I run 2h on my stamina nightblade, works great (and I'll never use any other primary weapon on him unless something big changes with 2h). Currently I'm running dual wield on my second bar for AoE, and I have bow skilled up as well with a bow I can swap onto the second bar when I need the range or am doing pvp.

2h bar typically looks like this:
Wrecking Blow
Ambush
Executioner
Expert Hunter / Immovable / Shuffle / Dark Cloak / Bone Shield / Vigor
Rally
Flawless Dawnbreaker

That fourth slot I use as my swap out depending on what I'm doing, usually it's a buff that I dont have to pay too much attention to. Expert hunter is great for the extra 10% crit chance you get passive, and helps when fighting daedra/undead. For defensive options, I use either shuffle (20% dodge and removes snares), immovable (extra armor/spell resist and grants control immunity), dark cloak (more for pvp dot removal with all the firepots around), bone shield (as a damage shield, since nightblades dont get one, this ability is awesome btw), or vigor as a self heal on top of rally.

Bow bar:
Focused aim
Magnum Shot
Venom Arrow
Reaper's Mark
Grim Focus
Flawless Dawnbreaker

Self explanatory here. I would highly recommend you try out focused aim over lethal arrow, I've found that it does significantly more damage in combination with reaper's mark. Focused aim also benefits from the mighty passive in the champion system (which boosts physical damage) - and being focused on weapons means you probably wont put too many points into the poison damage passive there.

DW Bar:
Power Extraction
Refreshing Path
Steel Tornado
Expert Hunter / Shuffle
Deadly Cloak
Veil of Blades

Refreshing path can be opted out for a variety of other skills, I like the path because it adds a little extra damage, boosts my move speed, and heals me and the party. Power extraction is used until enemies are below 50% health, then it's steel tornado spam. Keep up deadly cloak for the passive aoe damage. I swap between hunter and shuffle in the fourth slot depending on if I need more survivability or more damage.


Looking at your abilities, I would probably recommend dropping swallow soul, as it doesnt contribute much when using a stamina focused build. Silver shards isnt very useful outside of fighting undead/daedra either, and costs too much for the damage it puts out.

I currently run 6 medium / 1 heavy, mostly for looks and to level up the heavy armor line on the side, but with undaunted passives 5 medium / 1 light / 1 heavy will be ideal.

OMG this is so much fun! 2H is definitely a blast with a stamina build. I just got Momentum and haven't morphed it to Rally yet but even so it's amazing. I one-shot quite a few monsters now. Thanks for the pointers. Die you scummy monsters, DIE!

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Glad you're enjoying it

I keep hopping back and forth between dual wield and 1h/shield as my nightblade's secondary (primary always being 2h), for the life of me I cant decide if I want a tankier weapon type or more aoe damage.

I like to keep 1h and shield for over world questing as it helps with quest bosses and world bosses, I also run as a tank in dungeon groups though. If I was going pure dps I'd keep it 2h/DW for single target/aoe in dungeons.

There is no penalty for using a 1h/s while just running around questing, you're generally not trying to maximize dps there and the extra survivability helps a lot.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Thing is it really doesnt provide much extra survivability over what I get out of my 2hander, and at the cost of a lot of damage =P

The main thing leaning me towards the 1h/shield is that I'm putting most of my warrior champion points in the steed constellation (as it boosts medium armor) which has a lot of passives geared towards boosting shield and blocking effectiveness.

You're thinking about heavy armor which has a 5 piece bonus that reduces block cost. Medium armor increases speed and reduces dodge roll cost.

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Aerathnor wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Thing is it really doesnt provide much extra survivability over what I get out of my 2hander, and at the cost of a lot of damage =P

The main thing leaning me towards the 1h/shield is that I'm putting most of my warrior champion points in the steed constellation (as it boosts medium armor) which has a lot of passives geared towards boosting shield and blocking effectiveness.

You're thinking about heavy armor which has a 5 piece bonus that reduces block cost. Medium armor increases speed and reduces dodge roll cost.

Talking about the champion point system. The steed constellation has the following passives:

Medium armor focus: Increases your armor by X% when 5 or more medium armor is equipped.
Resistant: Reduces the amount of damage you take from critical hits by X%
Spell Shield: Increases spell resistance by X%
Block Expertise: Reduces the cost of blocking by X%

Invigorating Bash: Gives you a 20% chance to restore X health when you bash an enemy
Phase: After roll dodging, your armor and spell resistance are increased by X for 3 seconds.
Shield Expert: Increases the armor and spell resistance of equipped shields by 75%
Reinforced: When activating block gain a damage shield for X every 10 seconds.

http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Steed

Gotcha, I never really thought to go into CP for a medium armor block/bash build, but even then only one of the bonuses requires a shield, though it is a nice bonus.

Yeah, you do lose a lot of damage by going 1h/S so I'd avoid it for pure dps. I keep it around even when running medium armor for questing as I'm primarily using my 2H and if I swap it's to turtle up while rally ticks off or to let veil of blades take down some enemies.

GreenSoup2HoT wrote: »

2 hand is op that's why.

No, it's not, and you're not helping by spreading misinformation.