Help Improving DPS?

Woefulmonkey

Looking for help with NightBlad and DragonKnigh DPS build and confirming DPS.

I have 2 high level DPS characters and both suffer from DIS (Damage Is ***).

I have a 'Nightblad' and a 'DragonKnight' that are DPS focused.

Both are lvl 50 670+ CP.

Both have lvl 50 160 gear. The 'Nightblad' has a complete 'Gold' set.

And in my first DPS test with a 'Human Skeleton' dummy they both did about 5K dps.

I have read several 'guides' that claim to provide the best DPS build for the 'Nightblad' and tried to emulate them as closely as possible and managed to get up to 7.5K.

I was able to get up to 8K by creating my own build that focused on critical and damage over time effect boots but I can't seem to break this beerier.

Then I started thinking about it critically and I don't see any real way to improve further. No items give a '500% DPS Increase' bonus. Most items give you effects that may will increase DPS output for a specific effect by between 10% and 30% so unless there is some 'bugged' items that are giving 10X their stated effects I don't see how any set is going to double or triple my DPS.

I then though well maybe people are taking advantage of some kind of animation glitch that lets them spam an attack at an increased rate. However, basic attracts would need to be about 5X more frequent to double my DPS which means somehow triggering the effect ever 200ms constantly and it would still only get me to 16K at best.

So, I think I am missing some major component here.

Is there anyone who can provide some guidance on correctly testing DPS and making improvements.

What test dummy are people using who are seeing 32K dps? (I noticed the test dummy I am using has very high resistance)

Are their critical 'potions' or 'buffs' that I should be using?

Is there their something I am obvious just not understanding?

Anotherone773

You realize you gave almost no useful information?
* are you stamina or magicka based?
* What do you have attribute points in?
* Are you using food? If so what food?
*What gear set(s) are you using?
* What armor trait?
* What armor enchantments?
* Are you using gold enchantments?
* What weapons are you using?
* What trait on weapons?
* What jewelry are you using? What "quality"( blue purple gold)? What enchantments are on it?
* What mundus stone are you using?
* What is your weapon/spell power( character sheet)
* What is your weapon/spell penetration?
* What abilities are you using? What rotation?
* What is your total( max) stam/magicka when you test?
* What do you have CP in? what skills in what trees?

Thats all i can think of for the moment but you are missing a lot of information, if you want any kind of useful help.

Woefulmonkey

Focusing on Nightblade.

I am stam based, but I would change to magic if needed to get a decent DPS.

I am a khajiit but would change race if it mean getting a decent DPS.

I am not looking for 'you did not do it right' advice, I am looking for 'this is how you should do it' advice.

So for attributes it does not matter what I have, I have already changed my base attributes and CP allocations 5 time for 5 different builds all with similar results.

If someone has a magic setup that gets you over 10K dps I would totally rearrange my setting as I have already done several times.

FOOD.... Is there something special about that which I am missing. I don't have 'resource pool' or 'regen' problems. But yes I use Food to increase pools and use Purple food for it.

GEAR.... again it does not matter. I would change to a set if it gets me decent DPS. I have already changed 3 times with no discernable difference in DPS. What I have now is 'weapons damage' and 'critical' focused either increasing base number or increasing by a percentage. They are not the 'Top' gear you get from trials (since my DPS is so crappy I can't do trials or even vet dungeons effectively). However, I have research the different sets and the stuff I have (Mechanical Acuity and Leviathan with 2 items of Hundingtons Bane I think right now, all at 160cp gold which seem like they should not be terrible on paper)

ENCHANTMENT... again it does not matter I am a master crafter and can make and replace any enchantments as needed, but right now all my enchantments focus on Stamina and Health Pools for armor, Stamina Regen for Jewelry, and Health absorption for weapons (magic damage that restores health).

All other.... none of what I 'Have' matters, it is a alterable as I have been changing it to recommended build setting for the past week with no discernable difference after each major reworking or CP point Mundus stones Weapons and so forth.

The latest 'advice' I have been following comes from this link so you could look at that to see what I basically have set:

https://www.esomasteryguides.com/nightblade-build-guide/

I do prefer 'Dual Wield' weapons for DPS... However, again I would change if a different weapon type is suddenly going to double my DPS somehow.

I have master crafter character and I can make any Armor or Weapons and create any Enchantments, Potions, or Food.

What I am looking for is some advice on the how to get my DPS up for a Nightblade. I don't care how.. since I can make it happen.

If people out there are doing 56K dps, it seems like it should not require the secrets of the universe to obtain say 12K dps unless I am doing something terribly wrong.... Which I admit may be the case so I am trying to see exactly how someone else is getting good DPS.

I am assuming with DPS this low their must be something obvious that I am missing.

One thing of NOTE. I don't use Potions or Poisons. They don't seem to give very big boots and potions only last like 28 seconds and Poison only procs 20% of the time which would indicate neither of these things are going to give you even 1K DPS boost. I have done limited test by applying poison and saw basically no improvement in DPS when used.

Anotherone773

The answer to those questions matter. You said you tried 5 different builds and you basically want someone to provide you with another build to try. So you are doing the same thing that you have done 5 different times. Do you what the definition of insanity is? Doing something over and over the same way and expecting different results.

People need to know what you have equipped, what your doing when you parse so they know where you are going wrong. Just because i give you the instruction manual to build a rocket doesnt mean you can build one correctly. Understand where im coming from? That guide you linked is really out of date as far as i can tell. I run a stamina bow blade and i can hit 12-15k on a dummy just from snipe and LA. With daggers you should be able to hit 5k just spamming light attack. So you have something seriously wrong.

Feel free to answer the questions in my first reply and ill see if i can help.

Woefulmonkey

@Anotherone773

Ok, I am not trying to be difficult and you are right the reason I posted here is that I don't want to just try another build.

I would think there is something seriously wrong with something I am doing if I can barely get up to 8K dps with a full gold set with 5 set bonus types.

So here are my target characters stats and equipment that they 'currently' have.


Class Nightblade
Race khajiit
LVL 50
CP 675

Attributes While Where Current Gear But No Buffs On:
Max Magicka 10865
Max Health 20377
Max Stamina 22425

Magicka Recovery 591
Health Recovery 432
Stamina Recovery 1067

Spell Damage 1701
Spell Critical 32.9%

Weapon Damage 1994
Weapon Critical 81%

Spell Resistance 14248
Critical Resistance 1017

Physical Resistance 14248

Attribute Point Allocations

Magicka 0
Health 28
Stamina 36

CP Allocations

GREEN
Tower - NONE
The Lover 105: Tenacity 42, Mooncalf 42, Healthy 21
The Shadow 120: Shade 35, Befoul 40, Tumbling 45

BLUE
The Apprentice 30: Elfborn 30
The Atronach 75: Physical Weapon Expert 25, Master At Arms 25, Shattering Blows 25
The Ritual 120: Thaumaturge 23, Mighty 43, Precise Strikes 37, Piercint 17

RED
The Steed 120: Ironclad 12, Spell Shield 35, Resistant 38, Medium Armor Focus 35
The Lady 75: Hardy 24, Elemental Defender 30, Thick Skinned 20
The Lord 30: Expert Defender 30

Equipment: (All but Jewelry are Gold CP 160 items, Jewelry is Blue 160 cp)

Hunding's Rage 2 items (Daggers with Precise Trait) Main and Backup are same.

Mechanical Acuity 5 items (Head, Chest, Shoulders, Waist, Leggs) All with Infused trait.

Leviathan 5 items (Hands, Feet, Rings, Neck) Hands and Feet have Infused Trait, Rings reduce stamina costs, Neck Improves Stamina Recovery.

Enchantments

All Jewelry are increase stamina

Armor All by Shoulders are Increase Health, Shoulders are Increase Stamina

Weapons all are life drain


Primary Assigned Skills:

1 Surprise Attack
2 Killer Blade
3 Rending Slashes
4 Relentless Focus
5 Quick Cloak
6 Dawnbreaker

Secondary Assigned Skills:

1 Surprise Attack
2 Ambush
3 Steel Tornado
4 Quick Cloak
5 Relentless Focus
6 Dawnbreaker

Let me know if there is other stats that would help.

Keep in mind I should be able to alter just about any of these values.

Narvuntien

Okay not going to lie 5K dps is very little.. I spam snipe and get 14K.

Khajit dual wielding stamblade is perfectly fine.
Stats: 64 points into stamina.

Skills:

Dual wield bar: Relentless focus, Leeching strikes, Surprise attack, Killers blade, Deadly cloak, Flawless dawnbreaker
Bow bar: Reaping mark, Rearming beast trap, Caltrops, Endless Hail, Poison injection, Ballista

Gear:
One Infused dagger, One Nirnhoned axe. Poison enchant on the dagger and weapon damage on the axe.
Nirnhoned Bow I am not sure about the enchantment maybe a stamina return poison.

You gear will be 5 pc of medium 1 pc light and 1 pc heavy and all divines you can use either the warrior or the lover mundus stone. All enchanted with stamina.

Monster set (these can be a little hard to get at first): Velidreth is the most damaging, Selenes is okay alternative. Kra'ghs Is also pretty good. 1pc Velidreth 1pc Kena also works.

So this isn't the best set up but its easy to get.
5 pieces of Hundings Rage, Its just a pretty good stats set. You will want to have a heavy chest piece and 1 piece of light either your monster shoulder or your belt. People really like mechanical acuity but its very hard to use.
5 pieces of Spriggans thorns, Penetration is the easiest way to improve your damage, if you use Spriggans it is likely you will not need the lover mundus stone. There are better sets e.g Twin Fang Strike... but you cannot just buy them like Spriggans.

Rotation: Your rotation of skills is key to improving dps. ALWAYS Light attack between every skill you use. You want to lay down your damage over time abilities and buffs. remember the length of times the damage over time abilities run and always reapply them.

Keep these up. I repeat ALWAYS light attack between each skill.

Relentless focus (20s) --> leeching strikes (20s) --> Reaping mark (20s) ---> Beast trap (60s) ---> caltrops (12s) ---> endless hail (10s) ---> poison injection (10s) --> ballista --> Deadly cloak (15s) ----> surprise attack (repeat)---> fire relentless bow ---> Caltrops (12s) --> endless hail (10s)---> poison injection (10s) ---> Surprise attack (repeat) ---> fire relentless bow ---> relentless focus ---> leeching strikes --- Reaping mark ---> Caltrops ----> endless hail ---> Poison injection ---> deadly cloack ---> surprise attack (repeat).... etc.

beast trap needs to be reapplyed every 3rd rotation and once your target is under 25% health you just start spamming killers blade.

Use Weapon damage and Weapon crit potions or just slot Shrouded daggers (over deadly cloak just for the dummy parse).
Oh you can use Incap strike or soul harvest instead of dawnbreaker but you never actually use it so I went with the passive buffs.

Stamblade has by far the hardest and highest damaging rotation of any class. you will need a lot of practise... I don't do it well.

Koensol

@Narvuntien Why the hell would you advise him to use reapers mark, while not having rending slashes/bloodcraze slotted???? Whatever you do OP, do not use reapers mark. You are giving the target the exact same debuff as you are doing with surprise attack. Either morph of twin slashes adds a lot more dps in stead of reapers mark which is useless in PvE.

The rest of the above advice is pretty solid though, although I wouldn't use ballista as an ult but use incap on bow bar and keep dawnbreaker slotted on front bar for extra weapon damage. Also that rotation he posted seems a bit off. There should be room to at least use surprise attack twice in one rotation. In general though I think it gives you a good direction to start off with.

I would personally do it more like this. The rotation isn't 100% perfect and could be more optimized in some scenarios, but like this is a relatively simple version to start off with:

Buffs: Relentless focus, leeching strikes (Reapply relentless after every 2nd proc. Reapply leeching every 2nd rotation). Proc relentless when ready throughout rotation when you come on to the front bar. This should give you 2 procs before buff runs out.

Use incap from bow bar if ready, pop weapon power + crit potion, Endless hail, la(Light attack), caltrops, la, rearming trap, la, poison injection, bar swap, la, rending slashes, la, deadly cloak, la, surprise attack, la, surprise attack, bar swap. REPEAT. Use incap when ready.

Keep using weapon power + crit potions on cooldown. Whatever you might think OP, they DO matter when your rotation is good. Remember that rotation and using the correct skills is key in getting high dps. Gear means jack *** if you play like a fool.

But whatever you do, don't use acuity together with leviathan. Leviathan is like the worst set to pair with it, because it gives what acuity already gives. Crit is only good when it can amplify already high dmg. Focussing on crit and having such poor weapon dmg and max stam as you have is a bad idea. Starting with a more simply setup such as spriggans and hundings with a 2 piece monster set such as kraghs would be a better idea while you are practicing rotation. I would also use dubious camoran throne for food to get max stam and stam regen to be able to sustain this light attack rotation.

Joxer61

Ok, asking for help and then coming back with several "it does not matter " is not a great way to get said help.
From what I have found these forums can be a GREAT place for advice and help and people are more than happy to offer it up, but as stated in the first reply.....you have to give DETAILS! Are you mostly PVE or PVP.....all that stuff is important since it varies for each.
Sounds like you did a fair bit of playing before given your gear and CP's, so my "advice" would be to listen to what was just posted above. Your skills on your bars were/are way off from what I have seen, so apply what those folks suggested. Also, Alcast.com and Xynodegaming have great sites for builds, but keep in mind they are more end game/group focused.
Just don't get frustrated....you did the right thing coming here and asking for help so apply it and you be right. Don't worry about the monster sets and all that end game gear if you haven't gotten that far in game.
Sounds like you just need to get the proper setup and practice. And again....just read and apply what folks offer up. They all may not agree on each others tactics but pretty much all are trying to help, so use it. Cheers and good luck.

(then again....only 5k....is this a troll post?)

Woefulmonkey

@Joxer61

You probably did not see the 2 post after that response.

My point with the 'it does not matter' responses was that I will change what need to change based on the advice given.

I don't want to try to adapt my current load outs and setting if they are clearly not working.

However, you are right it sounds like I am being difficult and that is not my intent, and as Anotherone773 pointed out I have already tried to follow several 'builds' already and only gotten about 2.5K improvement in DPS. So I don't really want just another 'build' recommendation.

So I responded again with all the stats for my current Nightblad build which is the one I am working on first.

And yes, on my first attempt with a 'Human Skeleton' DPS target (which says it is equivalent to a Veteran Dungeon Boss) I only got 5K dps.

I made several modification on my own at first and was able to get up to 8K at one point.

I then started researching 'builds' and tried about 5 different types. They all resulted in somewhere between 7K and 8K dps.

Which is why I don't think the problem is the 'Build' but something else I am doing or not doing that is leading to the low DPS.

Basically I rotate between attacks watching timers for expirations and resets for 3 or 4 Damage Over Time effects, and in between I spam a direct attack followed by intermittent 'strong basic' attacks.

I do that until the target reaches the 25% mark then switch to spamming the 'Killer Blade' while continuing the Damage Over Time rotations.

At my last test I got up to about 7.8K dps.

So when I hear that people can get to 56K dps and I get into group where the DPS is clearly doing way way more damage than I can I think.... their most be something really wrong with what I am doing at some fundamental level.

What I am not seeing is how you can make basically a 10 times improvement in DPS when the set item I am seeing basically give you what is basically a 10% to maybe 30% improvement in 1 area of attack.

That tells me that the 'Items' are not the issue. There has to be something else but I am not seeing it.

Joxer61

Woefulmonkey wrote: »

@Joxer61

snipped for space

Yea, I think its a gear issue along with correct skills, just from what you have mentioned they don't sound right.
Now, I am not the best one for advice as I have only just returned to the game after 3 + yrs break, but I can offer up what I have ran into. Those builds on all the sites are for groups...meaning group buffs, which are a HUGE thing for your dps. ALso, when they do their dummy tests they are buffed out as well, food, pots, all the goodies. They are trying to show what is "potentially" the numbers you can get.
Now, not everyone will get that simply due to the basics....console vs PC....muscle memory, quickness on keys, latency...all that junk. I know my 56 yr old fingers can in no way hit those keys like a lot of these guys, but I can come close.
What I found in ESO is its about the rotations...light attacks and heavy worked into you skills. You cant just "hit 1 to win" and expect great things. You have to buff up, drop any ground aoes and DOTS and then use your "spamables" if you have them.
So what I suggest is instead of looking at builds, look up some rotation vids on youtube and slow them down then just practice. Its a much more involved style of combat (which is great) but it does take some work.
I like you have several toons at 50 but decided to roll a new one to ease back into the game. I respec'd my DK like 4 times then finally said no way...costs too much!!! LOL......but yea, hang in there. Its actually a simple fix I am sure so follow what people offer up and you be right mate!

Violynne

Woefulmonkey wrote: »

And yes, on my first attempt with a 'Human Skeleton' DPS target (which says it is equivalent to a Veteran Dungeon Boss) I only got 5K dps.

In looking at your build, I'm wondering if you're understanding DPS correctly, because with your build, you should be clearing 12k without even trying.

DPS is calculated over time, not just with a single hit. Most people will score on 3 minutes of actively attacking the dummy, which displays their DPS.

Remember: DPS isn't a constant, meaning you're not going to hit 35k with every single hit. That's just not possible.

If you are only hitting 5k DPS, then it's likely you're not applying a rotation correctly, perhaps spamming anything rather than using the buffs from combos.

Getting 35k isn't easy. Most will sit around 32k. To get the extra 3k requires the best set, perfect rotation, and practice. Lots and lots of practice.

Narvuntien

Koensol wrote: »

@Narvuntien Why the hell would you advise him to use reapers mark, while not having rending slashes/bloodcraze slotted???? Whatever you do OP, do not use reapers mark. You are giving the target the exact same debuff as you are doing with surprise attack. Either morph of twin slashes adds a lot more dps in stead of reapers mark which is useless in PvE.

oops I though one was minor for some reason. you need one assassination ability on each bar.. but if incap is on your back bar that counts.

I will say that in reapers marks defense if you put it on trash and kill it you get major bezerk its not useless... Ballista does do a lot of damage but I suspect it wont work here due to that assassination passive,

Mancombe_Nosehair

At the risk of sounding like a defeatist, if you are having so much trouble with dps, why don't you try tanking?

My dps is atrocious too; I had a go at tanking and love it. You get into random normals quickly, and you can tank effectively in any build, although some are better than others. I tank in my templar and sorcerer. The latter I love in particular.

On a side note, your health is too high for a dps. Damage and other factor work off your max stamina, if you decide to stay as a dps, your stamina point allocation will need to be at least 54.

I hope this helps.

Haquor

Ok. So here is the thing.... you will always be terrible.

If you have dps gear of a moderate level and did nothing but keep up endleas hail and heavy weave suprise attack you would do way more dps than that.

If you followed any build on any reputable players site (eg alcast) to even half of its capabilites and instructions you should do way more dps than 8k.

We cant get your hands or brain to function more efficiently. Other than equipment, cp, skills, attributes, race, mundus, consumables and rotation it is all you that is the problem.

If you have a guide such as alcast's that lays it all out for you and you are only getting 8k... sorry man. Thats your journey.

Anotherone773

Woefulmonkey wrote: »

@Anotherone773

Ok, I am not trying to be difficult and you are right the reason I posted here is that I don't want to just try another build.

I would think there is something seriously wrong with something I am doing if I can barely get up to 8K dps with a full gold set with 5 set bonus types.

So here are my target characters stats and equipment that they 'currently' have.


Class Nightblade
Race khajiit
LVL 50
CP 675

Attributes While Where Current Gear But No Buffs On:
Max Magicka 10865
Max Health 20377
Max Stamina 22425

Magicka Recovery 591
Health Recovery 432
Stamina Recovery 1067

Spell Damage 1701
Spell Critical 32.9%

Weapon Damage 1994
Weapon Critical 81%

Spell Resistance 14248
Critical Resistance 1017

Physical Resistance 14248

Attribute Point Allocations

Magicka 0
Health 28
Stamina 36

CP Allocations

GREEN
Tower - NONE
The Lover 105: Tenacity 42, Mooncalf 42, Healthy 21
The Shadow 120: Shade 35, Befoul 40, Tumbling 45

BLUE
The Apprentice 30: Elfborn 30
The Atronach 75: Physical Weapon Expert 25, Master At Arms 25, Shattering Blows 25
The Ritual 120: Thaumaturge 23, Mighty 43, Precise Strikes 37, Piercint 17

RED
The Steed 120: Ironclad 12, Spell Shield 35, Resistant 38, Medium Armor Focus 35
The Lady 75: Hardy 24, Elemental Defender 30, Thick Skinned 20
The Lord 30: Expert Defender 30

Equipment: (All but Jewelry are Gold CP 160 items, Jewelry is Blue 160 cp)

Hunding's Rage 2 items (Daggers with Precise Trait) Main and Backup are same.

Mechanical Acuity 5 items (Head, Chest, Shoulders, Waist, Leggs) All with Infused trait.

Leviathan 5 items (Hands, Feet, Rings, Neck) Hands and Feet have Infused Trait, Rings reduce stamina costs, Neck Improves Stamina Recovery.

Enchantments

All Jewelry are increase stamina

Armor All by Shoulders are Increase Health, Shoulders are Increase Stamina

Weapons all are life drain


Primary Assigned Skills:

1 Surprise Attack
2 Killer Blade
3 Rending Slashes
4 Relentless Focus
5 Quick Cloak
6 Dawnbreaker

Secondary Assigned Skills:

1 Surprise Attack
2 Ambush
3 Steel Tornado
4 Quick Cloak
5 Relentless Focus
6 Dawnbreaker

Let me know if there is other stats that would help.

Keep in mind I should be able to alter just about any of these values.

First i just woke up so im not completely functioning yet. I dont see your weapon penatration. I assume you dont know it?I also dont see a mundus stone, so i assume you dont have that either?

Second, you have to many points in HP. I run my stamblade solo and only have 16 points in it. If you run mostly group content you want 10-15. Some will run with all attributes in stam and none in health but as someone who heals group content i dont recommend that unless your a pro at the content. So would go 10-15 in HP dump the rest in stam.

Your damage(including abilities) scales off two things first weapon damage and then stamina. Your stamina should be well above 30k buffed, closer to 35k. while your HP should be around 15k-20k buffed(18-20k is the sweet spot if your not pro)

It looks like you are going with a crit build. I mean you put a lot of effort in crit gear and have less than double my crit. Being able to crit with a plastic butterknife isnt as good as doing normal damage with a titanium dagger in my opinion.

Get you some purple agility jewels with the robust trait. You can pick them up at guild traders for a few thousands gold each. Then put a weapon damage enchantment on them. For your gear, i would swap all traits to divines on armor and run the lover stone or the warrior. You probably need the lover though. All armor should have max stamina enchantment.

Use your abilities( and pots) to heal rather than depending on a big HP buffer. Also the more dps you do, in theory, the less HP buffer you need. That doesnt always work out in group content though but for solo its a good rule of thumb. regardless all armor should be stam enchants. and make sure you are putting gold enchants on.

I personally use( on a bow blade, no melee weapons) 5 piece hundings, velidreth shoulders, 2 piece red mountain all gold all stamina enchant. all divines.( bow is nirnhoned hundings), and purple agil jewels. My build is different and custom to my playstyle.

So to recap:

* respec attributes to ~15 points or less in HP, rest in stamina.
* Change agility jewels to purple and put weapon damage enchant on them.
* Put stamina enchants on armor
* Divines on armor.
* get either the lover or the warrior mundus stone( i would try both but i think the lover will help you more at this point)

Start with that. I would rethink my armor choices personally. I think hundings is an excellent primary set for a stamblade and im not near as big fan of mechanical acuity as the meta nerds. Its a lot of effort to try to mostly crit on crit builds and at the end of the day it still depends on chance.

I didnt look at your weapons, or abilities or CP yet. I need coffee...

Edit while coffee brewing: You should be using blue max health + max stam food at all times or dubious camoran throne is what the kids are using these days. I prefer blue because it gives bigger numbers and i can manage my resources fine without the extra little boost.

Bladerunner1

Don't be discouraged, there are a lot of things about DPS that aren't really explained by the game. I'm hitting about 8x the DPS I was getting from my first attempt at following a good build from two years ago. There's more to it than which skills are used in a rotation and which gear is worn, and it has to be a learned muscle memory response that even old people like me can pick up with practice. If it's taking 2.5 seconds to use endless hail and 2 seconds to hit spammables the DPS is less than half of what it could be.

Every damaging skill has a cooldown that seems to be around 1 second. Light attack weaving is huge and it's about to be an even bigger deal when Summerset arrives. Light attacks have almost zero cooldown in a rotation, the moment a character swings their weapon or looses an arrow it's possible to hit the next skill. Think of it like hitting each combined light attack + skill to the beat of a metronome that ticks every 1.2 seconds. It's possible to activate the light attack a little early each time and it will hit the moment the skill cooldown is over.

Another tip is to use soul harvest or incapacitating strike on the back bar just after laying down all the back bar DOTs, and before swapping to the front bar. It gives 6 seconds of +20% damage which really adds up to quite a lot if you can use it every two rotations or 20 seconds.

*Edit* make a pair of mechanical acuity 1-H weapons in place of a couple pieces of armor, that way the proc will happen directly after you use soul harvest

jkolb2030

There are some good posts in here, and some missing the mark a bit...

OP - I would read over every response in here and see how others builds and setups work for them, and learn the nightblade class a little bit more so you can begin to understand why they are suggesting what they are.

I would also start with using an Alcast build like the one found here:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

Note that this build is really a full damage build meant for group play, so it will need to have some things changed for you to survive over land - like adding a heal such as Vigor from the Assault skill tree (PvP based). However, this is a very good DPS build to start with, as he goes over everything you need in the forms of enchants, CP, skills, and rotation.

The final part of increasing your DPS is practice practice practice. You will need to spend a lot of time getting used to your skills, and getting the ability to 'weave' them with light attacks so you are using your skills as quickly as possible while also landing light attacks inbetween each sill.

Royaji

There were some good ideas about your build and fixing low stam and low WD numbers so I'm not going to repeat them.

Although judging by 5k DPS there must be something fundamentally wrong.

FIrst of all, how do you measure DPS? A lot of people don't understand the concept. To judge your DPS you are supposed to kill the dummy and look at the number in the chat. That's the most simple away without any addons. DPS is not your hardest hitting skill. It's your damage from all sources divided by the time of the fight.

Next issue is your rotation. Those bars are completely out of whack. You are not using bow backbar, so no Endless Hail and no Poison Injection which are the bread and butter of stam DDs. Why are you double barring so many skills? You have two bars to have a neat rotation with more skills, not to have two potential setups for different situations. Unless you bar swap at least every 6-8 seconds you are doing something wrong.

You issue is not just the build (those stats are very poor) but also the fact that you are not dealing DPS properly. Take a look at rotations people provide in their guides. They are the important part.

Woefulmonkey

@Violynne

I am going by the DPS calculation the Test Dummy provides when you destroy it.

I basically begin attacking and keep going until it is destroyed and gives you the DPS results.

It is a human skeleton dummy that is supposed to be equivalent to a Veteran Dungeon Boss.

I am attacking with no food on or buffs applied from other players or potions. Which I believe is something another posted said I am doing wrong in that process. Apparently the 'high' dps tests involve getting group buffed and de-buffing the target.

So, that may explain why the DPS is lower, but I am not sure it explains why it would be as low as I am getting.

I was also advised to watch some videos of people doing rotations to see if there is something there I am doing wrong and I plan on doing that as well.

Woefulmonkey

@luton0watford4

I already have a Tank and a Healer. I started off with a healer then made a tank. Both of them seem fine.

Rotations are much simpler and so is resource management.

I am not looking to be the 'Best DPS'. I don't care about that, but I would like my DPS chars to be OK and 5K to 8K dps makes me think there is something I am missing.

I can't believe the difference between getting 5K DPS and 50K DPS is just on some secret equipment combo and being able to do rotations in a perfect order.

I could see how you might get a 50% increase in DPS output with those things but we are talking about a 1000% increase.

I am not interested in reaching the 1000% increase or even 500% increase. I would be happy if I could reach about 150% increase in current DPS which would put me at about 15K.

However, I am also considering just retiring my DPS Chars all together and using my Nightblad as just a Theif.

Anotherone773

jkolb2030 wrote: »

There are some good posts in here, and some missing the mark a bit...

OP - I would read over every response in here and see how others builds and setups work for them, and learn the nightblade class a little bit more so you can begin to understand why they are suggesting what they are.

I would also start with using an Alcast build like the one found here:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

Note that this build is really a full damage build meant for group play, so it will need to have some things changed for you to survive over land - like adding a heal such as Vigor from the Assault skill tree (PvP based). However, this is a very good DPS build to start with, as he goes over everything you need in the forms of enchants, CP, skills, and rotation.

The final part of increasing your DPS is practice practice practice. You will need to spend a lot of time getting used to your skills, and getting the ability to 'weave' them with light attacks so you are using your skills as quickly as possible while also landing light attacks inbetween each sill.

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Alcast is good for pointing you in the right direction. The thing i hate about alcast and all builds in general is:

1) They are someone elses build. One size doesnt fit all. What works for one person doesnt always work well for someone else. Everyone has a different playstyle and trying to force yourself into someone elses playstyle isnt always a good idea.

2) Alcast builds are very specific to situations, end game pve/pvp. They assume a lot of things that are not common outside of trials. Such as getting a lot of buffs, having dedicated heals and tanks. A trial build and playstyle is very different than overland and even dungeons.

These are the two things i see people struggle with all the time. They try to follow a cookie cutter build and they dont understand what they do wrong and why they arent getting the great results that alcast or the OP is getting even though they spend hours upon hours practicing.

Meanwhile people on the forums keep feeding them the same " Just keep practicing, your doing something wrong." nonsense. Their real problem is they didnt learn to make the build their own for their playstyle and instead are trying to mimic someone else on both build and playstyle.

For example i run a bosmer bowblade with a single bar. I almost never parse a dummy as its more of a novelty to me than practical. People instantly assume that its a crap build. I hit 35k plus ST open world and can hit 20k plus on bosses solo, self buffed( and i have very few), with no poisons and using trash pots. i dont even have a complex rotation, actually i dont have a real rotation as my rotation changes depending on situation and need. I dont do a 1, 2,3,4,,5 ,swap, 1,2,3,4,5, swap or some other nonsense with LA weaves and animation cancelling and all that jazz.

I used the exact build you posted at first and didnt like it. It did not suite my playstyle at all or what i wanted to do with that character. I also found having to do a ridiculously long rotation to be exhausting and boring both. So i kept the base direction of the build and started modifying it. Every modification i would gain a little more DPS and stuff would die easier. Abilities that are a main part of the rotation i found to only be useful in certain situations. So i learned when to keep them in and when to not use them. Rather than just keep them in because someone says so.

That 20k dps i do self buffed, the meta players and elitist will tell you that is way to low. 20k is barely passable for anything vet or endgame so you should stick to normal and open world. But, i watched a video a few weeks ago of someone soloing a trial boss with ~25mil HP. He had combatmetrics up the whole time. His sustain....was 22k.

So one has to ask themselves: If a person can solo a trial boss, with 22k sustain dps when in a group of 12 you arent even 15% of the damage, why is 20-25k dps considered low end? It is good enough to solo at least some trial bosses yet isnt good enough in a trial when you have 11 other players.

the answer to this is actually really simple. Its all ***. The whole meta, must do x amount of dps,gitgud,l2p. Its all a bunch of BS created by meta players and elitists. Their primary goal is to burn through content as fast as possible. So you need to be near max DPS or as close as possible so you can " pull your weight" and content can all be ran in 5 minutes.

These same players are the ones who a month after content is released are complaining about "lack of content" because they burn through all content as fast as possible and then have nothing to do for 3 or 6 months. So they whine about the lack of content. Maybe if they would stop trying to burn through every new dungeon and trial in 5 minutes and actually stop and smell the roses, they might enjoy the game a little more and find content last a lot longer.

That is one reason im so against meta players and elitists. You dont need meta builds to do ALL content in this game and you dont need 6 million dps to do all content in this game. I have proven this in every single one of these games ive played but running newer subpar players through the content on nonmeta builds. And its 10 times more enjoyable because every fight feels like an accomplishment even if its my 50th time running it. Having 3 new people in group and killing that boss for the 50th time feels just as good as the first time i killed it and got to enjoy the accomplishment.

So i always recommend using something like alcast to give you a direction to go, but making a build your own and a playstyle your own.

Woefulmonkey

@Anotherone773

Thank you for the advice and taking the time to analyze my stats, I am definitely going to try everything you suggested. This sounds like the type of advice I was looking for.

Here is some additional info for the nightblade:

Mundus Boon:

The Tower (Stam increase) (but I am not using any Mundus Gear)

Penetration:

You are right I don't know how to get this precisely but with CP Points in the Mage I have 17 points allocated which gives 1642.

I have experimented with that setting a bit in the past and seem to remember it did have an effect when I increased the value but only a minor effect. Although I maybe that is because everything else was still Crit focused.

I have tried variations of Attribute assignments where I put 100% in stamina, but found that it seemed to have no effect other than relatively small change in in stamina pool vs health pool.

I just converted everything to stam, which dropped my Health by 2K an increased by Stamina by 2K but none of my other 'stats' changed.

I ran a DPS test with just this change and there was no difference in DPS output to the Test Dummy.

Joxer61

@Anotherone773 , I didn't quote cuz that's some wall of text, but all very good info for the OP and others. You nailed on the head about builds! Its EXACTLY what I was doing wrong coming back to this game. I thought meh, no worries, find a current build, apply it to my 50 and I'm laughing. Yea, right! I was dying, ALOT.
AS you said those builds are for end game, trials and all that fun group stuff and also for people who know how to weave ( I am struggling with that part) and know the rotations and all. Very helpful and knowledgeable builds, but not for newbies. I now just use them as reference, a "guide", not a bible versed in stone to be followed blindly. They are great for info on your class on race,mundus, CP's and all that. Then, as you said, make a build that FITS you currently. I actually rolled a new toon just so I could ease back into all of it, as a lot has changed in 3 + yrs!
So great advice for the OP and I hope they utilize it. Cheers for taking the time to post all that, it helps the OP and others such as myself heaps!

jkolb2030

Anotherone773 wrote: »

jkolb2030 wrote: »

There are some good posts in here, and some missing the mark a bit...

OP - I would read over every response in here and see how others builds and setups work for them, and learn the nightblade class a little bit more so you can begin to understand why they are suggesting what they are.

I would also start with using an Alcast build like the one found here:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

Note that this build is really a full damage build meant for group play, so it will need to have some things changed for you to survive over land - like adding a heal such as Vigor from the Assault skill tree (PvP based). However, this is a very good DPS build to start with, as he goes over everything you need in the forms of enchants, CP, skills, and rotation.

The final part of increasing your DPS is practice practice practice. You will need to spend a lot of time getting used to your skills, and getting the ability to 'weave' them with light attacks so you are using your skills as quickly as possible while also landing light attacks inbetween each sill.

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Alcast is good for pointing you in the right direction. The thing i hate about alcast and all builds in general is:

1) They are someone elses build. One size doesnt fit all. What works for one person doesnt always work well for someone else. Everyone has a different playstyle and trying to force yourself into someone elses playstyle isnt always a good idea.

2) Alcast builds are very specific to situations, end game pve/pvp. They assume a lot of things that are not common outside of trials. Such as getting a lot of buffs, having dedicated heals and tanks. A trial build and playstyle is very different than overland and even dungeons.

These are the two things i see people struggle with all the time. They try to follow a cookie cutter build and they dont understand what they do wrong and why they arent getting the great results that alcast or the OP is getting even though they spend hours upon hours practicing.

Meanwhile people on the forums keep feeding them the same " Just keep practicing, your doing something wrong." nonsense. Their real problem is they didnt learn to make the build their own for their playstyle and instead are trying to mimic someone else on both build and playstyle.

For example i run a bosmer bowblade with a single bar. I almost never parse a dummy as its more of a novelty to me than practical. People instantly assume that its a crap build. I hit 35k plus ST open world and can hit 20k plus on bosses solo, self buffed( and i have very few), with no poisons and using trash pots. i dont even have a complex rotation, actually i dont have a real rotation as my rotation changes depending on situation and need. I dont do a 1, 2,3,4,,5 ,swap, 1,2,3,4,5, swap or some other nonsense with LA weaves and animation cancelling and all that jazz.

I used the exact build you posted at first and didnt like it. It did not suite my playstyle at all or what i wanted to do with that character. I also found having to do a ridiculously long rotation to be exhausting and boring both. So i kept the base direction of the build and started modifying it. Every modification i would gain a little more DPS and stuff would die easier. Abilities that are a main part of the rotation i found to only be useful in certain situations. So i learned when to keep them in and when to not use them. Rather than just keep them in because someone says so.

That 20k dps i do self buffed, the meta players and elitist will tell you that is way to low. 20k is barely passable for anything vet or endgame so you should stick to normal and open world. But, i watched a video a few weeks ago of someone soloing a trial boss with ~25mil HP. He had combatmetrics up the whole time. His sustain....was 22k.

So one has to ask themselves: If a person can solo a trial boss, with 22k sustain dps when in a group of 12 you arent even 15% of the damage, why is 20-25k dps considered low end? It is good enough to solo at least some trial bosses yet isnt good enough in a trial when you have 11 other players.

the answer to this is actually really simple. Its all ***. The whole meta, must do x amount of dps,gitgud,l2p. Its all a bunch of BS created by meta players and elitists. Their primary goal is to burn through content as fast as possible. So you need to be near max DPS or as close as possible so you can " pull your weight" and content can all be ran in 5 minutes.

These same players are the ones who a month after content is released are complaining about "lack of content" because they burn through all content as fast as possible and then have nothing to do for 3 or 6 months. So they whine about the lack of content. Maybe if they would stop trying to burn through every new dungeon and trial in 5 minutes and actually stop and smell the roses, they might enjoy the game a little more and find content last a lot longer.

That is one reason im so against meta players and elitists. You dont need meta builds to do ALL content in this game and you dont need 6 million dps to do all content in this game. I have proven this in every single one of these games ive played but running newer subpar players through the content on nonmeta builds. And its 10 times more enjoyable because every fight feels like an accomplishment even if its my 50th time running it. Having 3 new people in group and killing that boss for the 50th time feels just as good as the first time i killed it and got to enjoy the accomplishment.

So i always recommend using something like alcast to give you a direction to go, but making a build your own and a playstyle your own.

@Anotherone773

TLDR ; If you read my post i specifically said to read everyones post here and to follow Alcast's build as a starting point to begin to understand his class, role and the gear sets that are available to him. I also only linked Alcasts post as it explains most of the sets/items he uses for his builds.

So your long elaborate speech about how i was offering a cookie cutter build or how i was trying to be some elitist or meta-head is kind of moot. No where did i tell the OP that this how he has to play and the only way to play his class - i was simply giving him a starting point to work from as every other response was also someone else giving him their personal build.

Even though I personally play the meta for vet trials, most of my advice and posts on these forums are far from dictating other players do the same - unless they are specifically asking for methods so they can too can progress to the end game trial meta.

I'm sorry if I struck one of your nerves for a post that was taken completely the wrong way.

Anotherone773

Woefulmonkey wrote: »

@Anotherone773

Thank you for the advice and taking the time to analyze my stats, I am definitely going to try everything you suggested. This sounds like the type of advice I was looking for.

Here is some additional info for the nightblade:

Mundus Boon:

The Tower (Stam increase) (but I am not using any Mundus Gear)

Penetration:

You are right I don't know how to get this precisely but with CP Points in the Mage I have 17 points allocated which gives 1642.

I have experimented with that setting a bit in the past and seem to remember it did have an effect when I increased the value but only a minor effect. Although I maybe that is because everything else was still Crit focused.

Mundus stone doesnt give a lot of help without divines. There is rarely a better armor enchant for most builds. It also allows you flexibility since you can just change stones and go from higher penetration to high weapon/spell damage, back to penetration or any other stat the stones give and its cost nothing but a bit of time to run to the stones so it offers the cheap flexibility.

combat metrics add on will tell you your penetration in the report. But basically its a base of 100 + CP penetration + any penetration from gear + any penetration gained from buffs = total penetration. Assuming you get penetration from no other sources 1742 penetration is really low. the lover stone with all gold divines gives something like ~4300 penetration. So that in itself will be a big boost to dps. Increasing your stamina 10k will also be a big boost to dps as will that extra weapon damage on your jewelry( as well as the small boost to stamina from robust on purple jewels).

You should see a significant increase in dps just with those changes. Target dummies have ~33k resistance. Lack of penetration is one of the big problems new players have following meta builds.Its rarely covered in the builds and it is very important for bosses and target dummies.

I would focus all future CP points in piercing . 30 points total will give you about 2700 penetration from piercing. 40 points raises it to just shy of 3400 penetration.

It wouldnt be a bad idea to reallocate your CP according to what alcast recommends in the link given by jkolb2030 above as well and then work from there. Following alcast guide for CP distribution should give an improvement over your current CP distribution as well.

Violynne

Anotherone773 wrote: »

These are the two things i see people struggle with all the time. They try to follow a cookie cutter build and they dont understand what they do wrong and why they arent getting the great results that alcast or the OP is getting even though they spend hours upon hours practicing.

Fantastic advice, which is what I'm following. I refuse to let someone else build my set, or set my bar. I want to learn those for myself, and determine what works for me.

I've been practicing animation canceling. Not for rotation improvement, but to determine if there's improvement doing this.

I've determined there is. I can clearly see for myself how much more damage I can administer doing this and I have to admit I'm amazed how effective it is.

With this, I'm now forming my own combos, swapping bar locations, to take advantage of this.

I enjoy learning this way, because it suits me and my play style. I don't have a test dummy, but I can see the numbers flying on screen to know I'm between 22k - 25k, which is all I need given most have said this is plenty for dungeons.

I have no intention of speed running anything in the game. If it takes 3 minutes long to kill a boss, it takes 3 minutes to kill the boss.

Definitely worth it to build MY character.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

8K is obviously terrible DPS. No shame, you came to the right place. There is not a magic fix to go from 8k to 30k. This is a game of inches, and each small change might only give you an extra 1-2k, but they add up.

Some of this has been said, but frankly your build is kind of all over the place. Something you might not know is that increasing your stamina pool will increase your damage done by stamina abilities (as will increasing Weapon power). Both of those stats are WAY too low.

As a general rule, a stamina player should have all attributes into stamina, all body enchants into stamina, and all jewlery enchants into weapon damage. You should also run either blue Health Stamina food (not the purple tri stat) or you can run the Dubious Cameron drink which is health, stam, stam recovery. The blue food is more damage.

Race: Khajiit is fine, it is certainly in second place. Redguard is better here, but a race change wont bring your form 8k to 30k.

Gear: Leviathen is one of those sets that looks great, but nobody runs it. It is overkill with crit, especially if runnning mechanical acuity. MA is all the crit you need. You want two 5 piece damage sets and a monser set on your front bar. MA is a great set for your daggers and 3 armor pieces. A great set for jewelry that is easy to acquire is spriggens, especially on a dummy. You need at least one set that has jewelry (until next patch anyway), good options: War Machine, vicious Ophidan, Spriggans, Two-fanged. You could also just run 3 agility jewerly here, but you cant go 5/5/2 that way. You also typically want a crafted set so weapons are easier to obtains. MA, Hudings, or Nightmothers are all reasonable here. As for a monster set, really any DPS set works, but your best two options are probably velidreth or Kraghs. Kraghs is not as good but its much easier to obtain.

Traits: Make sure all your gear is divines. Double daggers works just fine, most people go with some combo of Nirnhoned and infused, but precise or sharpened can also work, again this is not the difference between 8 and 30k.

Skills: As a stam player, there are a few non class skills you really need. From PVP you need caltrops (and vigor doesnt hurt either). From the fighters guild, you need Rearming Trap, Flawless dawnbreaker can also be useful. Form your bow, you need Poison injection and Endless Hail. From DW, you need rending slashes and Deadly cloak.

Potions: Again not the difference between 8 and 30k, but you want to run weapon power potions (weapon power, weapon crit, stam recovery). Also make sure you have the medical use passive in alchemy so the effects last longer.

The MOST important thing by a mile is your rotation. A cap CP player naked with white quality weapons can break 20k on a stamblade, if their rotation is on point. Certainly the best thing to do is post a video of your rotation so it can be analyzed. I would bet all the gold in my bank, that there are some serious issues going on here. Stamblade is the toughest stamina rotation at the highest level, but it can be managed with simpler versions. Big thing is to keep it consistent and circular. Circular gets tricky with relentless focus, but its doable.

Anotherone773

jkolb2030 wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

jkolb2030 wrote: »

There are some good posts in here, and some missing the mark a bit...

OP - I would read over every response in here and see how others builds and setups work for them, and learn the nightblade class a little bit more so you can begin to understand why they are suggesting what they are.

I would also start with using an Alcast build like the one found here:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

Note that this build is really a full damage build meant for group play, so it will need to have some things changed for you to survive over land - like adding a heal such as Vigor from the Assault skill tree (PvP based). However, this is a very good DPS build to start with, as he goes over everything you need in the forms of enchants, CP, skills, and rotation.

The final part of increasing your DPS is practice practice practice. You will need to spend a lot of time getting used to your skills, and getting the ability to 'weave' them with light attacks so you are using your skills as quickly as possible while also landing light attacks inbetween each sill.

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Alcast is good for pointing you in the right direction. The thing i hate about alcast and all builds in general is:

1) They are someone elses build. One size doesnt fit all. What works for one person doesnt always work well for someone else. Everyone has a different playstyle and trying to force yourself into someone elses playstyle isnt always a good idea.

2) Alcast builds are very specific to situations, end game pve/pvp. They assume a lot of things that are not common outside of trials. Such as getting a lot of buffs, having dedicated heals and tanks. A trial build and playstyle is very different than overland and even dungeons.

These are the two things i see people struggle with all the time. They try to follow a cookie cutter build and they dont understand what they do wrong and why they arent getting the great results that alcast or the OP is getting even though they spend hours upon hours practicing.

Meanwhile people on the forums keep feeding them the same " Just keep practicing, your doing something wrong." nonsense. Their real problem is they didnt learn to make the build their own for their playstyle and instead are trying to mimic someone else on both build and playstyle.

For example i run a bosmer bowblade with a single bar. I almost never parse a dummy as its more of a novelty to me than practical. People instantly assume that its a crap build. I hit 35k plus ST open world and can hit 20k plus on bosses solo, self buffed( and i have very few), with no poisons and using trash pots. i dont even have a complex rotation, actually i dont have a real rotation as my rotation changes depending on situation and need. I dont do a 1, 2,3,4,,5 ,swap, 1,2,3,4,5, swap or some other nonsense with LA weaves and animation cancelling and all that jazz.

I used the exact build you posted at first and didnt like it. It did not suite my playstyle at all or what i wanted to do with that character. I also found having to do a ridiculously long rotation to be exhausting and boring both. So i kept the base direction of the build and started modifying it. Every modification i would gain a little more DPS and stuff would die easier. Abilities that are a main part of the rotation i found to only be useful in certain situations. So i learned when to keep them in and when to not use them. Rather than just keep them in because someone says so.

That 20k dps i do self buffed, the meta players and elitist will tell you that is way to low. 20k is barely passable for anything vet or endgame so you should stick to normal and open world. But, i watched a video a few weeks ago of someone soloing a trial boss with ~25mil HP. He had combatmetrics up the whole time. His sustain....was 22k.

So one has to ask themselves: If a person can solo a trial boss, with 22k sustain dps when in a group of 12 you arent even 15% of the damage, why is 20-25k dps considered low end? It is good enough to solo at least some trial bosses yet isnt good enough in a trial when you have 11 other players.

the answer to this is actually really simple. Its all ***. The whole meta, must do x amount of dps,gitgud,l2p. Its all a bunch of BS created by meta players and elitists. Their primary goal is to burn through content as fast as possible. So you need to be near max DPS or as close as possible so you can " pull your weight" and content can all be ran in 5 minutes.

These same players are the ones who a month after content is released are complaining about "lack of content" because they burn through all content as fast as possible and then have nothing to do for 3 or 6 months. So they whine about the lack of content. Maybe if they would stop trying to burn through every new dungeon and trial in 5 minutes and actually stop and smell the roses, they might enjoy the game a little more and find content last a lot longer.

That is one reason im so against meta players and elitists. You dont need meta builds to do ALL content in this game and you dont need 6 million dps to do all content in this game. I have proven this in every single one of these games ive played but running newer subpar players through the content on nonmeta builds. And its 10 times more enjoyable because every fight feels like an accomplishment even if its my 50th time running it. Having 3 new people in group and killing that boss for the 50th time feels just as good as the first time i killed it and got to enjoy the accomplishment.

So i always recommend using something like alcast to give you a direction to go, but making a build your own and a playstyle your own.

@Anotherone773

TLDR ; If you read my post i specifically said to read everyones post here and to follow Alcast's build as a starting point to begin to understand his class, role and the gear sets that are available to him. I also only linked Alcasts post as it explains most of the sets/items he uses for his builds.

So your long elaborate speech about how i was offering a cookie cutter build or how i was trying to be some elitist or meta-head is kind of moot. No where did i tell the OP that this how he has to play and the only way to play his class - i was simply giving him a starting point to work from as every other response was also someone else giving him their personal build.

Even though I personally play the meta for vet trials, most of my advice and posts on these forums are far from dictating other players do the same - unless they are specifically asking for methods so they can too can progress to the end game trial meta.

I'm sorry if I struck one of your nerves for a post that was taken completely the wrong way.

@jkolb2030 you obviously didnt read my post

Anotherone773 wrote: »

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Literally the first line of my post, made your entire post unnecessary.

Woefulmonkey

@Anotherone773

Ok just as a quick update.

After following only part of the advice you have in my first test with a very basic rotation and only have purple gear I was able to get to 9.9K dps even when I stumbled many times during the rotations.

The 'Per Hit' damage difference is quite obvious. It looks to be almost double on average.

I now have

3 agility items for jewelry
5 Hundtings Rage items (all have Mundus enchantments)
4 Mechanical Acuity items (2 have Mundus enchantments)

Jewelry and Weapons now have Weapons damage enchantments

Base Weapons Damage is now at 3111
Base Stamina is now at 27202

My Health however is now at 10K which seems way to low, definitely means I will die by many single hit boss attacks even in normal dungeons, but I will work on tweeking things on that front.


I am going to convert all times to 'Mundus' traits and work on altering my CP again.

I will respond back with how things turn out.

Thanks again for taking the time to give this advice.

jkolb2030

Anotherone773 wrote: »

jkolb2030 wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

jkolb2030 wrote: »

There are some good posts in here, and some missing the mark a bit...

OP - I would read over every response in here and see how others builds and setups work for them, and learn the nightblade class a little bit more so you can begin to understand why they are suggesting what they are.

I would also start with using an Alcast build like the one found here:
https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-nightblade-build-for-pve/

Note that this build is really a full damage build meant for group play, so it will need to have some things changed for you to survive over land - like adding a heal such as Vigor from the Assault skill tree (PvP based). However, this is a very good DPS build to start with, as he goes over everything you need in the forms of enchants, CP, skills, and rotation.

The final part of increasing your DPS is practice practice practice. You will need to spend a lot of time getting used to your skills, and getting the ability to 'weave' them with light attacks so you are using your skills as quickly as possible while also landing light attacks inbetween each sill.

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Alcast is good for pointing you in the right direction. The thing i hate about alcast and all builds in general is:

1) They are someone elses build. One size doesnt fit all. What works for one person doesnt always work well for someone else. Everyone has a different playstyle and trying to force yourself into someone elses playstyle isnt always a good idea.

2) Alcast builds are very specific to situations, end game pve/pvp. They assume a lot of things that are not common outside of trials. Such as getting a lot of buffs, having dedicated heals and tanks. A trial build and playstyle is very different than overland and even dungeons.

These are the two things i see people struggle with all the time. They try to follow a cookie cutter build and they dont understand what they do wrong and why they arent getting the great results that alcast or the OP is getting even though they spend hours upon hours practicing.

Meanwhile people on the forums keep feeding them the same " Just keep practicing, your doing something wrong." nonsense. Their real problem is they didnt learn to make the build their own for their playstyle and instead are trying to mimic someone else on both build and playstyle.

For example i run a bosmer bowblade with a single bar. I almost never parse a dummy as its more of a novelty to me than practical. People instantly assume that its a crap build. I hit 35k plus ST open world and can hit 20k plus on bosses solo, self buffed( and i have very few), with no poisons and using trash pots. i dont even have a complex rotation, actually i dont have a real rotation as my rotation changes depending on situation and need. I dont do a 1, 2,3,4,,5 ,swap, 1,2,3,4,5, swap or some other nonsense with LA weaves and animation cancelling and all that jazz.

I used the exact build you posted at first and didnt like it. It did not suite my playstyle at all or what i wanted to do with that character. I also found having to do a ridiculously long rotation to be exhausting and boring both. So i kept the base direction of the build and started modifying it. Every modification i would gain a little more DPS and stuff would die easier. Abilities that are a main part of the rotation i found to only be useful in certain situations. So i learned when to keep them in and when to not use them. Rather than just keep them in because someone says so.

That 20k dps i do self buffed, the meta players and elitist will tell you that is way to low. 20k is barely passable for anything vet or endgame so you should stick to normal and open world. But, i watched a video a few weeks ago of someone soloing a trial boss with ~25mil HP. He had combatmetrics up the whole time. His sustain....was 22k.

So one has to ask themselves: If a person can solo a trial boss, with 22k sustain dps when in a group of 12 you arent even 15% of the damage, why is 20-25k dps considered low end? It is good enough to solo at least some trial bosses yet isnt good enough in a trial when you have 11 other players.

the answer to this is actually really simple. Its all ***. The whole meta, must do x amount of dps,gitgud,l2p. Its all a bunch of BS created by meta players and elitists. Their primary goal is to burn through content as fast as possible. So you need to be near max DPS or as close as possible so you can " pull your weight" and content can all be ran in 5 minutes.

These same players are the ones who a month after content is released are complaining about "lack of content" because they burn through all content as fast as possible and then have nothing to do for 3 or 6 months. So they whine about the lack of content. Maybe if they would stop trying to burn through every new dungeon and trial in 5 minutes and actually stop and smell the roses, they might enjoy the game a little more and find content last a lot longer.

That is one reason im so against meta players and elitists. You dont need meta builds to do ALL content in this game and you dont need 6 million dps to do all content in this game. I have proven this in every single one of these games ive played but running newer subpar players through the content on nonmeta builds. And its 10 times more enjoyable because every fight feels like an accomplishment even if its my 50th time running it. Having 3 new people in group and killing that boss for the 50th time feels just as good as the first time i killed it and got to enjoy the accomplishment.

So i always recommend using something like alcast to give you a direction to go, but making a build your own and a playstyle your own.

@Anotherone773

TLDR ; If you read my post i specifically said to read everyones post here and to follow Alcast's build as a starting point to begin to understand his class, role and the gear sets that are available to him. I also only linked Alcasts post as it explains most of the sets/items he uses for his builds.

So your long elaborate speech about how i was offering a cookie cutter build or how i was trying to be some elitist or meta-head is kind of moot. No where did i tell the OP that this how he has to play and the only way to play his class - i was simply giving him a starting point to work from as every other response was also someone else giving him their personal build.

Even though I personally play the meta for vet trials, most of my advice and posts on these forums are far from dictating other players do the same - unless they are specifically asking for methods so they can too can progress to the end game trial meta.

I'm sorry if I struck one of your nerves for a post that was taken completely the wrong way.

@jkolb2030 you obviously didnt read my post

Anotherone773 wrote: »

@jkolb2030 This isnt directed at you but you posting that build reminded me of something...and i feel its a good point to make especially on these forums.

Literally the first line of my post, made your entire post unnecessary.

You are correct, i skimmed it lol...

Okay, yeah I apologize - my mistake.

Again, it was still a post to point the OP in a direction to build off of a constant instead of piecing a build together as he was doing before.

JinMori

Sorry, but with 5 k dps i have to ask, are you even attacking? because i could get more then that just by using left click, light attacks, so this means that for most of the fight you are doing literally nothing, change that first.