food: Blue Max Health & Stamina
Potions: none
Poisons: none
Sets: Spriggan's & Night Terror (Random dropped items, varying traits & quality, but all are CP 160)

Crafting a Hunding's Rage set to replace Night Terror is on my to-do list. I have a crafting alt who has enough traits researched - I just need to collect a few skyshards so I can invest the necessary skill points. I know somebody else can craft it for me, but I want to do it myself. Upgrading my Spriggan's pieces through farming and/or improving what I already have is on my to-do list as well.

I have invested in all of the appropriate passives and feel like I have a pretty good handle on how to spend my CP as I earn them. What I am mainly looking for help with is the rest of my combat setup.

Is there a better way for me to do things? I feel like I need to prioritize penetration and self-heals since I'm running solo all of the time. I want to do as much damage as I can, but I know I have to sacrifice some to stay alive. On the other hand, the more quickly I end the fight the less damage I take in the first place. I don't really need to worry about making others mad because I'm not mowing down a mob as fast as they'd like me to though.

Here's my skill setup right now:
Front bar: Deadly Cloak, Flying Blade, Blood Craze, Steel Tornado, Bloodthirst, Rend
Back bar: Reaper's Mark, Relentless Focus, Leeching Strikes, Poison Injection, Endless Hail, Ballista

For the most part, I start fights from stealth and drop everything on my back bar. Aggro doesn't kick in until I'm dropping the bow skills. Then I switch bars and start light attack weaving, drop the first three skills, and then spam Bloodthirst. If it's a large mob I'll use Steel Tornado instead. I also switch to ST if it's a boss in execute range. I typically drop Blood Craze back in there if I need to switch to a target that hasn't had it placed on it yet.

Additionally, what should I be doing with potions & poisons for this character? My crating alt has unlocked everything in Alchemy, so I can make whatever I want. What should I run here?

Violynne

I'm running 5 pieces Hundings, 4 Night's Silence, and 3 reduce Stamina cost jewelry.
Mundus: currently testing Thief
Food: something rabbit, max health/stam
Potions: Weapon Damage, health + stam + increased dmg, invisibility (rarely used, but when 2.5 seconds isn't enough), crit increase
Poisons: none, don't want to sacrifice weapon enchants
Bow and daggers: enchanted with Oro

For self heal, you need Vigor. I know, I know, but you can get it through PvP relatively quickly. Once you have it, you can leave PvP. Bloodthirst and Siphoning don't come close to Vigor and this is why you see the majority of stamBlades using it. I can't recommend it enough.

The best thing with Vigor is you can then replace either Bloodthirst or Siphoning for Grim Focus. The spectral bow with LA is something to look into.

Steel Tornado is pretty much a given, and handles mobs well.

Rotation only really matters for PvP because any spammable in PvE is low cost and cuts out needing to manage resources.

You can easily clear out any public dungeon with Bloodthirst, Grim Focus and Steel Tornado, siphoning stamina on a need. Vigor will help for those "whoa, that was close" moments, but you won't use it often.

I also use hidden blade. Extremely powerful to control mobs in cloak. With the sneak crit and potions, you won't even break a sweat.

Dungeons, I don't know about. I'm working my way toward those now. My alt just hit 50 a couple of weeks ago, so I'm also without Skyshards to unlock other skills.

But so far, I'm doing okay. I hit the pubdun in Greenshade yesterday and walked out without spending a single soul gem.

It's rather shocking how the skills I picked up in PvP are making PvE a cake walk.

Well, non-Vet anyway.

jlb1705

Violynne wrote: »

For self heal, you need Vigor. I know, I know, but you can get it through PvP relatively quickly. Once you have it, you can leave PvP. Bloodthirst and Siphoning don't come close to Vigor and this is why you see the majority of stamBlades using it. I can't recommend it enough.

I've thought about that, because I've read that Vigor and Caltrops are good skills. I took both of my characters to Cyrodiil for the two free skill points you get just for doing the tutorials, but haven't really engaged in PVP beyond that. I know there's supposed to be a double AP event coming up sometime in the near future. I've been playing for less than a year, so I wasn't around for the last one. For anybody who knows: If I want as little grief as possible to unlock those skills, am I better off waiting for double AP or going before the event when there might be fewer players there?

Violynne

jlb1705 wrote: »

For anybody who knows: If I want as little grief as possible to unlock those skills, am I better off waiting for double AP or going before the event when there might be fewer players there?

Thing about PvP is, you'll want the players around you. If you don't feel strong enough to get into the heat of battle, you can still stand back and offer assists with DoT/AoE attacks and help out. That's what I did.

Not going to lie: you'll die. Often. Sometimes, you'll just be on the losing side. But don't let this deter you, because you can still learn quite a bit as you experience PvP, which makes PvE so much easier.

Don't be afraid to reach out to your faction group. Many are more than willing to help you out and teach you some things.

If you try to remain solo in PvP, you're going to have a difficult time. There are just too many zergs running about and trying to avoid them gets difficult. I speak from experience.

I did one solo quest (spying on a keep), and managed to get back without a problem. The second time... yeah, ran directly into a group of Daggerfall zergs who took me out before I had a chance to dismount and run away.

It happens, but it's part of the experience.

Stick with a zerg. Trust me. Your survival increases and you can earn some great AP (event or not), netting Vigor as your reward.

Caltrops will be a bit tougher to get. It requires level 10, so for this, you may want to wait for the double AP event.

But definitely get Vigor as soon as you can.

davey1107

I main a stamblade and have about ten billion hours on him, lol. Thanks for the detailed post...those are all good questions, and your specifics are super helpful. (people will still tell you to reset your race. I won't...I don't think it matters...but others will, lol.)

Like you say, for the sort of casual PVE you are doing there are endless ways to configure. I'll offer broad tips...they're all up to you. If I think something is vital, I'll try to note that.

Capabilities

You're getting to a really good end game build, so you should be able to solo 95% of the PVE content in the game. A next step would be learning to solo some of the normal undaunted dungeons. It can be done, and if you want to really learn your class that's a great way. The ones to start with would be Elden Hollow 1, Banished Cells 1 or Fungal Grotto 1. The mechanics in these aren't complicated, and shouldn't prevent victory. But I'm not saying it will be easy.


COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT
(What you actually asked for, lots of add'l junk below)

Your bars are 85% ideal. Any suggestions I have will help or hurt based on your play style. Your further fine tuning will be about finding what works best for you.

Front Bar

Weaknesses: no assassin line skills, which really costs you. You want at least one for the 10% crit damage boost, then each increases your crit rating by about 2%. (As a class, night blades get more from selectively choosing their class skills than anyone else. Read the passives thoroughly...there's a lot of strategy in how you slot skills with a stamblade).

Suggestions:

- Exchange cloak for either mark or relentless focus. You're talking a 5% increase in all front bar damage ticks by getting an assassin ability on the bar...that's big.

- Killer's Blade is really helpful when running solo. I'd look at choosing between blood craze and bloodthirst, and losing one to pick up an execute (with a pretty decent heal). I mean...using it well, I'm getting 35k hits and 4k health for 1300 stam. That's a good deal.

- Rend is great, and I rely on it at times. Flawless Dawnbreaker offers 8% more damage just for being slotted, though...so I run with it unless I really, really need Rend to survive a big fight.

- I used to use flying blade and steel tornado like you probably are. Flying for range, tornado for an AOE. Ultimately I collapsed these two skills into just shrouded daggers to free up a slot, and I use shrouded as a sort of ranged AOE. When I get all three hits from the bounces, I'm dealing a total of 60k damage. It just shreds mobs...and I can usually reduce them down long before they get to me. I find this form of kiting AOE to be more effective than close range whirling blades on a blade.

- I might replace whirling with suprise attack. It's a core skill. One, slotting it increases your max health (cloak on the back bar takes care of this on your bow). Two, using it increases your physical and spell resistance by a LOT for three seconds. And it reduces your enemy's resistance by a LOT for 15 seconds.

Summary: So a bar something like killer blade, surprise attack, shrouded dagger, mark, bloodthirst or blood craze, flawless dawn breaker. I'm going to roughly guess that is a 35% boost to dps?


Back Bar

Weaknesses: We've covered bringing cloak back here. With that change, it's a solid bar.

Suggestions

- You could bring Incap strikes in as the ultimate. I wouldn't...I love ballista...but it's an option.

- I am not an endless hail fan, even though I recognize it provides superior dps. I like Draining Shot for it's 'get the eff away" properties, and it provides a big heal that really helps. I also like snipe, since I can cloak and kite and them mess someone up from across the room.


Other notes


Sets

You have good sets...moving to Hundings will be will be a bit better. I'd recommend planning for gold weapons down the road (the upgrade is a huge boost to power). Purple gear will be fine for what you're doing...if you're rich, then sure, go gold. But it's not a big boost. I always recommend making your weapons from the craft set. It's just easier /cheaper in the long run. If you need some heavy, then a chest or greaves from your craft set are the best pieces to make heavy.

Another set that works great on my NB is Briarhearts. The heals are really helpful. They sounds small, but they really add up. Briar jewelry costs a fortune...but we are about to get jewelry crafting. You might see if you can pick up a green or blue robust set for cheap (or in any set that seems interesting), thinking that down the road you might upgrade that jewelry.

Divines on all body pieces. Infused is okay. But getting the right traits will be helpful, generally.


Mundus

The Lover isn't considered a great option, honestly. Penetration comes into effect when pushing through armor. So there are times when you use an ability where you don't get a benefit...most notably when you heal. But sometimes with damage too. Warrior, Shadow and Thief are all considered better for a stamblade, and they'll all kick in to help you with more than penetration will.


Weapons

DW/Bow is awesome. The biggest drawback is losing Rally as a source of major brutality, but you're getting it with hidden blade so you're good. But I definitely recommend keeping that skill going, because the brutality is really, really powerful.

For traits, nirn on the main dagger, infused on the back hand dagger and precise on the bow is meta, with a weapon dmg enchant on the front dagger. You can go cheap and skip the nirn for precise...it's not a huge difference. Why precise over sharp? Your stamblade will crit all the time, and precise helps with critical heals. But the traits are such a small difference it won't really matter which way you go between the three.


Potions

I carry two kinds for sure - invisible/speed and tri-stat restore. Sometimes I have health/stam/something else. Or stamina/weapon critical/weapon damage. The thing with a stamblade is we have easy access to major brutality and savagery. I use my potions for emergency resource restore. I don't use poisons either.


Passives you might have missed

I find the reduce sneak in legerdemain ESSENTIAL on a stamblade. Go load up from the ships in port in dagger fall, do your daily max, and in ten or so trips you'll hit leger 16 and be able to reduce sneak cost by 40% - totally worth the investment.

The alchemy passive that extends potion effects is useful. You cap out at 16 seconds invisible right now...really helpful.

Down the road, the undaunted passive that boosts resources for armor types is a big help. It's a loooong grind, you need to run about 125 undaunted dailies to get the full benefits, but it's worth it. Run the Bogrul quest frequently (it's a 5 minute delve mission), then run a pledge as you can. These are each one of the 125 dailies you need. How big is the boost? My blade uses medium and one heavy, so he gets 4% add'l resources. That translates to 1600 stamina, 800 health and 800 magic. (with an option to go 2400/1200/1200 with a light sash). That's a significant buff.


Okay, that's a lot of info. Hope it helps. Have fun with your blade! He really is at a point where he's about to become death on two legs. Or whatever...that's a horrible idiom.

Sparr0w

Use surprise attack, buffs your physical & spell resistance 5k while lowering the targets the same! Also Killers Blade as Execute (although overland you don't really get time to use this...)

I'd recommend going 2H/Bow over DW/Bow for the shield, healing & brutality, if you're set on DW use Vigor (PVP skill) and another heal/damage mitigation skill, e.g. Mirage, Leeching, Blood Craze etc...

Have a read of the passives from each class skill line & plan skills according to that.

Ideally I'd stick Warrior mundus on if you're using Spriggans and Surprise attack so you get more damage & higher heals.

Armour I use Spriggans jewellery & weapons (with 1 body piece, i use the head); rest Hundings with monster shoulder.

• All medium with Heavy Chest & either Heavy Legs for more resistance or Light Belt if you have the undaunted passive
• All divines all stamina but could do infused/health enchant chest if you need more resources.
• Any monster set will be fine on your shoulder, I use kra'ghs for more penentration as not using Lover.

For solo I use the below build, have soloed most normal dungeons & vet Fungal 1 so far.
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=57322

Rotations I do overcast a little but it keeps it easy. Remember to Light Attack or Heavy Attack between everything to get resources from Leeching & proc your bow - easy way to do this until you're used to watching for tells is to spam LA and just press skills mid way through light attacking, or hold HA (never release unless bar swapping) and press skills mid way through.

(LA weave) Buffs, (LA weave) DoTs, (LA weave) Spammable, (LA weave) DoTs, (HA weave)Spammable, repeat.
Basically one rotation with all light attacks while using buffs, then heavy attack front bar next rotation without buffs.

jlb1705

davey1107 wrote: »

You're getting to a really good end game build, so you should be able to solo 95% of the PVE content in the game. A next step would be learning to solo some of the normal undaunted dungeons. It can be done, and if you want to really learn your class that's a great way. The ones to start with would be Elden Hollow 1, Banished Cells 1 or Fungal Grotto 1. The mechanics in these aren't complicated, and shouldn't prevent victory. But I'm not saying it will be easy.

This is very helpful info on where to start on soloing normal dungeons. I'm interested in doing that at some point, and imagine that if I started off in the wrong place not knowing any better I could end up giving up on it.

davey1107 wrote: »

Your bars are 85% ideal. Any suggestions I have will help or hurt based on your play style. Your further fine tuning will be about finding what works best for you.

Front Bar

Weaknesses: no assassin line skills, which really costs you. You want at least one for the 10% crit damage boost, then each increases your crit rating by about 2%. (As a class, night blades get more from selectively choosing their class skills than anyone else. Read the passives thoroughly...there's a lot of strategy in how you slot skills with a stamblade).

Suggestions:

- Exchange cloak for either mark or relentless focus. You're talking a 5% increase in all front bar damage ticks by getting an assassin ability on the bar...that's big.

- Killer's Blade is really helpful when running solo. I'd look at choosing between blood craze and bloodthirst, and losing one to pick up an execute (with a pretty decent heal). I mean...using it well, I'm getting 35k hits and 4k health for 1300 stam. That's a good deal.

- Rend is great, and I rely on it at times. Flawless Dawnbreaker offers 8% more damage just for being slotted, though...so I run with it unless I really, really need Rend to survive a big fight.

- I used to use flying blade and steel tornado like you probably are. Flying for range, tornado for an AOE. Ultimately I collapsed these two skills into just shrouded daggers to free up a slot, and I use shrouded as a sort of ranged AOE. When I get all three hits from the bounces, I'm dealing a total of 60k damage. It just shreds mobs...and I can usually reduce them down long before they get to me. I find this form of kiting AOE to be more effective than close range whirling blades on a blade.

- I might replace whirling with suprise attack. It's a core skill. One, slotting it increases your max health (cloak on the back bar takes care of this on your bow). Two, using it increases your physical and spell resistance by a LOT for three seconds. And it reduces your enemy's resistance by a LOT for 15 seconds.

Summary: So a bar something like killer blade, surprise attack, shrouded dagger, mark, bloodthirst or blood craze, flawless dawn breaker. I'm going to roughly guess that is a 35% boost to dps?


Back Bar

Weaknesses: We've covered bringing cloak back here. With that change, it's a solid bar.

Suggestions

- You could bring Incap strikes in as the ultimate. I wouldn't...I love ballista...but it's an option.

- I am not an endless hail fan, even though I recognize it provides superior dps. I like Draining Shot for it's 'get the eff away" properties, and it provides a big heal that really helps. I also like snipe, since I can cloak and kite and them mess someone up from across the room.

I tried some of these changes out last night. I switched to:

Front: Deadly Cloak - Shrouded Daggers - Blood Craze - Surprise Attack - Killers Blade - Rend
Back: Shadowy Disguise - Relentless Focus - Leeching Strikes - Endless Hail - Poison Injection - Flawless Dawnbreaker

I had played with Killers Blade (actually, its non-morph version) very early on and didn't realize that it was an execute, or just how CHEAP it is. You're right, I can't go with out that one.

I like the idea of using Shrouded Daggers as a kind-of AOE instead of Steel Tornado. Turns out that was the morph I had all along, not Flying Blade. I do like it as a ranged attack. After playing with it a little bit though, I'm not sure how I'll like it when I'm up against more than three enemies.

My ultimates I'm a little unsure about. I'm back to debating between Rend and Flawless Dawnbreaker... Rend does more initial damage and comes with the heal, but FD has the passive to boost damage. I don't spend much time on my back bar after dropping everything to start the fight, so I get little use out of having the FD damage buff there. I guess I'm going to have to play around with those two a little more.

Overall, I think I'll see improvement if I stick with it for a while and unlearn the muscle memory of my old button sequence. I struggled a bit with the new rotation last night and wiped a few times zerging a world boss that I would have easily handled before. The animations of some of these skills feel slower than ones they replaced, so I'll have to develop an new rhythm for LA weaving.

davey1107 wrote: »

Mundus

The Lover isn't considered a great option, honestly. Penetration comes into effect when pushing through armor. So there are times when you use an ability where you don't get a benefit...most notably when you heal. But sometimes with damage too. Warrior, Shadow and Thief are all considered better for a stamblade, and they'll all kick in to help you with more than penetration will.

Some of the things I had read said that Lover was a good option if not grouped, and I realized that it was probably overkill in trash fights, but didn't realize that I was shortchanging my self-heals. I'll probably switch to Warrior and see how that does for me.

davey1107 wrote: »

Potions

I carry two kinds for sure - invisible/speed and tri-stat restore. Sometimes I have health/stam/something else. Or stamina/weapon critical/weapon damage. The thing with a stamblade is we have easy access to major brutality and savagery. I use my potions for emergency resource restore. I don't use poisons either.

I hadn't given much thought to invisibility/speed potions, but just realized how useful those would have been the past couple weeks when completing anniversary event dailies. Why was a fighting my way through a delve that I had cleared countless times before when I could just sprint through it untouched and complete the quest in a fraction of the time?

davey1107 wrote: »

Down the road, the undaunted passive that boosts resources for armor types is a big help. It's a loooong grind, you need to run about 125 undaunted dailies to get the full benefits, but it's worth it. Run the Bogrul quest frequently (it's a 5 minute delve mission), then run a pledge as you can. These are each one of the 125 dailies you need. How big is the boost? My blade uses medium and one heavy, so he gets 4% add'l resources. That translates to 1600 stamina, 800 health and 800 magic. (with an option to go 2400/1200/1200 with a light sash). That's a significant buff.

I have definitely had an eye on that Undaunted passive, but wasn't sure how I might do it solo. I know it's a long grind, so it's good to hear that it's something I could start on soon rather than having to wait and work to get a lot better first.