Noobie Stamblade Questions

Iskiab

I just started a stamblade and I’m having difficulty slotting everything I want in pvp. Anyone able to help give me some tips? I’ve decided on dw/bow and want to have enough survivability to brawl.

DW 1. Relentless focus, deadly cloak, steel tornado, surprise attack, ambush - thrive in chaos. Bow - leeching strikes, spiked bone shield, reaper’s mark, poison injection, shadowy disguise - incapacitating strike

I was relatively happy with my choices until I realized I forgot rending slashes. How do you fit everything you need as a stamblade?

KBKB

Iskiab wrote: »

I just started a stamblade and I’m having difficulty slotting everything I want in pvp. Anyone able to help give me some tips? I’ve decided on dw/bow and want to have enough survivability to brawl.

DW 1. Relentless focus, deadly cloak, steel tornado, surprise attack, ambush - thrive in chaos. Bow - leeching strikes, spiked bone shield, reaper’s mark, poison injection, shadowy disguise - incapacitating strike

I was relatively happy with my choices until I realized I forgot rending slashes. How do you fit everything you need as a stamblade?

Im 2h/bow

Ambush, Surprise attack, Reverse slash, Fear, Rally, Incap
Poison injection, Lethal arrow, Cloak , Relentless focus, Shuffle/Draining shot/Vigor Dawnbreaker

Hah as you can see I dont fit everything I want =P I think you might find yourself a touch heal short without Rally/momentum and or Vigor as they are more a heal on demand than your heal off dmg and Warding but I didnt buy your PC so play how you want.

Iskiab

Hum, I was looking at 2 handlers too. They look really good. Do you think relentless focus is required? The proc is reflectable anyways, I’d miss the 8 percent damage buff but you miss all attacks if you’re dead.

Instead of shuffle I went with blade cloak for major evasion.

KBKB

Iskiab wrote: »

Hum, I was looking at 2 handlers too. They look really good too. Do you think relentless focus is required? The proc is reflectable anyways, I’d miss the 8 percent damage buff but you miss all attacks if you’re dead.

Also providing you Stam regen when its active iirc. I find it works well with bow as im always clipping with lights to get 5 damage stacks off bow passives so naturally it pops up a lot from that syle of play, the reflection is annoying af but when it does land its worth it imo. The 8%, Stam regen, NB passives make it work while even more so on a Mag blade spamming resto lights.

2H is odd -
Gives you a gap closer in rush - better off ambush for the NB passives
Dizzying swing is way too slow to be used in the snare meta
Reverse slice is fantastic for big AoE damage when you're weaving it with lights on that one guy that wont die from 10%
Cleave - you can make work but I don't
Rally/Forward Momentum- one of the best stam based heals in game, go rally if you have snare removal elsewhere though

So only really 2 skills in slice and rally stand out with the NB class skill set.

Iskiab

Yea, it’s too bad but I don’t think DW matches well with bow, I think 2 hander or sword/shield would work better. DW gets lots of great abilities, they just don’t fit on your skilll bar. I thought about dw with sword and shield with bouncing blade for a ranged option but without being able to light or heavy attack I’d just drain my stamina quickly.

Think I’ll switch to 2 hander/bow. I’ll probably end up trying lots of things out but start there.

Stigant

I run 2h/Bow setup on an Orc Nightblade and found out I don't really need gapcloser in PvP so I dropped ambush and. My bar setup now looks weird, but works quite well in Open World and BGs as well.

2H:
1. Relentless Focus (great burst when you learn to use it)
2. Leeching Strikes (great sustain ability and being siphoning, gives extra max mag on this bar and extra healing done for my rally Hot and burst heal)
3. Mass hysteria (being shadow gives extra max HP and major resolve and ward after use)
4. Rally (major brutality, HoT, burst heal after reactivation or when expires, 2H line has Battle Rush passive)
5. Surprise attack (melee "spamable")
U: Incapacitating Strike

Bow
1.Poison Iinjection (execute Dot, also I have Master's Bow)
2. Shadowy Disguise
3. Vigor
4. Shuffle
5. Shadow Immage
U: Soul Siphon (Siphoning ability)

I have siphoning ability on each bar for extra magicka, which is really handy to have on StamBlade and 2 Shadow Abilities so my Max HP stays same on each each bar.

Tzayad

Iskiab wrote: »

Instead of shuffle I went with blade cloak for major evasion.

You would probably need to run shuffle instead unless you have some other kind of snare removal slotted, and without forward momentum from 2H, you don't have that.

This is similar to the build I've been running for 2H/Bow and it works great.

Iskiab

Thanks for the links to the builds. Think I decided I’m going to switch to a stamWarden or stamDK instead of stamblade. Poor internet and lag means I usually have issues with light attacks firing so I don’t think nightblade is the class for me. Leeching wouldn’t help enough with sustain, I could hold merciless for a burst combo but... why not just change classes?

WacArnold

You would need to go dw 1h if dw was a must. Or go 2h bow if a must.

Qbiken

Incap, surprise attack and cloak is all you need. Rest of the skills are just cosmetics.

Iskiab

"Tzayad wrote: »

This is similar to the build I've been running for 2H/Bow and it works great.

@Tzayad

Quick question, I looked again and noticed you’re missing all the assassination passives on your bow bar. You could switch manifestation of terror and your charge if you wanted to keep the same abilities. You’d charge in bow and weapon swop into 2 hander.

It’d also help you even out your health because you’d have a shadow ability on both bars. It’s a pet peeve of mine as a magblade, I always have an even number of shadow abilities on both bars so I don’t lose health weapon swoping.

Iskiab

So I decided to keep leveling my stamblade. I played a kerra rogue named Iskiab so I might as well finish the character off before trying something else.

Quick question, I haven't unlocked some of the deeper abilities in each skill line so I've been trying out different skills while leveling. I've been using brawler (cleave morph) and I really like it. Helps to... brawl. Will cleave spread bleeds in aoe? Cleave is a direct damage ability so it's good at knocking NBs out of stealth, but I'm also thinking of building around it with something like Sheer Venom or Viper's Sting, they say it will only happen every x seconds, but what about an execute or direct damage ability that's aoe, is it going on everyone or just one target every x seconds?

Unfadingsilence

Iskiab wrote: »

I just started a stamblade and I’m having difficulty slotting everything I want in pvp. Anyone able to help give me some tips? I’ve decided on dw/bow and want to have enough survivability to brawl.

DW 1. Relentless focus, deadly cloak, steel tornado, surprise attack, ambush - thrive in chaos. Bow - leeching strikes, spiked bone shield, reaper’s mark, poison injection, shadowy disguise - incapacitating strike

I was relatively happy with my choices until I realized I forgot rending slashes. How do you fit everything you need as a stamblade?

https://youtu.be/Vm7ENvZqPTw

I enjoy 2h and Bow honestly is an extremely easy setup to play with great healing and burst I have videos of 1v1s-1v8s "granted they where all thirsty"

Iskiab

Nice video, I have a question. I assume you play in the CP campaign? Reason I'm asking is I play non-CP, looking at the video and style it seems right up my alley but when i try dodge rolling that much I run out of stamina fast.

jd24

Unfadingsilence wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

I just started a stamblade and I’m having difficulty slotting everything I want in pvp. Anyone able to help give me some tips? I’ve decided on dw/bow and want to have enough survivability to brawl.

DW 1. Relentless focus, deadly cloak, steel tornado, surprise attack, ambush - thrive in chaos. Bow - leeching strikes, spiked bone shield, reaper’s mark, poison injection, shadowy disguise - incapacitating strike

I was relatively happy with my choices until I realized I forgot rending slashes. How do you fit everything you need as a stamblade?

https://youtu.be/Vm7ENvZqPTw

I enjoy 2h and Bow honestly is an extremely easy setup to play with great healing and burst I have videos of 1v1s-1v8s "granted they where all thirsty"

All those buffs on your screen.. how do you read them to know what is even on you?

Iskiab

joedraper24b14_ESO wrote: »

All those buffs on your screen.. how do you read them to know what is even on you?

In pvp you don't, someone did an in-depth analysis and found people in BGs usually have like 8 debuffs on them or so, in cyrodiil it was something like 14. Some refresh every second too. No way to track it by your UI, you have to learn to recognize animations so you can react to what people are doing.

Unfadingsilence

Iskiab wrote: »

joedraper24b14_ESO wrote: »

All those buffs on your screen.. how do you read them to know what is even on you?

In pvp you don't, someone did an in-depth analysis and found people in BGs usually have like 8 debuffs on them or so, in cyrodiil it was something like 14. Some refresh every second too. No way to track it by your UI, you have to learn to recognize animations so you can react to what people are doing.

100%

Iskiab

So while leveling I was loving my stamblade and felt like I was doing well. Then I hit 50 and it seems like the whole game changed and I got destroyed.

I usually play a healer in pvp and have some questions about being a dps:
1. How do stamblades usually disappear? As a magblade you can spam cloak for a long time but stam can’t, is there a trick to hitting cloak and going into stealth? When I try to do it I’m seen when the cloak runs out.
2. In BGs is it normal to see a bunch of CP 1K+ in your first battleground at 50?
3. TTK seems crazy low, is it normal without a healer for the first person to attack and cc to win?

Blinkin8r

Iskiab wrote: »

So while leveling I was loving my stamblade and felt like I was doing well. Then I hit 50 and it seems like the whole game changed and I got destroyed.

I usually play a healer in pvp and have some questions about being a dps:
1. How do stamblades usually disappear? As a magblade you can spam cloak for a long time but stam can’t, is there a trick to hitting cloak and going into stealth? When I try to do it I’m seen when the cloak runs out.
2. In BGs is it normal to see a bunch of CP 1K+ in your first battleground at 50?
3. TTK seems crazy low, is it normal without a healer for the first person to attack and cc to win?

1: Cloak into sneak. Hit cloak, then crouch. Sometimes you need to hit cloak after crouching so you don't flash. When cloak expires you'll be in sneak. Highly recommend stage 4 vampire. You'll move much faster when crouched.
2: Yes. Especially if you've won a few rounds while under 50.
3: TTK is low both ways if you're on a squishy stamblade, unless you're going for the tank. Don't go for the tank.

ChefZero

Iskiab wrote: »

I just started a stamblade and I’m having difficulty slotting everything I want in pvp. Anyone able to help give me some tips? I’ve decided on dw/bow and want to have enough survivability to brawl.

DW 1. Relentless focus, deadly cloak, steel tornado, surprise attack, ambush - thrive in chaos. Bow - leeching strikes, spiked bone shield, reaper’s mark, poison injection, shadowy disguise - incapacitating strike

I was relatively happy with my choices until I realized I forgot rending slashes. How do you fit everything you need as a stamblade?

What is your build to these skillbars? Can't give a good advice without knowing that.

Iskiab

Oh this is a thread necro. Good that someone answered it though, I hadn’t figured out about going into stealth after cloaking.

I think from doing well while leveling I was put in too high a bracket when I hit 50. I’m doing better now that I’m getting less experienced opponents. When I first hit 50 I was seeing the same names as my main and getting steamrolled. I hadn’t even finished leveling up all the skill lines.

5 med, 2 heavy. Troll king, sheer venom, 7th legion.

mursie

hi @Iskiab

I have a dw/2h build i ran in BG's that i found fun. unfortunately, it feels like the stamblade is pigeonholed into using 2h in order to access major brutality via rally or forward momentum.

i currently run 2h/bow because my race is woodelf and the synergy is really strong with that setup.

reading your current load out - your sustain looks extremely difficult. I can't recommend shacklebreaker enough for most classes but especially the nightblade as that magicka pool and recovery will help significantly with cloak (one of your best defenses).

If you really like sheer venom, i'd look strongly at getting a 2h sheer venom weapon, the master's bow, and then main on the body shackle breaker. the synergy there is very strong. essentially - you use poison inject from range as your opener to proc the master' bow weapon dmg. you then close the gap and swap to 2h which then activates sheer venom automatically because the PI dot on the target is an execute. from there do your normal SA/Incap/assassin bow demolition.

best of luck

ChefZero

Iskiab wrote: »

Oh this is a thread necro. Good that someone answered it though, I hadn’t figured out about going into stealth after cloaking.

I think from doing well while leveling I was put in too high a bracket when I hit 50. I’m doing better now that I’m getting less experienced opponents. When I first hit 50 I was seeing the same names as my main and getting steamrolled. I hadn’t even finished leveling up all the skill lines.

5 med, 2 heavy. Troll king, sheer venom, 7th legion.

Are you still running DW + bow? What is your race?

Iskiab

Khajit. 2 hander and bow:

Siphoning strikes - forward momentum - reverse slice - NB spammable - cloak - ult assassination one
Merciless - Vigor - Poison spray - poison injection - Snipe with defile - Soul Siphon

Forgot the name of some of the abilities, but it’s all the stamina versions. I don’t use cloak too often, I prefer to kite and dodge roll or fight back in melee.

Your typical poison injection/snipe spammer but I can melee a bit too.

ChefZero

Iskiab wrote: »

Khajit. 2 hander and bow:

Siphoning strikes - forward momentum - reverse slice - NB spammable - cloak - ult assassination one
Merciless - Vigor - Poison spray - poison injection - Snipe with defile - Soul Siphon

Forgot the name of some of the abilities, but it’s all the stamina versions. I don’t use cloak too often, I prefer to kite and dodge roll or fight back in melee.

Your typical poison injection/snipe spammer but I can melee a bit too.

Ok. I played a stamNB brawler few months ago with 2h/bow and dw/2h. So here we go...

1. I don't understand your set choice. If you want to brawl legion and troll king are good picks but sheer venom and 5 medium makes no sense because you want to take damage and block/mitigate it. Dodge roll doesn't fit that playstyle.

2. Because you are a Khajit I can recommend an onslaught build.

- 5 heavy
- TK or bloodspawn (if a healer is around you)
- SL or fury
- Shacklebreaker or battlefield acrobat (I recommend BA because the reduction is very potent on your magicka skills and constitution will help you sustain them, especially good in noCP)
- delete reverse slice, siphoning attacks, incap and snipe or poison injection (PI if you have a master bow)
- morph poison spray to bombard
- add fear trap, rearming trap or channeled acceleration (both have pros and cons, try both), onslaught and something useful like silver leash or reapers mark if you want to be a really bad boy
- back bar ult soul siphon, bolstering darkness or temporal guard
- mundus warrior or shadow (you have to test what boosts your onslaught more)
- jewelry traits/glyphs and food depends on how good you are in sustaining this build
- impen and tristat on armour ofc
- use weapon damage tracker add-on

So stay in fight, block important skills, pick your target, make sure major brutality, minor berserk and minor force is up, through a fear trap, cloak, onslaught.

3. Beside an onslaught build there's no point in playing a brawler build IMO because NB lacks everything to it. Nothing scales with damage taken, no reflects, no purge, no other unique defensive stuff, lost of the old evasion, no AOE utility. If you brawl you will take damage and that damage will pull you out of cloak (you will notice it on the onslaught build).

Iskiab

ChefZero wrote: »

Iskiab wrote: »

Khajit. 2 hander and bow:

Siphoning strikes - forward momentum - reverse slice - NB spammable - cloak - ult assassination one
Merciless - Vigor - Poison spray - poison injection - Snipe with defile - Soul Siphon

Forgot the name of some of the abilities, but it’s all the stamina versions. I don’t use cloak too often, I prefer to kite and dodge roll or fight back in melee.

Your typical poison injection/snipe spammer but I can melee a bit too.

Ok. I played a stamNB brawler few months ago with 2h/bow and dw/2h. So here we go...

1. I don't understand your set choice. If you want to brawl legion and troll king are good picks but sheer venom and 5 medium makes no sense because you want to take damage and block/mitigate it. Dodge roll doesn't fit that playstyle.

2. Because you are a Khajit I can recommend an onslaught build.

- 5 heavy
- TK or bloodspawn (if a healer is around you)
- SL or fury
- Shacklebreaker or battlefield acrobat (I recommend BA because the reduction is very potent on your magicka skills and constitution will help you sustain them, especially good in noCP)
- delete reverse slice, siphoning attacks, incap and snipe or poison injection (PI if you have a master bow)
- morph poison spray to bombard
- add fear trap, rearming trap or channeled acceleration (both have pros and cons, try both), onslaught and something useful like silver leash or reapers mark if you want to be a really bad boy
- back bar ult soul siphon, bolstering darkness or temporal guard
- mundus warrior or shadow (you have to test what boosts your onslaught more)
- jewelry traits/glyphs and food depends on how good you are in sustaining this build
- impen and tristat on armour ofc
- use weapon damage tracker add-on

So stay in fight, block important skills, pick your target, make sure major brutality, minor berserk and minor force is up, through a fear trap, cloak, onslaught.

3. Beside an onslaught build there's no point in playing a brawler build IMO because NB lacks everything to it. Nothing scales with damage taken, no reflects, no purge, no other unique defensive stuff, lost of the old evasion, no AOE utility. If you brawl you will take damage and that damage will pull you out of cloak (you will notice it on the onslaught build).

I’ll try it, issue is this is an alt so I don’t want to dump too many transmutation stones. I’ve been doing the daily and that’s about it.

I’ve been semi-successful with this setup. Nothing spectacular. So you think 7th legion is a waste? Basicly I want the option of going into melee but am content snipe spamming or using poison injection from behind the group.

What I don’t want is to be a stamblade who has to run from every engagement or spend half the BG trying to find a hiding place to free cast from. I’d much rather stay with my team instead of leaving them to fight short handed. What setup would work as a happy medium?

Viper I used because I bought them from the golden ahead of time thinking it could someday be useful.