Gankblade Help

Amerises

Alright, I made my Templar into a PvE spec. It’s just don’t fun being a super tank beam-plar. BG’s have decent kills and few deaths, but next to zero assists because basically my kills are all beam… My second favorite class is NB. I moved all my PvE gear from my NB to the plar, and now I’m ready to try a blade for PvP.

Is gankblade the best spec? It seems in Cyro and BGs it’s mostly DKs and Wardens. As a Templar, blades posed next to no threat. 30k resists, Rally and Mara, and tons of hots, meant after an initial burst they usually end up running and they don’t even bother with a second attack.

Every build website or YouTube video is totally different. I often don’t trust YouTube videos since I could make my beamplar look OP with clips, but that doesn’t make it so.

Honestly doing a mag/range magblade PvE spec with whirl and pillar and kilt is fun and hits hard enough, but I die super fast since I’m dmg spec without even defensive skills, lol.

What’s a good starting place? Race? Mag/stam? Gear? CP? Skills? Vamp? Etc.

fred4

Ugh, this is tough. There are so many playstyles. In some ways it depends on how deep you want to go with NB. Playing the class well is hard.

Up front, I am a magblade main. My preferred build has a lot of utility and not so much damage. I can gank, but I will do exactly what you described. If the target turns out too tanky, I run away or target someone else. That said, I would challenge any single player to kill a decently played Mara + Rallying Cry opponent.

If you want true perma-cloak sustain, like me, your requirements become very specific. Atronach mundus, sustain food, Siphoning Attacks, Barrier ultimate on cloak back bar, no sustain sets other than possibly Seducer / Bright-Throat's Boast, Breton, no vampire, 6x light armor. If you want more details on why this is optimal for perma-cloaking, let me know.

If cloak sustain is not your ultimate goal, or if you can make the fiddly Darloc Brae set work for you, then vamp stage 2 or stage 3 is recommended. In fact it's almost mandatory, e.g. to get rid of the sneaking snare and for the damage (from stealth) and defense boosts. Race, I'd go Khajiit, Dunmer, maybe wood elf.

Mandatory skills:

• Merciless Resolve. The big gun. If you want to be competitive, there's not really any way around this. I would also say the magicka morph is mandatory, since it does more damage.
• Healthy or Shrewd Offering. Too good of a self-heal to ignore.
• Concealed Weapon. +10% extra damage for 5 seconds at a time. I bet most players take this morph over Surprise Attack nowadays. Also useful for the off-balance stun.
• Shadowy Disguise as a ganker and to activate the Concealed buff. You may also use Refreshing Path to activate that buff.
• Incap Strike for the stun and damage, or Soul Tether as a bomber.
• One of the following: Race Against Time, Shadow Image, Mist Form, or wield a bow for the Major Expedition from dodge rolling along with Phantasmal Escape. I would personally not play without root / snare removal. Also the dodge roll cost reduction from Blur is well-regarded.

Recommended skills:

• Siphoning Attacks or Leeching Strikes for sustain and slight healing, as needed.
• Swallow Soul for "meh" damage, but a good HOT in PvPvE, e.g. IC or keep fights.
• Crushing Shock instead. Show those dark-dealing sorcs who's boss . May pair with an Asylum destro staff, Draugrkin and / or Serpent's Disdain sets. This is a pressure playstyle, though, neither ganking nor bombing.
• Power Extraction as a pseudo execute and buff skill, especially on bombing builds. Sap Essence is better for solo IC boss farming, though, and Whirling Blades, Executioner, Killer's Blade or Impale are all alternatives worth considering as an execute.
• Lotus Fan or Ambush (whatever works better for your sustain) in conjunction with Rush of Agony set for a bomber or pseudo bomber group play build. I'm not sure I'd use Vicious Death anymore. I've encountered players combining this with Plaguebreak. If you can get an NPC guard or weak player to explode, you can kill a lot of people.
• Resolving Vigor in addition to Offering. The evergreen heal, esp. if not using Mirage.

When I say NB is hard to play well, the playstyle I'm thinking of is the traditional melee stamblade. Nowadays these tend to be hybrid builds. They can be played with "bog-standard" sets, such as "any damage front bar set", Rallying Cry or Clever Alchemist or Wretched Vitality back bar, mythic of choice (Wild Hunt, Sea Serpent, Markyn), and Balorgh. The best explanation I've seen on how to be competitive with this comes from React. It revolves around the off balance stun, as explained in the following video. It's IMO well worth watching in full:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgRmoWuvAy0

DrNukenstein

The nastiest melee gank right now is Wrecking blow>buffered heavy>concealed weapon/deathstroke morph.

Very clunky, but that is a nasty thing to get hit with. You might be able to get competitive damage with easier input by running point blank snipe as a front bar and replacing wrecking blow with a snipe morph.

Bow proc's great and even the stam version can hit people for 18k in bgs, but it's hard to make work on a ganker. The stacks fall off very easily between targets and you probably won't be beefy enough to hang in a fight for 5 seconds, not to mention that it wall very often recast the buff and take up that GCD after you fire it. You'll get a lot of mileage out of killers blade compared to the bow proc until you've dropped the exact right amount of damage for comfortable optimized defenses. In fact, I would say optimizing the most defense and utility for the least amount of damage opportunity cost is what really makes a gank build.

top 3 low opportunity cost defense choices

1. Impen trait 5+
2. Vamp 3
3. blinding flair and psijic ult on back bar

Top 3 low opportunity cost utility choices

1. finding space for leeching/siphoning strikes
2. Jewels of Misrule, or any sustain food that fits your play style.
3. Tri stat potions. You can almost ignore sustain for 500+ gold per minute

Udrath

If you’re a khajiit back alley gourmand front bar/rallying cry back bar, Markyn, balrogh. If you’re not a khajiit then switch out back alley for rush of agony front bar and slot lotus fan. Soul tether ultimate on both is good. These are magblade builds that can brawl and hit hard.

Amerises

Is Mark Target purgeable? I don’t like ele sus because it’s purgeable, and I’d hate to use a whole 5pc on getting M. Breach

I think I’m almost done piecing a build together to try, but 10 slots for skills is rough, ha

fred4

I have not tested that in a long time, but I believe Mark Target is purgeable. Not every target can purge or will do so in time, especially in Ravenwatch (no Mara).

Amerises

I think I’ve found something to try, however, as a gank, should I be magblade and use Concealed Weapon as spammable, and wear 3-5 light armor pieces, or magblade but 6 medium? 7 medium? Is concealed weapon just too difficult to use as a spammable? 5 seconds after coming out of stealth isn’t very long for “coming out of stealth” for the passive on the skill. Leaning into crit damage, is a heavy out of stealth and then Surprise attack a better option?

DrNukenstein

Gankers fight for like 3 seconds at a time.

When I'm getting out ganked I usually see concealed weapon on the recap. It will give your kit more damage and better qol for delivery of the combo.

Surprise attack, the move, hit's harder though and is way easier to sustain with dual wield and medium armor.

I like big slow mag pool, and small fast restoring dynamic stam pool. It's very fluid and keeps you moving.

You can probably take down bigger or faster targets with concealed weapon, but you will run out of gas very quickly if you're using stam biased gear.

Whether you use either or you should always be opening with a heavy attack from stealth or cloak. Doing that will increase the impact of your ganks more than any itemization or skill decision. In fact, it's probably the real reason they nerfed light and heavy attacks in update 35.

Amerises

Yeah, I tested out both in Cyro and BGs, and I prefer concealed weapon as well.

The issue I’m having is the tankiness people have at execute. I haven’t died unless it’s getting jumped 1vX and I was trying to finish the job. It seems a lot of players will focus on defense, get 100% and not even bother to chase me. Which, I guess to be fair, is what I would do to gankers, because there never was a point in chasing them. It’s fun landing a cambo and seeing someone drop in 3 seconds or less, but it feels like most people have incredible tankiness in execute range (heals, block, back bar dmg reduction, vamp 3, etc.) it’s kind of disheartening. Almost feel like I’m still getting the same kills:death ratio as my current Mara’s/rally Templar

fred4

Well, I'm a melee magblade, but don't have ganking damage. In the same boat there. As regards armor, 6 light armor for ultimate cloak sustain, but better a mixture with medium due to the physical squishiness of light. I've been running 3L 3M 1H lately. I'm going to ditch the heavy piece though, since patch notes mentioned something about possible stealth detection in heavy.

Leading with a heavy attack is or certainly has been effective in the past. Dual-wield for the fastest ones. Try it from crouch, if you can, e.g. possibly cloak and crouch. If you hit an enemy from crouch, from out of combat, from behind, there used to be a feature where the heavy attack does insane damage. Patch notes a while back mentioned that this is now limited to PvE, however I am not convinced that it always is. It may still randomly work on players, though I haven't noticed this lately.

On the other hand there is a reason not to lead with a heavy. If you do that, you give yourself away earlier. If your opponent uses Miat's PvP Alerts addon on PC, they will get a sound warning and that will possibly happen a bit earlier with a heavy than if you opened up with Incap, e.g. they become more likely to block or dodge roll your Incap and therefore fail to be stunned. You also give away the guaranted crit to the heavy attack, if you lead with that. Furthemore Incap has a 400ms delay, like all ultimates. If you can make the Incap stick and it's a stun, the next attack (Concealed) is guaranteed, since it's only 600ms later and the target cannot break free yet. I'm not sure you can fit in a light attack between Incap and Concealed, though. It's all swings and roundabouts.

Amerises

Couple more questions. I really appreciate the help! I’m definitely get a good feel for what I can and can’t do as a ganker, and it’s at least different, which is fun.

I like the 2h passive more than the faster heavy with DW to open, plus I find Rally easier for M. Sorcery than other options. So I’m wondering would nirn greatsword (500 dmg bonus plus other bonuses making it around 700 total) or Sharpened maul (about 6500 pen) be better? Currently running a sharpened 2h axe, and have about 20,000 pen (no balorgh, breach, or CP bonuses) after it’s all said in done with the axe. Totally buffed SD is a little over 6k with and just under 50% crit.

Also, with 50% crit and opening with a heavy, using Concealed weapon, should I worry much about crit dmg? I have Channeled Acceleration, shadow, CP, and divines, along with axe, but maybe that’s a lot of wasted energy since my only guaranteed crit is with a heavy?

fred4

Many people quote their buffed stats, since those are relevant to assessing burst I guess, but unfortunately I have no feel for those. I tend to judge builds on unbuffed stats. I'd sure like to know how you manage to get 20K pen without Balorgh / Breach and an axe, and 6K SD, and 50% crit. The pen value doesn't seem right to me, the other stuff, sure. I guess that's the Divines Shadow mundus and ... ? Heartland Conqueror? Do you have any sustain left?

A Nirn Sword will give you a slightly better Rally heal, but won't do anything for your damage. A Sharpened Maul is the traditional go to weapon for brawler classes, but you claim to already have 20K pen without it, so I'd say forget that. 50% crit is pretty darn decent for PvP too, so I'd say stick with the axe and Accelerate. I would use Race Against Time instead of Channeled, unless possibly you were a bomber.

That said, I don't play pure gankers, so what do I know.

Amerises

The stats are buffed stats. Pen comes from 5 light, 3 Shell Splitter FB (use to use Rage, but takes forever to farm vs Shell Splitter now), Stuhn’s, Master Assassin for 3k, and 3k from sharpened. Crit comes from 5 light, Pressure Points, Hemorrhage, base, minor and major savagery (minor proc’d from crit on from stealth). And unbuffed SD is 4.4k iirc off the top of my head. Markyn for 300 SD FB. Backbar is Darloc Brae with gold jewels for perma cloak (found gold ring for 60k Xbox NA) and last weekend it was neck on Golden Trader. Vamp 3, Dunmer. I included off balance Stuhn’s proc in the pen because Heavy -> Concealed is guaranteed. Axe plus shadow plus minor force, 2 medium, and back stabbed CP for 50% crit damage iirc.

So it’s hard to know if more Pen or SD would be helpful or if 50 crit dmg is best. If I crit from concealed and 2 from Incap or Bow Proc or an execute from blade, it’s pretty decent, but that’s 3 of 4 hits, and obviously with about 50% crit, that’s not always the most common. On Vamps, pariah, shield + Major and Minor protection, without that many crits, finishing the person off without them healing can be tough. The squishies are usually already easy enough to burst down though, although it seems like my Templar could have killed them, too, which makes me think it’s more of a player issue and not skill/build on those kills.

Edit for grammar.

Amerises

P.S. I’m finding fewer and fewer people in Rallying, which I find strange, especially because that’s such a major offensive and defensive tool on my Templar, I have no idea what I’d even replace that with. I’d probably replace Mara’s next patch (if I play my Templar) with all the extra healing, than Rallying Cry.

Amerises

fred4 wrote: »

…I'd sure like to know how you manage to get 20K pen without Balorgh / Breach and an axe, and 6K SD, and 50% crit.

I normally wouldn’t post a full build, but since I’ve been given so much help here, and I couldn’t figure out how to PM in this forum…

fred4

Amerises wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

…I'd sure like to know how you manage to get 20K pen without Balorgh / Breach and an axe, and 6K SD, and 50% crit.

I normally wouldn’t post a full build, but since I’ve been given so much help here, and I couldn’t figure out how to PM in this forum…

Thanks!

Amerises

Switched to maul and lover and I’m liking it more so far, however this weekend might be more telling … I found Ambush in Cyro better than bow because bow proc only lasts so long, however I feel like BGs and IC would be good for bow proc

fred4

This is probably really where it's at for ganking:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/631929/true-sworn-and-titanborn-broken-not-working-as-intended

Rogue_WolfESO

Amerises wrote: »

Alright, I made my Templar into a PvE spec. It’s just don’t fun being a super tank beam-plar. BG’s have decent kills and few deaths, but next to zero assists because basically my kills are all beam… My second favorite class is NB. I moved all my PvE gear from my NB to the plar, and now I’m ready to try a blade for PvP.

Is gankblade the best spec? It seems in Cyro and BGs it’s mostly DKs and Wardens. As a Templar, blades posed next to no threat. 30k resists, Rally and Mara, and tons of hots, meant after an initial burst they usually end up running and they don’t even bother with a second attack.

Every build website or YouTube video is totally different. I often don’t trust YouTube videos since I could make my beamplar look OP with clips, but that doesn’t make it so.

Honestly doing a mag/range magblade PvE spec with whirl and pillar and kilt is fun and hits hard enough, but I die super fast since I’m dmg spec without even defensive skills, lol.

What’s a good starting place? Race? Mag/stam? Gear? CP? Skills? Vamp? Etc.

Check out Dr. Ganknstien's YouTube, he's got some great videos and shows his builds, imo he's one of the best nb players.

Amerises

Yeah, for some reason the bow-gank doesn’t feel as fun, although it seems better for sure. I’m liking what I’ve come up with, which is a combination of all of this information. I’m also finding out which skills I’m actually using and which I’m not, which helps with an dusting my bars. I was using Ghastly Eyeball but I felt a little too squishy, and now running Bear Haunch, which seems to be the sweet spot.

This is my first time being a vamp, and 4 hours just seems too short, I realized about an hour into stage 2 that I needed to feed again. So that’s taking getting use to. What makes melee gank tough is people on horses. So frustrating that it difficult to knock people off. Doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve played other games where damage de-mounts people. So this is taking getting use to as well.

aurelius_fx

at work right now so i can't say for certain which sets i was using on my bow gankblade, i am rather confident that it's very near if not the highest possible damage you can get without having to go into trial sets or health minigames (and it's still not enough to kill many players, especially without proper timing), nightblade might not be the highest damaging ganker, even less on bow but it gives you a tad more freedom on positioning, not to mention cloak...

vateshran bow, swamp raider and night mothers gaze, i THINK. if you're curious i can double check it + skills i was using
either way, go all full damage, glyphs, sets, everything, if you need sustain chug tri pots and use the nb sustain skill, you're not meant to sustain fights for too long if you're going full gank. was using food for mag sustain and max stam.

Amerises

Yeah, let me know your skill layout. I’ve struggled thinking about Night Mothers. The idea of taking a 5pc for major breach just seems rough. I don’t understand the enormous animation when you mark target on someone from stealth, so that doesn’t make sense using it, plus Mara’s wiping it… I dunno, maybe I should try it before I bash the set, since so many are using it

aurelius_fx

with flex options: poison injection for dot/better mag sustain - acid spray/bombard for aoe pull against other nbs (shouldn't be an issue if you got detect pots) - vigor instead of the vampire skill if you wanna risk a bg or two and not feel totally useless

vate bow front bar, (can combo with incap for massive up close damage) vate sword back bar (to use with rally and get a tiny bit more damage, idk what else to use)

i also didn't believe or understood why NMG** was good, but you see, the thing about penetration in general is that it's always the fastest and easiest way to get bigger numbers, UP until you reach someones armor cap. it's just an easy set to get that gives you a lot for your buck, a better alternative would be Titanborn but then you gotta deal with HP minigames + i'm not sure if it works at all with bows (?)

problem is, you never know what the cap is and if you overpen you're losing potential damage, you also gotta take in account that variation can be even higher if you're targetting unbuffed players - it's a bit of a betting game but it's safe to be in the 20k~ pen range or so (including major breach, passives, etc)

ganking is fun if you can time it right and be patient, but remember to keep realistic expectations (especially in current patch lol)

edit: a set that i was looking into but never got the chance to try was poisonous serpent. it's the same proc as way of fire but in a medium armor set so it naturally deals more damage but it's from some trial, might be a little bit better than swamp raider

Amerises

Do you like the execute? I was considering switching from Killers Blade to the range morph, but it doesn’t even out perform my spammable until about 18% and with heals and armor, sometimes a crit from killers blade is was does the trick, and that out performs spammable at about 32% (again, I haven’t tried range yet).

How do you use shimmering frenzy? That skill really confused me. Can you back bar it? Will it eventually kill you? 400 WD is a lot unbuffed, but what are the downsides?

Amerises

I’m sitting at just under 30k pen. You think that’s too much? I know on with Mara’s and Rallying, my other characters sit at around 28k buffed without being on shield backbar. With the shield I’m at 30k. Aren’t most people basically at that now?

aurelius_fx

Amerises wrote: »

Do you like the execute? I was considering switching from Killers Blade to the range morph, but it doesn’t even out perform my spammable until about 18% and with heals and armor, sometimes a crit from killers blade is was does the trick, and that out performs spammable at about 32% (again, I haven’t tried range yet).

How do you use shimmering frenzy? That skill really confused me. Can you back bar it? Will it eventually kill you? 400 WD is a lot unbuffed, but what are the downsides?

I am using the ranged morph (Impale), yeah. Poison injection is more comfortable to use, both on execute range and with the little dot (that can sometimes be the difference..)

Ok, so, shimmering frenzy. You pretty much have to get used to the noise/visual cue to not forget it, that comes with time. You need to activate it a couple seconds before your ambush, but you may not always have the opportunity to get to the full stacks. It starts draining your health.

You then go to the front bar, do your rotation (preferably at full stacks if you can) and then go back to your back bar, DEACTIVATE it (it automatically deactivates if you run out of health, but you don't want to be that low...) and then cast rally or drink a potion to heal back up. You should be able to somewhat sustain it for a bit in stealth using rally as long as you stand still and is able to recover your stamina but the health cost ramps up.

It adds a lot but it's only used for quick ganks, giving you a considerable edge. You might mess up and die sometimes because of it because it multiplies how much of a glass cannon you are. Be very mindful of AOEs (i.e warden/dk skills that surround them), pulls, etc.

Amerises wrote: »

I’m sitting at just under 30k pen. You think that’s too much? I know on with Mara’s and Rallying, my other characters sit at around 28k buffed without being on shield backbar. With the shield I’m at 30k. Aren’t most people basically at that now?

30k pen -might- be too much. Mara's issue isn't high armor - it's constant healing. If you can nuke them in a second it shouldn't matter that much. Rallying's issue isn't high armor - it's high crit resistance that nullifies a large chunk of your damage. Hit them while they're unbuffed, prioritize more crit damage. 30k pen might too much when you consider that unbuffed people in horses or just walking around tend to hang at 20~15k or even less armor. It's a bit pointless to prioritize your ganks on the armored, buffed, 40k armor 30K hp DK that's active and healing because you'd probably need an onslaught/vamp spammable build for that anyway. They're just gonna turn around, leap on you and walk away.

Amerises

Yeah, that makes sense. Not sure why I didn’t think of that. I’m not ganking a dk or plar who are standing around maintaining their buffs, I’m attacking people who are on a horse, in the back of a Zerg, on treb, fighting guards on a flag, or just generally not keeping buffs up. While lining up, I can see if Rallying is proc’ing or not even. It’s pretty rare I even get a gank on anyone with Stars (General and up) because they know how to avoid the gank.

I felt like I was doing more dmg with sharpened maul vs sharpened axe, but that’s probably because my ambush or heavy is what’s taking the guaranteed crit, which isn’t gaining as much with the 12% crit dmg. Not to mention after playing about a week, I’m also getting more experience and know when hold’em and when to fold’em.

Caribou77

It's either the best or worst time to try out NB Ganker, depending on your perspective.

The class is arguably more overpowered than DK right now, though it takes a little more skill and patience to do well on it. The bar isn't high though; being effective on DK is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you enjoy competition, I wouldn't recommend DK or NB a the moment.

Amerises

Caribou77 wrote: »

It's either the best or worst time to try out NB Ganker, depending on your perspective.

The class is arguably more overpowered than DK right now, though it takes a little more skill and patience to do well on it. The bar isn't high though; being effective on DK is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you enjoy competition, I wouldn't recommend DK or NB a the moment.

Yeah, I’m finding there’s a large handful of targets that are dead before they really react, and then there’s vets who know there’s no way I can kill ‘em. Survivability is high. Weakness honestly tends to be other blades, I find the ones who out gank me pop camo hunter or detect pot and get me even when I’m perma-cloaked.

nublife01

[quote="fred4;c-7848037"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgRmoWuvAy0[/quote]

this build proves why youtube is bad and will waste your gold.... the whole purpose of ice staff is for major breach. there is 0 reason to run night mothers if you are using an ice staff. watch the guys "1vx" its obvious no idea what hes talking about. hes also duo'ing or hiding during most of his clips and never fights any good players. very suspect like the rest of youtube. "run night mothers so you can sacrifice all of your kill damage to free up a spot on your bar for a useless spell that wont really help you anyways".. genius.

i have played this game since beta. took a year off came back and wasted a good mil or two on youtube before i figured out what you really want to run:

you want to run trainee chest, rallying cry, markyn ring, either balorgh or roksa (depending on if you want to heavy attack weave or not, and one of the following: war maidens (lower skill curve), back ally gourmands (havent tested yet but heard good things also low skill curve) clever alchemist(higher skill curve but will give you the most kiling damage), or mara's if you want to do laughable damage and directly compete with the bruiser losers(pariah works too with the debuf removal on healing yourself at sub 25% health cp blue tree passive). there are other sets that work but not nearly as well imo. rallying cry back bar the other sets front bar. i suggest just starting with war maidens then transitioning to clever alchemist when you understand the play style better. 600 weapon damage to spectral bow and your spammable is big damage.

you want to run 2 heavy, 1 medium, rest light. if the chest is heavy make it reinforced rest wellfitted or impen as you see fit. run dual wield axes front bar with nirn and shapened, ice staff back bar defending (back bar rallying cry).

skills: concealed blade, power extraction, killers blade, merciless resolve, inner or radiant light (fighters guild decloak is too expensive imo), and incap. back bar defending ice staff with shaowy disguise/race against time (depending on if you want cloak or to hard brawl), elemental susceptibility (and why night mothers is a laughable mistake), resolving vigor, refreshing path, healthy offering, and temporal guard. you can sneak in mass hysteria in there somewhere but not really

kajiht, warrior or shadow mundus depending on if you feel like you need more healing (warrior) or can risk it for the big crits (shadow). in terms of the cp tree honestly you should play around with it and adjust it as you see fit. there isnt a direct right answer.

edit: also you want prismatic defense on every peace of gear.

and in terms of play style its pretty simple and works every time you are not fighting the player you are fighting rallying cry and maras. you want to keep up vigor at all times and feign weak pressure. most bruisers will believe you are a trashblade given they are out pressuring you and will let their vigor fall off. if you get them to about 50-75% hp (usually around 60% is good) without sacificing too much of your hp pool you want to burst them. the way you want to burst them is to preemptively have them set off balance with a flanking concealed blade strike and your power extraction major brutality buff up, then you want to hit them with a not fully charged incap strike (the other morph is better for a skilled player who can manage resources effectively imo) into a medium swing (this will knock the off balance target to the ground) spectral bow animation cancel then spam killers blade until dead. also remember your spectral bow from merciless resolve will heal you greatly.

never burst with fully charged incap strike against any bruiser because this game is old and if you telegraph your damage on a nightblade you will never kill your target and they will instantly pop all their broken tank meta garbage right after you use it. this is the skill cap for nightblade in pvp. you have to hide your damage burst.

and run immovable potions for dks or you will die to how stupidly broken they are.