I recommend this:

-Take whatever points you have in Magicka and redistribute them to HP.

-Put Bombard (Arrow Spray) on your bow bar. It's movement-locking debuff can be applied indefinitely to trash mobs, so you can kite the additional mobs in a boss fight while wiping them out with a great balance of speed and safety. It's the absolute most useful ability in the game for playing solo.

-Pair Bombard with Leeching Strikes (Siphoning Strikes). Both versions of the ability will return substantial amounts of Stamina and Magicka on every basic attack. If you pair Bombard with one of them, you can hold off mobs literally indefinitely by spamming 2~3 light attacks between Bombard casts.

-Definitely replace Mass Hysteria with Shadow Image (Summon Shade). Mass Hysteria is great for PvP where the AoE "stun" fends off multiple people, but it is not worth it at all against a boss, especially when Shadow Image is available as an alternative. Shadow Image will apply the same "Minor Maim" debuff as Mass Hysteria against a single target, but for a much longer duration. It also provides at least some DPS, and it even has a function to teleport you to the phantom you leave behind, which you can use to kite and dodge for days while conserving your precious stamina.

-Replace Lethal Arrow with Focused Aim. Lethal Arrow does more damage on its own than Focused Aim, without question, but the armor debuff on Focused Aim will increase the damage of your rotations by much more. Also, the burst damage will help put strong mobs within execution thresholds much more quickly, meaning you can use Killer's Blade faster for that instant heal.

-Replace Venom Arrow with Poison Injection. Venom Arrow's ability to interrupt spellcasts is very valuable, no doubt about it. But that functionality is put to better use in PvP, just like Mass Hysteria. The execution damage of Poison Injection is very strong, and starts proccing when the target is at <50% HP, making it really useful against bosses.

-With Bombard available for easy AoE, Whirling Blades is unnecessary. I'd replace it with Power Extraction (Drain Power), as it is the best way for a Dual Wielder to get the "Major Brutality" buff, which increases your Weapon Power by 20% for 20 whole seconds.

-Don't use the same ultimate on both bars. It's an almost complete waste of opportunity. Put something on your melee bar like Soul Harvest (Death Stroke). Thanks to its effect of granting extra ultimate on every kill, it can be used very frequently, and it will help you cast Soul Tether much more often as well.

-Dark Cloak is not as good as Shadowy Disguise in general until you get to PvP. The extra damage you can put into a rotation with the automatic crit is well worth not being able to get rid of a DoT most of the time.

Your setup may look something like this:

- Bow - Bombard/Power Extraction, Reaper's Mark, Focused Aim, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, Soul Tether
- Dual - Shadow Image, Ambush, Shadowy Disguise, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade, Soul Harvest

And your opening rotation against an enemy you want to chunk in a matter of moments would look something like this:
* "la" means to do a light attack immediately after the listed ability is cast

(sneaking) > Reaper's Mark > (swap bars) > Shadow Image > (swap bars) > Focused Aim la > Poison Injection la > (swap bars) > Ambush > Shadowy Disguise > Soul Harvest la > Shadowy Disguise > Surprise Attack la > Surprise Attack la > Shadow Image (recast) > (swap bars) > Leeching Strikes > (kite around with bow attacks until resources come back up)

Parts of that rotation are great for engaging fewer but stronger mobs. I use it myself and it works like a charm.

Important Tactics:

- Using a bow and kiting a boss around while you regenerate from using a melee burst is usually much more beneficial to your health than spending the whole fight in melee range.

- Keep one or two trash mobs alive with low HP. If you need a quick heal, then use Reaper's Mark on a mob and proceed to one-shot it with Killer's Blade to heal a whopping 80% of your HP.

Balisan wrote: »

I recommend this:

-Take whatever points you have in Magicka and redistribute them to HP.

-Put Bombard (Arrow Spray) on your bow bar. It's movement-locking debuff can be applied indefinitely to trash mobs, so you can kite the additional mobs in a boss fight while wiping them out with a great balance of speed and safety. It's the absolute most useful ability in the game for playing solo.

-Pair Bombard with Leeching Strikes (Siphoning Strikes). Both versions of the ability will return substantial amounts of Stamina and Magicka on every basic attack. If you pair Bombard with one of them, you can hold off mobs literally indefinitely by spamming 2~3 light attacks between Bombard casts.

-Definitely replace Mass Hysteria with Shadow Image (Summon Shade). Mass Hysteria is great for PvP where the AoE "stun" fends off multiple people, but it is not worth it at all against a boss, especially when Shadow Image is available as an alternative. Shadow Image will apply the same "Minor Maim" debuff as Mass Hysteria against a single target, but for a much longer duration. It also provides at least some DPS, and it even has a function to teleport you to the phantom you leave behind, which you can use to kite and dodge for days while conserving your precious stamina.

-Replace Lethal Arrow with Focused Aim. Lethal Arrow does more damage on its own than Focused Aim, without question, but the armor debuff on Focused Aim will increase the damage of your rotations by much more. Also, the burst damage will help put strong mobs within execution thresholds much more quickly, meaning you can use Killer's Blade faster for that instant heal.

-Replace Venom Arrow with Poison Injection. Venom Arrow's ability to interrupt spellcasts is very valuable, no doubt about it. But that functionality is put to better use in PvP, just like Mass Hysteria. The execution damage of Poison Injection is very strong, and starts proccing when the target is at <50% HP, making it really useful against bosses.

-With Bombard available for easy AoE, Whirling Blades is unnecessary. I'd replace it with Power Extraction (Drain Power), as it is the best way for a Dual Wielder to get the "Major Brutality" buff, which increases your Weapon Power by 20% for 20 whole seconds.

-Don't use the same ultimate on both bars. It's an almost complete waste of opportunity. Put something on your melee bar like Soul Harvest (Death Stroke). Thanks to its effect of granting extra ultimate on every kill, it can be used very frequently, and it will help you cast Soul Tether much more often as well.

-Dark Cloak is not as good as Shadowy Disguise in general until you get to PvP. The extra damage you can put into a rotation with the automatic crit is well worth not being able to get rid of a DoT most of the time.

Your setup may look something like this:

- Bow - Bombard/Power Extraction, Reaper's Mark, Focused Aim, Poison Injection, Leeching Strikes, Soul Tether
- Dual - Shadow Image, Ambush, Shadowy Disguise, Surprise Attack, Killer's Blade, Soul Harvest

And your opening rotation against an enemy you want to chunk in a matter of moments would look something like this:
* "la" means to do a light attack immediately after the listed ability is cast

(sneaking) > Reaper's Mark > (swap bars) > Shadow Image > (swap bars) > Focused Aim la > Poison Injection la > (swap bars) > Ambush > Shadowy Disguise > Soul Harvest la > Shadowy Disguise > Surprise Attack la > Surprise Attack la > Shadow Image (recast) > (swap bars) > Leeching Strikes > (kite around with bow attacks until resources come back up)

Parts of that rotation are great for engaging fewer but stronger mobs. I use it myself and it works like a charm.

Important Tactics:

- Using a bow and kiting a boss around while you regenerate from using a melee burst is usually much more beneficial to your health than spending the whole fight in melee range.

- Keep one or two trash mobs alive with low HP. If you need a quick heal, then use Reaper's Mark on a mob and proceed to one-shot it with Killer's Blade to heal a whopping 80% of your HP.

Wow. Amazing suggestions. Thanks for taking all the time this must have taken. I still have a lot to learn in this game about skills and tactics. I am not quick-handed so tend to be lazy when it comes to swapping bars but, with practice, this seems doable by a old dude like me.

One good point made by others is about 2H being better for PvP versus D/W. I feel I need to build up my 2H just so I can get Rally and some of the other skills there. Are you still D/W in PvP?

acw37162 wrote: »

There are lots of tools you have to use to increase your survive ability.

I totally understand. And I'm here to learn and do whatever I can to improve it.

I'm quickly figuring out that this is a complex game with a lot of contrasting opinions. It doesn't help that a lot of skill info I'm finding is outdated.

But if building an invincible stam NB was easy, everyone would have one.

The combo you have is very strong, you are missing some critical elements of sustain that I am not going to rehash, the above advice is solid.

I would recommend slotting flawless dawnbreaker on your bow bar, you won't be using it as an ultimate in PvE that often, but that passive 8% weapon damage is critical for sustained damage on the bow.

yodased wrote: »

The combo you have is very strong, you are missing some critical elements of sustain that I am not going to rehash, the above advice is solid.

I would recommend slotting flawless dawnbreaker on your bow bar, you won't be using it as an ultimate in PvE that often, but that passive 8% weapon damage is critical for sustained damage on the bow.

Flawless Dawnbreaker hasn't opened for me yet but hoping to make that happen soon.

I've already adjusted a few things which has been a tremendous help. I'm still not as strong as I'd like to be against bosses but I was getting spanked hard before implementing some of the advice in this thread.

All nb's are decently squishy, if you don't eat food! You can get 2-5k more health and stamina that way.

Oh and also if you unlock vigor in the assault skill line from pvp it is the best heal for stamina nightblades.